The Triple Nexus: What Climate Change, Gender and Security Mean for NATO

By Apollina “Polly” Kyle and Lt Col Katherine Prudhoe

Climate change has continued to be one of the most important political and societal challenges of our time. Disagreements on the national, multinational, and international level have left many states with the inability to properly address and effectively plan for the consequences climate change can bring to economic, societal, and political issues. Senior leadership in international organisations such as the United Nations and NATO have begun to raise awareness on the impact climate change will have on future planning. 

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has stated that “the global threat of climate change is poised to exacerbate the already increasing number of complex emergencies, which disproportionately affect women and girls”.[i] A UN Women report on Gender, Climate and Security stressed that “understanding the gender dimensions of climate-related security risks is not only a key to avoiding exacerbating vulnerabilities; but also uncovers new entry points for advancing gender equality, improving climate resilience and sustaining peace”.[ii] At the 2022 Allied Command Transformation Strategic Foresight Conference, climate change was described as the “substrate for future decision-making” a foundational consideration of all other threats.[iii] As NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted, “we now take account of climate change when planning our operations and missions … this way we make sure to remain effective in increasingly harsh environments”.[iv] NATO experts have emphasised that the most important drivers of future trends will be climate change. As women and men are impacted differently by climate crises due to existing gender norms, climate, gender, and security are inextricably linked. The nexus between the three topics of climate, gender, and security is an area that requires particular consideration for international organisations. Research has tended to focus on climate change and gender,[v] gender and security,[vi] or climate change and security[vii] but rarely the nexus between all three interrelated topics.

Historically, national security has been taken to mean the “protection from organized violence caused by armed foreigners”; however, states may only focus on military threats and ignore other threats such as that of climate change or climate stress. While in academia the link between environmental issues and security was developed in the 1980s, for NATO it started as early as 1969 with the NATO Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society to address the problems affecting the environment of the nations and the quality of life of their people.[viii] More recently, the link between climate and security has been understood more broadly under the population-centric approach of human security, which focuses on the protection of material well-being and nonmaterial interests and highlights the security of individuals and communities from threats to lives, livelihoods, and dignity. For NATO, this means understanding that activities, training, and operations need to consider that the security of the population is key to broader state security. Currently, there are two main efforts to tackle the intersection of security and climate change. The first is the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS), which is a group of senior military leaders, security experts, and security institutions across the globe dedicated to anticipating, analysing, and addressing the security risks of a changing climate that was founded in 2019.[ix] The second is the NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence (CCSCOE), which will be a platform through which both military actors and civilians will develop, enhance, and share knowledge on climate change security impacts.[x] However, while the IMCCS delivers “World Climate and Security Reports”, its past two reports did not consider the gender perspective further than one sentence identifying the disproportionate effects of climate change on already marginalised communities.[xi] Additionally, the NATO CCCOE is still being developed, which allows for a crucial opportunity to ensure the integration of gender perspective into climate change and security implications. Climate change is rarely a stand-alone factor driving military planning or the conduct of military missions, yet it can aggravate or amplify existing conflict drivers and conflict vulnerabilities and therefore should be given due consideration during military assessment, planning, and execution. This paper aims to highlight why considering the gender perspective and climate should be interlinked in the context of security and collective defence. The first section highlights the key threat drivers and second-order effects of climate change on men, women, boys, and girls, while the second part outlines practical security considerations and options.

Climate Change as a Threat Multiplier

Human trafficking, sexual exploitation, loss of livelihoods, and malnutrition are some of the vulnerabilities exacerbated by climate change. However, these vulnerabilities can also serve as indicators of conflict drivers. For example, human trafficking can be an indicator of illegal weapons proliferation fuelling a black economy. Loss of livelihoods in agriculture can be an indicator of increasing radicalisation and recruitment into terror groups and organised criminal networks. It is important to understand both vulnerabilities and drivers for an accurate root cause analysis of conflict and to enhance this understanding through a gender-based analysis across all stages of Alliance operations, missions, and activities.

