Atlantic Voices, Volume 5, Issue 12 – December 2015
It is difficult today to refute that climate change is in progress. When the effects used to be restricted to the already resource scarce and isolated regions of the world, the entire planet is now being affected by global warming one way or another as more extreme whether conditions have erupted, threatening infrastructures, human lives and state security.
Climate degradation poses a threat for the reason that it is hard to control and cannot be reversed. It can, however, be slowed down by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. The Paris Agreement reached at the end of COP21 which took place in Paris at the end of 2015, aimed at just that: set limits so that we do not further jeopardize our planet.
Although not perceived as a direct security threat, global warming triggers phenomena which do. Migrations and conflicts are now more prone to arise due to resource scarcity.
This issue explores how NATO has been indirectly affected by climate change, notably through natural disasters within its borders and migration, and what measures the Alliance has put in place as a reaction. The geopolitical implications of the melting of the ice cap will also be addressed.
- Climate Change and NATO: Integration and Adaptation
Ms. Candice Geinoz analyzes how climate change is perceived by NATO, how the phenomenon has indirectly impacted the security of the Alliance, and which measures have been put in place by the organization to protect itself from the effects of climate degradation.
- What Happens to the Arctic Does Not Stay in the Arctic…And Vice Versa
Mr. Andrea Bogi focuses on how the economic prospects liberated by the melting of the ice cap and cooperation in the High North have been affected by the deterioration of NATO-Russia relations.