BRUSSELS — Global warming represents an existential threat to the European Union, according to a landmark German government report.
Germany’s federal intelligence service (BND) teamed up with researchers and the country’s foreign office to draw up a first-of-its-kind assessment of the dangers climate change poses to German and European security over the next 15 years.
The report, published Wednesday, shows that climate change’s destabilizing effects will drive up migration and food prices, threatening economic and political upheaval in Europe. The authors also warn that the unequal impact of rising temperatures in the EU — with southern countries hit worse than others — risks tearing the bloc apart.
“Southern EU member states, in particular, will not only experience severe economic losses due to climate effects, but will also feel the consequences of political instability in their geographical vicinity,” the report reads.
“Tensions resulting from unequally distributed burdens might weaken cohesion within the EU as well as both its ability to act and its future viability,” it adds.
The so-called National Interdisciplinary Climate Risk Assessment — drawn up by the BND, the Bundeswehr University Munich, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and think tank adelphi — has a wide scope, tackling climate change’s effects on food security, migration, economic prosperity, global conflict, trade tensions, extremism, military mobility and more.
“This publication spells it out: Anyone thinking about security needs to think about climate as well,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock writes in the report’s foreword. “Every tenth of a degree less in global warming makes our lives safer.”
BND chief Bruno Kahl described climate change as “one of the five major threats our country is facing,” listing the others as Russian aggression, China’s geopolitical ambitions, cyber threats and international terrorism.
Disasters and defense
The most straightforward threat to European security comes from increasing disasters and extreme heat at home. As global temperatures increase, so do the frequency, severity and intensity of flood-triggering extreme rainfall, deadly heat waves, harvest-destroying droughts and the conditions that allow wildfires to spread easily.
This will remain the case for the coming decades even if the world makes deep cuts to planet-warming emissions.
The authors also note that once global warming passes 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, there’s a growing risk of reaching so-called tipping points leading to irreversible and abrupt changes — such as the collapse of Atlantic Ocean currents that would cool down Europe significantly.
For now, current policies have the world on track for 2.7 degrees Celsius of warming, and emissions are still rising.
Climate disasters not only represent a growing threat to European lives, but also come with a hefty price tag for reconstruction and economic losses.
That will “lower the potential for investments in national and European resilience and security,” the report notes.
Drought, for example, is already hitting farmers hard, while forcing power plant shutdowns when cooling water becomes scarce. But low river levels in Europe have also restricted transport, with “repercussions for economically and militarily relevant supply chains,” the authors warn.
And speaking of the military — “personnel, infrastructure and equipment will be exposed to more extreme climate conditions in the future,” the report notes. “Ships, aircraft and combat vehicles that are planned and built today will be operating in the climate conditions of 2040.”
The report also warns that green policies will cause tensions, noting that carbon pricing — the backbone of EU climate efforts — disproportionately affects poorer households.
“In Germany and Europe, the cost of decarbonisation and its (perceived) unfair distribution … provide space for populism, right-wing and left-wing extremism, and disinformation campaigns,” the authors warn, calling on European governments to ensure climate efforts are “socially responsible.”
Cascading risks
Despite the risks to European unity, the continent is better equipped to deal with the consequences than poorer countries elsewhere. But the impact elsewhere will have ripple effects for European security.
Crop failures and droughts, as well as other harvest-wrecking disasters, will cause more people to go hungry around the world, exacerbating conflict and displacement, while also driving up food prices in Europe. Growing water scarcity, too, has the potential to cause conflict within and between countries, the report says.
Conflicts threaten global supply chains and increase calls for European aid, putting more strain on public purses and the economy, which “may cause tensions at domestic political level” within the EU, the authors write.
And inevitably, climate change will also drive people from their homes, as extreme heat and humidity push people to seek more temperate climates.
“These include Germany and other parts of the European Union,” the report notes.
The consequences of climate change “are aggravating conflicts over ever scarcer resources which are destabilising states and societies and forcing countless people to leave their homes. They are also having an ever greater impact on us in Europe,” Baerbock said.
“That makes this crisis the biggest security challenge of our time.”