Climate change is a 'driver' of global conflict, military analyst says

Senior Fellow For Land Warfare Ben Barry, from International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), has told Sitrep that there is "absolutely no doubt" that climate change is "acting as a driver and accelerator of conflict" globally.

Military analyst Mr Barry said: "It (climate change) reduces human security by making areas less wealthy, people who live on the margins of agriculture, making them more desperate so they become more likely to take up arms.

"We have certainly seen evidence of that applying in Somalia."

Back In March, Lieutenant General Richard Nugee, the Ministry of Defence's (MOD) lead on climate change and sustainability, published a report communicating the interest of defence in a changing climate as its people will often be placed at the centre of it.

He went on to reiterate that the Armed Forces must embrace the change and that going green will not impact capability.  

Watch: What would happen if the military doesn't go 'green'? 

In February, Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared climate change to be a grave threat to global peace and security, a point reiterated by Lt Gen Nugee.

He said: "The Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach is about embracing essential elements of this modernisation which defence cannot afford to ignore.

"The imperative could not be clearer: defence must and will act now."

Under the report by Lt Gen Nugee, a three-stage plan hopes to see defence through to 2050, by which time it plans to have helped the UK meet its net-zero carbon emissions target.

From now until 2025, the MOD will focus on existing projects, primarily estate sustainability, while also working with suppliers in search of emission-reducing solutions and the ways these can be realised through contract conditions.