Climate change has emerged as a critical ‘threat multiplier’ that intersects with other risks and conflict drivers and jeopardises global security. Growing international attention highlights the compounded security risks, including loss of livelihoods, competition for resources, forced migration and displacement, civil unrest, and violent conflicts, fueled by the interplay of climate change with other underlying socioeconomic distress and environmental risks. 

An independent report commissioned by the G7 members in 2015 indicates that climate change aggravates existing risks and thus contributes to the fragility of states and societies. Similarly, NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept recognizes climate change as a threat multiplier that “exacerbates conflict, fragility, and geopolitical competition”, making it one of the 14 major strategic concerns highlighted in the Strategic Concept. 

As climate change accelerates and natural disasters become more prevalent, climate-related security risks have never been more conspicuous. This article series explains the concept of climate change as a threat multiplier to global security, examines international case studies of climate-related instability, and explores strategic recommendations for promoting peace and security by strengthening climate resilience. 

Somalia’s current calamity of drought is a vivid example of a climate-related security crisis. Struggling with the worst drought in four decades, the East African nation faces a catastrophic famine that has displaced more than 1 million people and left nearly 6 million people, or 40% of its population, at risk of starvation. Failing harvests, dying livestock, and soaring food prices have suffocated the impoverished country’s main source of income, worsening the economic distress for the 69% of its population that live below the international poverty line. 

Aside from the direct impacts of loss of livelihoods, involuntary displacement and starvation, the climate-induced famine has far-reaching repercussions on security as the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab exploits the growing food crisis. The lack of access to food and water makes al-Shabaab membership a source of income for youngsters out of economic options, boosting the violent extremist group’s recruitment and expansion. Meanwhile, militants distribute aid resources and take credit for the supplies, strengthening the terrorist group’s control over and support among the Somalis. 

To make matters worse, international aid groups aiming to access unreachable areas controlled by the group have often been faced with multiple hazards: the imminent threat of being kidnapped or killed, and the moral dilemma of paying off a terrorist organisation or leaving people die of starvation. Extreme climate patterns have thus created a hotbed that feeds the terrorist power and cripples the global anti-terrorist and humanitarian effort in the nation, making conflict and violent insurgencies more likely to occur. 

Through the drought of Somalia, it is manifest that climate change has become a threat multiplier to global security, especially to countries and communities that are vulnerable to socioeconomic shocks. As climate impacts disproportionately affect economically marginalised populations, strengthening resilience to climate risks, including developing adaptation measures and mitigating climate-related injustice, becomes an indispensable part of an integrated security risk management and peacebuilding strategy.