Major risk assessment links climate change with Germany’s national security

“Anyone thinking about security needs to think about climate change as well – and vice versa. Climate change already directly affects Germany, threatening health, lives, prosperity, infrastructure and the economy, and changing the security environment. Anyone grappling with this, needs a basis for informed decision-making, which the National Interdisciplinary Climate Risk Assessment provides for Germany,” says PIK scientist Fanny Thornton, Lead of the GeoClimRisk Project and co-author of the assessment.

The National Interdisciplinary Climate Risk Assessment highlights that the security risks of climate change are integral to a number of ongoing processes and transformations. Amongst them are the energy transition, the rising costs and burdens of climate change, a changing international order, growing global conflict, technological advances and emerging extremism. Strategic foresight concerning these issues involves imagining plausible future scenarios based on quantitive data and insights from the social sciences. Working at this interface, the National Interdisciplinary Climate Risk Assessment charts a path for thinking ahead.

The National Interdisciplinary Climate Risk Assessment is based on joint research between the Metis Institute for Strategy and Foresight at the University of the Bundeswehr, Adelphi, the GeoClimRisk Project based at PIK and the Bundesnachrichtendienst (Federal Intelligence Service). PIK’s contribution relate in particular to the report’s content on geophysical change and their impacts, as well as contributions on climate-linked migration and conflict.