Climate Change as a Threat to Global Peace and Security
Cover image by Valerie Tea
Note on author: Serene is a university student passionate about climate change and current affairs. Outside of writing, she enjoys swimming and playing the piano.
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What is Climate Security?
The concept of climate security emerged from a broader shift in how security was understood after the Cold War. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s 1994 Human Development Report was a pioneer in recognising how climate change endangered international peace, especially in vulnerable regions. In 2007, the CNA Corporation report “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” characterised climate change as a “threat multiplier”, intensifying marginalization and political instability. The result is a vicious cycle: climate pressures deepen instability, and instability limits climate mitigation and adaptation. Today, with climate-related issues becoming increasingly severe, the climate-security nexus is impossible to ignore.
Resource Scarcity
Climate change intensifies competition over resources essential for human survival, including food, water, arable land and energy. Global warming and shifting weather patterns affect agricultural productivity by altering the distribution and intensity of precipitation. High latitudes are projected to observe more intense rainfall and flooding; while subtropical and midlatitude areas like the Mediterranean will face less rainfall and more severe droughts. Prolonged dry spells reduce surface water, leaving less available for irrigation; downpours precipitate flash floods and decrease soil quality. Collectively, these disruptions decrease crop yields and degrade soil fertility. Importantly, uneven effects on food production intensify existing socioeconomic inequalities. Farmers in low-income countries (LICs) are particularly defenseless as they rely heavily on seasonal rain and lack access to climate-resilient technologies.
Growing resource scarcity subsequently intensifies competition between states. Transboundary water systems are especially sensitive. At the Mekong River, dam construction by upstream countries like Laos has led to diplomatic strain with downstream nations facing reduced water quality and fishing inputs. Such disputes suggest that while climate-related resource constraints do not directly trigger conflict, it interacts with poor governance systems, pre-existing political frictions and socioeconomic inequality to increase instability.
Additionally, climate change adversely affects livestock production. Rising temperatures and more frequent or intense heatwaves can induce heat stress reducing reproductive health, growth rates and milk production. Competition over fertile land and energy resources can similarly intersect with existing social tensions. There is intense war in the Abyei region between Sudan and South Sudan as it contains grazing land and rich oil reserves.
Nevertheless, although natural resources can act as points of contention, they can provide opportunities for collaboration. World Bank research indicates that natural-resource management either reinforces fragility or provides a channel for peacebuilding, depending on the governments’ inclusivity and conflict avoidance.
Food Insecurity and Political Instability
Declining food availability reduces the efficiency of traditional farming methods and incurs higher supply chain and production costs, such as irrigation, transport and fertilizers. By 2060, extreme heat in supplier regions like Malaysia and Indonesia will reduce global palm oil supplies by 4.9% to 5.3%. Price pressures ripple through regional food markets, leaving consumers to face import contractions up to 5.1%.
Crucially, food inflation imposes an disproportionate burden on import-dependent, fragile LICs like Yemen. Rising prices erode household purchasing power. For poorer households who allocate a larger share of income to nourishment, incomes have not risen together with food prices. Consequently, households divert expenditure away from essential goods and services with long-term payoffs, especially healthcare and education. Meanwhile, diet diversity decreases, increasing malnutrition rates.
Additionally, unprecedented weather events amplifies agricultural losses. In December 2022, agriculture and agro-food sectors in Malaysia experienced damage up to RM111.95 million due to monsoons. Currency strength fluctuations and impaired critical trade routes compound these effects by raising import costs.
At a macroeconomic level, governments face a perfect storm of dwindling finances and pressure to ensure sustainable food security. Historically, international price hikes heighten political instability, deteriorate democracies and increase anti-government sentiment. For instance, during the 2007-2008 food price crisis, riots occurred in Haiti and Egypt. More broadly, climate stress, combined with political and social factors, have triggered crises in Anatolia, Rwanda and more.
Climate-Induced Displacement and Migration
Climate-induced extreme weather events, poverty and geopolitical conflict converge to increase vulnerability for populations in countries ill-prepared to deal with climate change, encouraging climate migration. By definition, this describes a permanent or temporary change of location of people due to global warming. Human mobility may result from sudden-onset catastrophes like hurricanes, leading to displacement, or slow-onset processes such as desertification or sea-level rise, driving longer-term migration. In contrast, planned relocation describes a situation where entire communities move, supported by governmental or other agencies. It generally occurs within rather than across borders: in 2025, around 17% of internal displacements (IDPs) were due to disasters.
Climate refugees remain susceptible because refugee frameworks do not recognise environmental change as a basis for refugee status or asylum. Displaced individuals face underdiagnosed mental health problems, like anxiety, depression and a sense of powerlessness from loss of livelihoods, habitations and social networks. Rural-urban migration festers discrimination from host communities, erecting barriers to accessing mental health support, housing and employment.
Cross-border migration increases with climate disasters, especially in LICs and Emerging Market Economies (EMEs). In LICs, a one standard-deviation increase in disaster frequency was associated with a 0.5% increase in outward migration over five years. The loss of labor and productive assets weakens economic resilience in affected communities, increasing exposure to climate shocks.
Climate change has nonuniform effects on human mobility. Larger countries provide more opportunities to move internally, while populations in smaller countries might have no alternatives except crossing international borders. The type of disaster also matters: water-related disasters have a larger effect than heat related ones. Moreover, males generate greater displacement than women.
Importantly, climate change creates involuntary immobility due to lacking resources. “Trapped” populations remain in increasingly unsafe environments, reinforced by constraints on international migration.