Human Trafficking: Vulnerability to trafficking for sexual exploitation or forced labour increases by 20–30% following a natural disaster.[xii] After Typhoon Haiyan, known in the Philippines as one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded, survivors found no alternatives other than working as prostitutes or bonded labourers. In Bangladesh, women who were widowed following Cyclone Sidr were targeted by traffickers. In India following the annual flooding of Assam, women and girls are often forced into child slavery or forced marriages to make ends meet. One theory for this connection is that climate disasters exacerbate inequalities by creating reduced resilience and “increase the desperation of already marginalised groups, thereby rendering them more vulnerable to enslavement.”[xiii] UNICEF confirms that climate change increases the risk of girls being pushed onto unsafe migration or displacement pathways that can expose them to the risk of modern slavery:

Girls are at increased risk of violence and exploitation, including sexual and physical abuse, and trafficking during and after extreme weather events. These risks are heightened when collecting food, water and firewood or when staying in temporary shelters or refugee camps. In addition, when a family is faced with economic hardship caused by climate change, studies suggest that the risk of child marriage can increase.[xiv]

According to NATO’s policy on 2004 Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, NATO-led forces are to support (within their competence and mandate) the efforts of the host nation to combat trafficking in human beings. However, military planners need to be aware of the significant increase of the impact that climate change can bring to this cross-cutting topic to apply these factors to future operational plans. As climate change forces human traffickers to establish new routes, NATO military planners must consider the deviation of standard practices in order to identify the new pathways for trafficking. NATO must ensure that allied forces are streamlining education and training for the command structure through pre-deployment training so that all soldiers will have the critical ability to identify human trafficking.

Migration: Women and girls are disproportionately affected by climate migration. There are already an estimated 21.5 million climate migrants each year[xv] with predictions of up to 700 million in total by 2050.[xvi] Due to their social role as caregivers, women and girls tend to migrate locally – a situation that may provide temporary relief but not a long-term solution. Men and boys tend to migrate further to secure work for the family’s survival and are therefore more resilient to localised climate crises. Future NATO climate impact assessments should consider gender when assessing risks facing displaced and migrant populations in order to better inform Defence and related Security Capacity Building (DCB) as well as disaster response and humanitarian operations planning.

Loss of Livelihoods: Agriculture is the most important employment sector for women in low and lower-middle income countries. Drought will impact women farmers as well as girls, who may have to leave school to help their mothers manage the increased burden. The dwindling resources, lack of alternative livelihoods, and lack of social protection can push women to situations to pursue riskier strategies of survival such as migration, employment with organised criminal networks, or sexual exploitation.[xvii] Although they are not the primary responder to upstream conflict prevention, NATO planners need to understand that civilians have agency, or the ability to identify goals or make choices and then act upon them, and may decide to take a more dangerous course of action to preserve their livelihood. With this in mind, those involved in security force assistance should comprehend the reasons for population movement, regional vulnerabilities, and likely indicators and warnings of deteriorating security situations. They should consider the implications of loss of livelihood with the gender perspective as this understanding can improve the Alliance’s effectiveness in conflict and post-conflict scenarios.

State Fragility, Radicalisation and Recruitment: Regions most vulnerable to climate stress tend to suffer from poverty, weak governance, and terrorist activity. In Mali, terrorist groups exploit tensions between herders and farmers for recruitment practices, or in Syria and Iraq, Da’esh has exploited water shortages to push populations towards radicalisation.[xviii] Alongside a demographic explosion and scarce resources, climate change is creating a fertile breeding ground for non-state actors, including terrorists, who are recruiting and training thousands of young people.[xix] For NATO, terrorism is the “most direct asymmetric threat to the security of its citizens and to international peace and prosperity through exploitation of conflict and weak governance.”[xx] The 2022 NATO Strategic Concept[xxi] outlined that conflict, fragility, and instability particularly in the Sahel region directly affect the security of NATO and partners. In the Sahel, climate change predictions have indicated that increasing temperatures and more frequent weather extremes are to impact this region harder than any other part of the world.[xxii] Even though the Sahel has been at the focus of many counterterrorism and stabilisation efforts from the United States and Europe, violent conflicts involving jihadi insurgencies and inter-communal violence have steadily increased over the past decade.

