Secretary General: NATO must help to curb climate change
In a keynote speech on Monday (28 September 2020), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called for the Alliance to take further action to address the threat of climate change. Speaking to students from 10 universities across the Alliance, he said: “NATO’s core task is to keep us all safe. Climate change is making the world more unsafe. So to fulfil our main responsibility, NATO must help to curb climate change.”
The Secretary General told the audience during the online event: “Some may ask if NATO, a military alliance, should be concerned with climate change. My answer is that yes, we should, and for three reasons. Because climate change makes the world more dangerous, because it makes it harder for our military forces to keep our people safe, and because we all have a responsibility to do more to combat climate change.”
NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept states that climate change is a driver of our security environment and in 2014 it adopted the Green Defence framework which looks at reducing the environmental footprint of military operations. NATO also sets an example with its environmentally friendly headquarters in Brussels, which uses geothermal power for heat and rainwater collection for building maintenance.
The speech by Mr. Stoltenberg is part of the NATO 2030 reflection process to help shape how the Alliance responds to future challenges.
Read the full speech here.