Climate Justice
Increasingly, climate change is being recognised as a human rights matter. Its effects intertwine with social and racial inequality, as advocacy is spearheaded by the most affected - people of color, Indigenous groups and women. These disparities have prompted conversation on the legacy of colonialism, resource extraction, which historically sidelined and restricted access of underserved societies to political and economic resources.
Climate change disproportionately affects people in countries who historically contribute the least. Most are already struggling to overcome poverty and development constraints, such as China, India and Africa. Oxfam estimates that annually, the richest 1% create twice as much carbon pollution as the poorest 50%. (Prosperity leads to higher consumption, the principal cause of carbon emissions.) Due to dependence on climatic factors, LICs are more susceptible to climate change’s effects. This point can be illustrated by comparing the results of two severe storms in the United States and Bangladesh. Hurricane Andrew (1992) killed 23 people in the US, while a tropical storm in Bangladesh (1991) left almost 100,000 fatalities. Differences in storm characteristics must be acknowledged, but the contrast was also due to Bangladesh’s lack of adequate weather forecasting systems.
Research indicates that areas where low socioeconomic status (SES) communities reside experience higher concentrations of air pollutants. Low SES groups lack social capital to stop locally undesirably land uses (LULU), like factories and roads, from being built. LULUs decrease property values, making these areas more accessible for low SES populations, reinforcing class- and race-based segregation.
This asymmetry highlights the importance of support from industrialized states. The Paris Agreement and broader climate justice frameworks practice differentiated responsibility, acknowledging that developed nations with greater historical contributions to climate change and greater financial capacity should provide climate finance, technology transfer and capacity-building assistance. Implementation, however, remains challenging. Developing countries have repeatedly criticised the inadequacy of international climate finance. An analysis of climate finance plans from 27 developed countries revealed that only 24 explicitly allocated 50% of climate funding to adaptation, falling short of the Paris Agreement. Coupled with the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, perceived inaction has contributed to mistrust between developed and developing states, derailing efforts to establish unambiguous financial targets. The primary financing method, repayable loans, deepens sovereign debt burdens in the Global South creating “climate-debt traps”.
Climate Peacebuilding
Climate action and peacebuilding have largely diverged. Climate adaptation refers to anticipating and accommodating for the adverse effects of climate change, without a “do-no-harm” component to avoid increasing tensions. Conversely, peacebuilding aims to create the necessary conditions for sustainable peace, including reducing the risk of lapsing into hostilities, but rarely considers the implications of extreme climate events like coastal flooding or storm surges.
Integrating adaptation and peacebuilding is necessary to respond to climate change and conflict. Emerging research emphasizes that while environmental challenges are barriers to peace and resilience, they can serve as entry points for mediation, dialogue and resolution - also known as “climate peacebuilding”.
Encouraging cooperation builds dialogue and confidence between disputants. In Timor Leste, an area frequently inundated with floods and landslides, traditional peace practices like Tara Bandu (agreements on resource use) were used to establish community ownership of irrigation canals. The active inclusion of women’s and youth organisations fostered trust. This reinforces the importance of conflict-sensitive design, namely listening to grievances and ensuring fairness.
International cooperation has been shown to be effective in addressing crises. The Montreal Protocol (1987), an international treaty to phase out ozone-depleting substances like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), reduced greenhouse gas emission, due to effective enforcement mechanisms, specificity, limiting production, and trade bans. Such action also strengthens diplomatic relationships and global stability - the Montreal Protocol was the first agreement under the United Nations (UN) to achieve universal ratification.
South East Asian (SEA) Countries Action
Climate change has outsized implications on SEA states. For instance, Myanmar and Thailand are consistently ranked among the 10 states in the world most severely affected, in human and material terms, from climate-related weather events. (Low-lying SEA nations’ are susceptible to sea level rises.)
Recognising this, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has embarked on regional response plans for climate change-exacerbated national disasters. The ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) handles major disaster deployments and response cases, primarily through the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre). For example, during Cyclone Mocha (2023) in the Philippines, which was exacerbated by the super El Niño effect, the AHA Centre used the Disaster Monitoring and Response System (DMRS) system for early warning, forecasts and anticipatory action.
Member states also collaborate to address pollution-related issues, like transboundary haze. Seasonal fires from Indonesian hotspots, Kalimantan and Sumatra, associated with land-clearing, caused haze in neighbouring countries, particularly Malaysia and Singapore. Malaysia and Indonesia collaborated to execute joint cloud-seeding operations and deploy personnel for water-bombing and ground firefighting.
Nevertheless, ASEAN states have a long way to go to address climate change, specifically renewable energy. Accelerating regional power interconnectivity and facilitating electricity trade, such as through the ASEAN Power Grid (APG) or power integration projects, can improve energy security. This not only enhances the deployment of renewable energy by reducing long-term costs. Importantly, these efforts must be complemented with phasing out fossil fuel subsidies and promoting other solutions such as solar power. Moreover, decarbonisation and the energy transition should be recognised as a business opportunity. In China, the green energy market creates opportunities for exports and job creation; Malaysia is known regionally as a solar power exporter. Ultimately, strengthening capacity for coordination among ASEAN countries can be achieved through joining the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
Conclusion
In his address at the COP21 summit, former U. S. President Barack Obama declared: “We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change, and the last generation that can do something about it.” This observation remains salient to the relationship between climate change and global peace. Addressing climate change is essential not just as an environmental imperative, but also to reduce the risk of relapse into violence. When deliberating equity, climate justice must be faithfully upheld in order to foster economic and social development and close wealth gaps that would foster unrest. Ultimately, by creating societies resilient to climate change, we can accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG 13), namely to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”.
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