With more than 135 million inhabitants in the Sahel alone, various social, economic, and ideological issues bring suffering to thousands of women and girls and may cause an increase in the number of factors that lead to radicalisation at the hand of climate stress. At its core, several terror organisations are rooted in misogyny, making the future unclear for the increasing number of women recruited into them. To better prepare for the increase of recruitment that climate change can cause, NATO must consider a gender-based analysis for terror organisations. It is often assumed that women who join terror organisations are influenced by emotional or personal factors alone or have joined through force or manipulation, or are tricked into membership.[xxiii] Framing women as passive actors instead of active agents of violence creates a complex situation that drastically increases the security threat. Gendered assumptions about women in violence mean they can be overlooked as a security threat for NATO, which terror organisations are aware of. Some terror organisations are able to recruit women by offering the sense of agency they lack in their everyday lives. However, for men, climate-induced poverty increases recruitment of men to armed groups as they run out of employment options. Climate migration and recruitment into foreign, armed groups enabled new modus operandi to spread between regional conflict zones and further destabilised neighbouring countries, for example, with armed radical groups operating between the Sahel region and North Africa.[xxiv] Radicalisation and recruitment to terrorist organisations is deeply gendered. As terrorism is likely to rise with the increase of climate stress, it is important for NATO to recognise that women are not just passive actors but active agents in terror groups. Men and women both need to be considered further in Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) or Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) initiatives that NATO partakes in, particularly when operating in climate-affected regions.

Resilience: NATO has developed its “Seven Baseline Requirements of Resilience”[xxv] and NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC), the Alliance’s principal civil emergency response mechanism in the Euro-Atlantic area, is active all year round and operational on a 24/7 basis. Following the devastating February earthquakes in Türkiye, more than twenty NATO allies and partners deployed 1,400 emergency response personnel in less than 24 hours.[xxvi] Evidence supports the notion that climate change and the steady rise in global temperatures will continue to impact the number, frequency, and duration of natural hazards,[xxvii] which NATO needs to consider for resilience planning. When disasters strike, women are less likely to survive and more likely to be injured due to long-standing gender equality in mobility, decision-making, and access to resources and information.[xxviii] Due to their roles as care-givers, discrimination in the labour market and specific cultural restrictions mean that women face particular challenges when recovering from disasters.[xxix] After successive natural disasters, economically poor women are likely to lose the minimal buffer they have and face increased indebtedness, inequality, and economic poverty.[xxx] Migration after a natural disaster increases the workload of those who stay behind, especially women who must assume both agricultural and domestic workloads. Understanding societal resilience through a gendered lens improves risk perception and helps target disaster response. Therefore, when building resilience through civil preparedness, capacity building, and disaster response, NATO should take into account the gender perspective in order to ensure the needs of both men and women within the civilian population are taken into account. The principle of resilience is anchored in Article 3, which states that the responsibilities lie with the member states to protect themselves and build national resilience. Developing individual national resilience enables greater societal resilience, allowing NATO to draw on all elements of society for a more effective crisis response and management.[xxxi] As natural disasters tend to exacerbate gender disparities, NATO must integrate the gender perspective when sending support through channels such as the EADRC to support the civilian population.

Implications for NATO

In addition to the general recommendations highlighted above, the military implications of the triple nexus need to be considered in further detail.

1. The nexus of climate, gender, and security needs to be understood in all Centres of Excellence, for example, regarding the impact on terrorism in the Centre of Excellence Defence Against Terrorism (COEDAT) or on resilience in the Crisis Management and Disaster Response Centre of Excellence (CMDRCOE). The Finnish Defence Forces International Centre (FINCENT) and the Nordic Centre for Gender in Military Operations (NCGM) should also consider the impact of climate change on the protection of civilians and gender in military operations, respectively. Once established, the Canadian-hosted Climate Change and Security Centre for Excellence (CCSCOE) can act as a capacity multiplier dedicating further time, research, and resources to the triple nexus.

2.  The NATO Climate Change and Security Action Plan is an ambitious agenda to adopt measures to adapt and mitigate the impacts of climate change, highlighting the need to support research on climate change and security, "including the gender perspectives in the context of NATO's Women, Peace and Security policy".[xxxii] With this in mind, NATO's future iterations of the Climate Change and Security Impact Assessment should broaden its focus on security to include risks from climate stress with the gender perspective. This will realign the focus towards a prevention and resilience-based approach to account for the impacts of climate change on civilians and political stability. A gendered analysis of climate change could prove to be a fundamental game changer for mitigating the potential impact on root causes and conflict drivers in the future.

