The UK government is committing £331 million to international efforts aimed at reducing security risks linked to climate change, biodiversity loss and growing pressure on food
and water supplies.
The funding, announced during New York Climate Week alongside the UN General Assembly, will be channelled through the Global Environment Facility. It is intended to support projects that strengthen food and water security, protect vulnerable ecosystems and preserve forests in regions including the Amazon and Congo Basin.
The government said environmental disruption was increasingly having consequences far beyond the climate itself, potentially aggravating instability, disrupting supply chains and intensifying competition for resources.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband used meetings in New York to urge governments to treat climate change and ecological degradation as part of their national security planning. He argued that climate risks should be reflected in defence strategies, intelligence assessments and long-term military planning.
Miliband also stressed the international nature of the threat, saying that governments needed to share information and coordinate their responses. Environmental or economic shocks originating in one country, he argued, could quickly spread through global supply chains, financial markets and migration routes.
The renewed focus on climate security comes against a backdrop of heightened geopolitical tensions and volatility in global energy markets. The conflict involving Iran has contributed to higher oil and gas prices, while governments have responded in different ways, with some increasing reliance on coal and others accelerating investment in renewable energy, electric vehicles and other low-carbon technologies.
Katie White, the UK's minister for climate transition, said Britain was seeking to encourage governments to place climate-related risks more firmly within their national security frameworks ahead of the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye, which is due to begin on November 9.
She said military planners had already been examining the security implications of climate change for years, describing climate disruption as a factor capable of amplifying existing risks. Political and civilian institutions, she suggested, have been slower to incorporate the same considerations into their strategic planning.
The UK says the latest funding is part of a broader effort to connect environmental protection with resilience, economic stability and international security, as governments prepare for increasingly complex risks associated with climate and ecological change. Photo by Davide Restivo from Aarau, Switzerland, Wikimedia commons.
