Climate Security, Energy Transition And Green Defence As A Strategic Priority In Euro-Atlantic Security

Climate security and energy transition have moved from being treated as primarily environmental and economic agendas to being framed, by Euro-Atlantic institutions, as strategic variables that affect deterrence, defence readiness, resilience, and the capacity to sustain operations under stress. In the Euro-Atlantic space, the formal political anchor is the recognition of climate change as a “threat multiplier” affecting collective security, explicitly stated at summit level and tied to the Alliance’s core responsibility to protect territory and populations. The consolidation of this priority is best understood as the convergence of three structural dynamics. The first is the physical-operational dimension: more frequent and more intense extreme weather events and long-term climatic trends create direct operational effects on bases, infrastructure, mobility corridors, training conditions, and the reliability of critical services that support force projection.

NATO’s climate security impact work explicitly treats these effects as cross-domain and relevant to missions, installations, and resilience commitments, rather than a peripheral sustainability topic. The second dynamic is geopolitical-energetic. The post-2022 European security environment has underlined the strategic consequences of energy coercion, energy price shocks, and sabotage risks against along-the-route infrastructure, in a context where armed forces and defence industries remain structurally dependent on large and stable energy inputs. In the strategic framing adopted by NATO [3] , energy is not merely a cost variable; it is a prerequisite for deterrence and operational sustainability, which explains why secure and resilient energy supply chains are increasingly discussed in proximity to resilience and defence planning.

The third dynamic is industrial and technological. Climate adaptation and energy transition measures in the defence sector increasingly intersect with the same industrial bottlenecks, supply-chain constraints, and technology competition that have become central to European rearmament and industrial readiness.