3. Sex and Age Disaggregated Data (SADD) should be considered in climate research by all NATO entities working on the topic to ensure the impact on men, women, boys, and girls are considered in scientific climate modelling and analysis.

4. Intelligence Indicators and Warnings (I&W) on climate security should consider the gender perspective. For example, SADD could monitor refugee flows from a climate disaster and provide invaluable intelligence for disaster response and aid requirements.

5. The military implications of the climate, gender, and security nexus should also be considered in NATO’s partnerships in climate-related Security Force Assistance and CIMIC planning, upstream conflict prevention, and Defence Capacity Building.

6. Considering the relevance of any cross-cutting themes in a hierarchical organisation requires careful planning and a degree of “innovation from within”. The Gender Advisor (GENAD), J5 or operation planning branch, and J9 or civil and military cooperation branch should all have an awareness of the “climate, gender, and security nexus” and work together to identify touchpoints for input into the military planning process.

Conclusion

NATO faces a complex threat environment with the increase of non-state armed groups, peer-to-peer threats, and hybrid tactics, aggravated by state fragility, health emergencies, and food insecurity. According to the 2022 NATO Climate Change Impact Assessment, the scope, scale, and intensity of climate change effects are also projected to increase. However, the climate, gender, and security nexus should not be viewed purely as a moral obligation or humanitarian requirement. It is a military imperative that will improve operational effectiveness, “add value” to military planning and the conduct of operations, and is relevant whenever military planning touches the human environment. Conflict is brutal. Crisis management in the aftermath of a natural disaster is equally traumatic. Both scenarios are costly. A military solution that considers climate and the gender perspective serves a dual purpose of supporting NATO’s shared values in addition to improving military operational effectiveness.

About the Authors

Apollina “Polly” Kyle specialises in gender mainstreaming policies and data analysis for international organisations such as the United Nations and NATO. Currently, she is employed at the Office of the Gender Advisor at NATO HQ as a Staff Officer focusing on gender mainstreaming and human security by advising leadership and staff on all matters surrounding the implementation of UN Resolution 1325 in military tasks and activities through policy development. A graduate of Political Sciences, she holds a degree in International Relations with a focus on gender studies from the IE School of Global and Public Affairs in Madrid, Spain, and Sciences Po in Paris, France.

Lt Col Katherine Prudhoe currently serves at NATO as the Gender Advisor (GENAD) for the International Military Staff. She has a background in Human Security and Information Operations and prior to working at NATO, was involved in training AMISOM and NATO partner nations deploying on UN missions. She joined the army after studying modern languages at St Andrews University, attracted by the scope for leadership development and international travel. She served in the Iraq war, working in media relations, and then in Bosnia, as part of its peacekeeping mission. Then, later she deployed to Türkiye as well. She has combined her Reservist military career with a civilian career running large digital change projects for private sector organisations.

Notes

[i] United Nations Security Council, Women, Peace and Security Report of the Secretary General, UN Security Council Report (New York: United Nations, 2019).

[ii] UN Women, Gender, climate and security: Sustaining inclusive peace on the frontlines of climate change, (New York: UN Women, 2019), https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/06/gender-climate-and-security.

[iii] NATO Allied Command Transformation, “Allied Command Transformation Strategic

Foresight Branch Hosts Workshop to Clarify Future Alliance Challenges,” November 23, 2022, accessed February 13, 2023, https://www.act.nato.int/articles/act-sf-branch-hosts-workshop.

[iv] NATO, “NATO Secretary General says that Climate Change matters for NATO,” last updated June 28, 2022, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_197175.htm.

[v] Canadian International Development Agency, Gender Equality and Climate Change: why consider gender equality when taking action on climate change (Gatineau: OECD, 2019).

[vi] European Institute for Gender Equality, Gender Mainstreaming Sectoral Brief: Gender and

Security (Vilnius: EIGE, 2020).

[vii] NATO, “Environment, Climate Change and Security,” last updated July 26, 2022, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_91048.htm.

[viii] NATO Archives, “Series AC/274 - Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society (CCMS),” accessed February 28, 2023, https://archives.nato.int/committee-on-challenges-of-modern-society-ccms.

