From Ukraine to Gaza, and closer to home in South Asia, warfare is accelerating environmental degradation, undermining climate cooperation, and diverting scarce resources away from resilience and adaptation. If the next phase of global climate governance is to succeed, climate security must move to the centre of peace and security thinking. It is time to add geo-environment, alongside geopolitics and geo-economics, recognising that planetary health is now a core security concern.
In contemporary conflicts, the environment has become silent collateral damage. The war in Ukraine offers a stark example. Over three years of fighting have released what many analysts describe as a “carbon bomb”. Estimates suggest that nearly 77 million tonnes of carbon dioxide were emitted in the first 18 months alone, with each additional month of conflict adding millions more through military operations, destroyed infrastructure and burning cities. Beyond emissions, Ukraine’s Ministry of Environment has assessed environmental damage exceeding €56 billion. Across Europe, the war has also triggered a strategic shift, with most EU nations committing to raise defence spending toward 5% of GDP by 2035, signalling long-term militarisation. Resources that could have strengthened climate resilience are thus increasingly diverted toward armament, reconstruction and security preparedness, reinforcing how conflict systematically sidelines environmental priorities.
The devastation in Gaza represents another environmental catastrophe layered upon human tragedy. Intense bombardment has destroyed water and sanitation systems, releasing untreated sewage into the soil and the Mediterranean Sea. Large areas of agricultural land have been rendered unusable, while much of Gaza’s limited green cover has been lost. In the first two months alone, emissions linked to military operations exceeded the annual carbon footprint of many climate-vulnerable states. Rebuilding destroyed homes and infrastructure will add millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide. As a UN expert aptly observed, armed conflict is an irrational way to spend an already shrinking global carbon budget.
South Asia offers a particularly troubling illustration of how climate and conflict are converging. The brief military escalation between India and Pakistan in May 2025 placed the Indus Waters Treaty under unprecedented strain, raising concerns about water being weaponised. Meanwhile, decades of military deployment in the glaciated Siachen region have contaminated ice and accelerated melting in what has long been described as the “glacier of war”. Two nuclear-armed neighbours continue to invest resources in confrontation on a melting battlefield, even as both face record heatwaves, floods and growing water scarcity.
Climate risks do not respect borders. The Himalayan-Karakoram region is shared geography and shared destiny. Kashmir remains the UN’s oldest unresolved dispute, with political, military, diplomatic and economic approaches repeatedly failing to deliver lasting peace. Perhaps viewing it through an environmental lens could offer a new entry point. In the face of climate change, the nations of the Third Pole will ultimately sink or swim together.
Conflicts can no longer be analysed in isolation from their environmental context. Geography and environment must be treated as fundamental components of security strategy, alongside political and economic considerations. Traditional geopolitics and geo-economics have shaped global decision-making for decades, but the climate crisis demands that environmental security be elevated to the highest levels of foreign and security policy.
What would a geo-environment informed security approach look like? First, it would recognise climate action as an essential pillar of national and international security, not a peripheral or “soft” issue. Second, it would require major powers to insulate climate cooperation from geopolitical rivalries, acknowledging that planetary collapse benefits no strategic camp. Third, political leaders must communicate clearly to their publics that climate resilience is national resilience. Societies respond most strongly to immediate threats; climate change must be framed with the same urgency traditionally reserved for existential dangers.
South Asia offers practical pathways for geo-environmental cooperation if political will is exercised. Transforming the Siachen region into a jointly managed “Glacier of Peace”, dedicated to scientific research and environmental monitoring, could help slow ecological damage while symbolically converting a zone of conflict into one of cooperation. Likewise, rather than competing over dams and unilateral water control, India needs to move away from hegemonic water policies and advance hydro-diplomacy, treating water as a shared lifeline rather than a zero-sum strategic tool. Given India’s upstream position, addressing water concerns of neighbouring states in a cooperative spirit would serve long-term regional stability. Drawing lessons from the Arctic Council, the creation of a Third Pole Council, focused on ecological preservation and climate risks in the Himalayan-Karakoram region, could provide an apolitical platform where environmental security is prioritised.
As the world moves into 2026 and looks toward the next phase of climate governance, we are living through a polycrisis of conflict and climate stress. Yet this convergence of dangers also presents an opportunity to reimagine security itself. A durable peace cannot be built on a burning planet. Every major conflict today is also an environmental emergency, with consequences that will outlast ceasefires and treaties.
Climate resilience and peace are two sides of the same coin. Protecting people ultimately requires protecting the planet. Moving beyond geopolitics and geo-economics toward a geo-environment paradigm is no longer idealism; it is strategic necessity. Future generations will judge our security choices not only by borders defended, but by whether we preserved a livable Earth.