June 4, 2024
Climate change has significant and complex implications for defence and security. To name a few examples, as a result of climate change, Arctic sea ice is declining resulting in a more navigable Arctic, oceans are rising, and there is an increased risk of instability in some regions due to increased competition for scarce resources. Recognizing the challenge that climate change poses, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) issued a “NATO Climate Change and Security Action Plan” in 2021 and the NATO Science and Technology Board began a Collaborative Programme of Work (CPOW) Challenge in Climate Change and Security in 2022. Through the CPOW Challenge, scientists and researchers from NATO and Allied nations shared knowledge and built a community of practice to conduct research to grapple with climate change and to ensure security.
“The problem is too big. No one can do it alone. We have to pool our resources,” says Albert Chan, a portfolio manager at Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC).
Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and the Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation, volunteered to lead the CPoW Challenge in April 2022 with the goal of community building, knowledge sharing and promoting collaboration. On behalf of Canada, DRDC played an active role in the CPoW Challenge from its genesis.
DRDC organized the first CPoW Challenge workshop on Climate Change and Security in May of 2022 to bring together scientists and researchers from across Canadian and Allied governments. Since then, there have been five more workshops, each one expanding to include more NATO personnel, as well as academia and industry, and building the attendee list from 45 to more than 300, representing 13 nations.
A Canadian Armed Forces member uses a thermal camera to record heat loss from a building at a North Warning System site in Nunavut. DRDC is working with Natural Resources Canada’s CanmetENERGY and the National Research Council of Canada to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from Arctic defence infrastructure.
The scope of work that falls in the climate change and security nexus is vast. Researchers are investigating topics to assess, adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change for NATO militaries. For example, developing green energy technologies for the North reduces the use of fossil fuel in the Arctic. Reducing dependence on fossil fuels reduces greenhouse gas emissions, saves money, and reduces the logistical burden of transporting fuel to the Arctic.
“The CPoW Challenge on Climate Change and Security brought people together to share ideas and talk to each other. The workshops were a vehicle to exchange ideas and increase nodes in the networks of experts, which further augmented conversations, research ideas and collaborations between workshops,” Chan says.
This knowledge sharing resulted in concrete collaborative research activities including three new technical teams and four exploratory teams.
The CPoW Challenge workshops were not alone in bringing researchers together on climate change and security. The new NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence (CCASCOE), which opened in Montreal in October 2023, will include two scientists from DRDC. It will allow participants to work together to build the required capabilities and best practices to reduce the climate impacts of military activities.
Researchers interested in learning more about ongoing research in climate change and security or NATO collaborations should email DRDCPartnerships-PartenariatsRDDC@forces.gc.ca.