[ix] International Military Council on Climate and Security, “About the IMCCS,” accessed February 28, 2023, https://imccs.org/about/.

[x] Government of Canada, “NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence,” accessed February 28, 2023, https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/nato-otan/centre-excellence.aspx?lang=eng.

[xi] International Military Council on Climate and Security, The World Climate and Security Report 2021, Published by the Center for Climate and Security, an institute of the Council on Strategic Risk, 2021, page 82.

[xii] Ritu Bharadwaj et al., Climate induced migration and modern slavery: A toolkit for policy makers (London: International Institute for Environment and Development, 2021), https://reliefweb.int/report/world/climate-induced-migration-and-modern-slavery-toolkit-policymakers.

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, Climate change exacerbates violence against women and girls (New York: UNOHCHR, 2022).

[xv] United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, “Frequently asked questions on climate change and disaster displacement,” UNCHR UK, November 6, 2016, https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/latest/2016/11/581f52dc4/frequently-asked-questions-climate-change-disaster-displacement.html.

[xvi] N. Salman, “700 million people could be displaced by 2050, say experts at DIHAD 2019,” Emirates News Agency - WAM, March 14, 2019, http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302747477.

[xvii] United Nations Security Council, Women, Peace and Security Report of the Secretary General,

UN Security Council Report (New York: United Nations, 2019).

[xviii] United Nations Security Council, “Security in the context of terrorism and climate change - Security Council, 8923rd meeting,” Thematic Debate, 2021, New York, United Nations.

[xix] Ibid.

[xx] NATO, “Brussels Summit Communique,” Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels 14 June 2021, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_185000.htm.

[xxi] NATO, “NATO 2022 Strategic Concept,” Adopted by Heads of State and Government at the NATO Summit in Madrid, 29 June 2022,

https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2022/6/pdf/290622-strategic-concept.pdf.

[xxii] Beyaz Tesfaye, “Climate Change and Conflict in the Sahel,” Council on Foreign Relations, Discussion Paper Series on Managing Global Disorder No. 11, November 2022, https://www.cfr.org/report/climate-change-and-conflict-sahel.

[xxiii] Seran De Leede, “Women, Gender and Violent Extremism: The Relevance of a Gender Sensitive Approach in Responses to Female Supporters of Da’esh,” in Gender Mainstreaming in Counter Terrorism Efforts in the Western Balkans, edited by M. Hadji-Janev and M. Jankuloska, 38–51 (Amsterdam: ISO Press Ebooks, 2021).

[xxiv] Michelle Nichols, “Mali crisis could exacerbate security challenges in Libya: U.N.,” Reuters, January 29, 2013, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mali-libya-un-idUKBRE90S0TC20130129.

[xxv] Wolf-Diether Roepke and Hasit Thankey, “Resilience: the First Line of Defence,” NATO Review, February 27, 2019, https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2019/02/27/resilience-the-first-line-of-defence/index.html.

[xxvi] NATO, “NATO Allies and partners come to Türkiye’s aid following devastating earthquakes,” last updated February 7, 2023, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_211490.htm.

[xxvii] IPCC, “Summary for Policymakers,” in Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by V. Masson-Delmotte et al., 3–31 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021), doi: 10.1017/9781009157896.001.

[xxviii] UN Women, Gender, climate and security: Sustaining inclusive peace on the frontlines of climate change (New York: UN Women, 2020), https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/06/gender-climate-and-security.

[xxix] Alvina Erman et al., Gender Dimensions of Disaster Risk and Resilience: Existing Evidence (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021), https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/35202.

[xxx] C. Nellemann, R. Verma, and L. Hislop, Women at the Frontline Gender Risks and Hopes: A Rapid Response Assessment (Norway: Birkeland Trykkeri AS, 2021).

[xxxi] NATO, “IMS Office of the Gender Advisor: Resilience and the Gender Perspective,” accessed February 28, 2023, https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2023/2/pdf/230201-ims-factsheet-resilience.pdf.

[xxxii] NATO, “NATO Climate Change and Security Action Plan,” last updated June 14, 2021, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_185174.htm.

Image: https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2022/05/19/moving-towards-security-preparing-nato-for-climate-related-migration/index.html