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Climate Security
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Climate Security
Follow a field, explore its subjects, then travel their connections.
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Global Challenges
Climate Security
Climate security examines how climate impacts peace and stability, often framing climate shifts as amplifiers of existing societal risks. This framework considers the direct and indirect threats climate patterns pose to human well-being, ecosystems, economies, infrastructure, and societies. It highlights how climate change can exacerbate tensions or create new ones, affecting military operations and potentially catalysing conflict, though the causality remains debated. Consequently, diverse actors are developing practices to mitigate these effects, spanning development, diplomacy, and defence.
Sources: Chapter 7: Health, Wellbeing and the Changing Structure of Communities · Climate, Peace and Security Toolbox · Environment security · Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict
What this subject explores
- Climate pressures interact with political and social conditions; they do not mechanically produce war.
- Trace a proposed pathway through livelihoods, resources, institutions and responses rather than assuming a direct climate-to-conflict link.
- Conflict can itself weaken adaptation capacity and essential services.
- Assessments need local knowledge, inclusion and attention to who gains or loses from an intervention.
- Peacebuilding and adaptation can reinforce each other when their effects on people and institutions are examined.
Sources & further reading
Put your curiosity to work
Careers in Climate Security
Illustrative areas of work and useful skills, not job listings or forecasts. Emerging describes developing work themes, not guaranteed new occupations.
Roles today
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Climate and conflict analyst
Assess context-specific pathways connecting environmental stress and political conditions.
Skills to build
- Qualitative research
- Climate literacy
- Causal reasoning
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Peacebuilding programme officer
Help design and evaluate locally grounded cooperation and conflict prevention.
Skills to build
- Facilitation
- Programme design
- Evaluation
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Adaptation policy analyst
Review how adaptation choices distribute benefits and burdens.
Skills to build
- Policy analysis
- Climate literacy
- Stakeholder engagement
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Humanitarian risk analyst
Bring climate information and conflict context into preparedness assessments.
Skills to build
- Data interpretation
- Scenario analysis
- Clear writing
Emerging roles
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Conflict-sensitive adaptation specialist
Test whether adaptation projects could worsen exclusion or disputes.
Skills to build
- Conflict analysis
- Participation
- Project review
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Climate-peace data researcher
Combine different datasets while examining gaps and misleading proxies.
Skills to build
- Statistics
- Data ethics
- Research design
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Environmental mediation adviser
Support dialogue over shared resources and adaptation choices.
Skills to build
- Negotiation
- Institutional analysis
- Listening
Where subjects meet
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Water cooperation researcher
Study how shared water arrangements can support cooperation under stress.
Skills to build
- Hydrology literacy
- Governance
- Field research
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Climate Migration And Habitability ↗
Climate mobility policy analyst
Distinguish voluntary movement, forced displacement and barriers to mobility.
Skills to build
- Geography
- Policy analysis
- Ethics
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Political-economy researcher
Examine how power and resource access shape responses to climate shocks.
Skills to build
- Political economy
- Case comparison
- Evidence appraisal
Find your direction
Compare the choices that shape this path. There is no score or single right answer.
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Which side of a climate-security claim would you test first?
Useful analysis connects both without treating either as a complete explanation.
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How would you like to contribute?
Research and practice can inform one another.
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Which working style appeals to you?
Breadth and contextual knowledge both have limits; make them explicit.
Where to study Climate Security
Institutions and programmes to explore. Check each institution’s current programme and entry requirements before applying.
Uppsala University
SwedenMaster’s Programme in Peace and Conflict Studies
Develop rigorous foundations in peace and conflict research.
University of Reading
United KingdomMSc Environment, Climate Change and Development
Connect environment and climate questions with development.
University of Oxford
United KingdomMSc in Global Governance and Diplomacy
Explore international institutions and diplomacy relevant to shared risks.
Watch
- Climate Change and National Security | Josh Busby | TEDxSouth Congress ↗Hear a researcher connect climate pressures with security institutions.University of Texas at Austin
- Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation & Vulnerability — Full video ↗Build the climate-impact background needed to assess security claims.IPCC
Read
- Climate, Peace and Security Toolbox ↗Use a practical framework for contextual assessment.United Nations
- Chapter 7: Health, Wellbeing and the Changing Structure of Communities ↗Read the assessment of climate, wellbeing and conflict with its confidence language.IPCC
- Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict ↗Examine an expert assessment of evidence and uncertainty.Katharine J. Mach and colleagues
- Environment security ↗Explore environmental cooperation and peacebuilding in practice.UNEP
Voices to follow
- Halvard Buhaug ↗Studies the security dimensions of climate change.Climate and conflict researcher
- Katharine Mach ↗Led a 2019 expert assessment of climate as a risk factor for armed conflict.Environmental science and policy researcher
- Joshua Busby ↗Investigates how institutions condition the security effects of climate pressures.Public-affairs researcher
Glossary
- Climate securityThe interaction of climate pressures with peace, safety and security conditions.
- Human securityAn approach concerned with people’s safety and conditions for living, not only state defence.
- Conflict sensitivityUnderstanding a context and how an intervention may affect divisions within it.
- AdaptationAdjustment to actual or expected climate conditions and their effects.
- PeacebuildingWork to reduce conflict risks and strengthen conditions for sustained peace.
- Causal pathwayA proposed sequence linking a cause to an outcome through intermediate mechanisms.
- InstitutionRules and organisations shaping collective decisions and behaviour.
- LivelihoodThe means and capabilities through which people sustain a living.
- MaladaptationAdaptation-related action that increases vulnerability or other adverse consequences.
- Compound riskRisk shaped by interacting pressures or events rather than one isolated cause.
Threads 4
Where this connects to other fields, and why it's worth knowing.
- Climate Change Science
Climate science describes changing physical pressures. Climate-security analysis examines how those pressures interact with livelihoods, institutions and conflict conditions without assuming a direct route to violence.
Sources: Chapter 7: Health, Wellbeing and the Changing Structure of Communities ↗ · Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict ↗
- Political Economy Political Science
Climate shocks can affect livelihoods and resources, but power and institutions shape who bears losses and whose response is supported. Political economy helps explain these unequal pathways.
Sources: States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security ↗ · Climate, Peace and Security Toolbox ↗
- Freshwater Systems Environment
Water stress can create difficult allocation choices. Climate-security analysis adds institutions and cooperation to the hydrological picture instead of treating scarcity as an automatic cause of conflict.
Sources: Environment security ↗ · Climate, Peace and Security Toolbox ↗
- Climate Migration and Habitability Geography
Mobility can be a response to changing livelihoods and habitability. Climate-security analysis must examine the particular political context rather than label all climate-related movement a threat.
Sources: Chapter 7: Health, Wellbeing and the Changing Structure of Communities ↗