Loud failures and quiet gains in the UK's 'Year of Leadership' on climate

Loud Failures

On its release on 16 March 2021, the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy boldly stated that the UK Government would make “tackling climate change and biodiversity loss its number one international priority” with “sustained international action” and support for “others in leading the advance towards our shared goals” (pp. 4, 19, 21). Its capacity to achieve this would be bolstered by its presidency of COP26 and chairing of the G7, heralding a “year of leadership in 2021” (p.14). Overall, the review set a strong tone on the degree to which climate and biodiversity ‘challenges’ impact on global insecurity and instability, whilst maintaining flexibility and room for manoeuvre on the scale and pace of response required. This vision garnered responses from strong praise to fierce criticism, and everything in between.

Over the past year, critics of the government’s vision appeared to have been validated.

The G7 summit in June 2021, hosted in Cornwall, failed to produce sufficient promises on climate finance, an agreed phase-out date for coal, or any real detail on how solutions would be operationalised. In November 2021, the UK oversaw COP26. Importantly, this was the first COP in which the Paris Agreement’s “ratchet” mechanism had come into effect, forcing countries to submit new or updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Yet, despite its promise to “keep 1.5C alive” and its consistent foregrounding of “coals, cars, cash and trees”, the UK presidency failed to raise the $100bn annual climate funding pledge promised to vulnerable countries, failed to gain agreement for a phase out of coal (with the term ‘phase down’ being used instead), and garnered NDCs that would lead to an estimated 2.6C to 2.7C warming by 2100. Furthermore, throughout its “year of leadership,” the UK’s ability to project itself as a global leader was progressively hampered by its own environmental controversies, including (amongst other things) local government approval for a coal mine in Cumbria, ongoing subsidies for fossil fuel companies and airlines, new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, scrapping the ailing green homes grant, maintaining VAT for renewable energy equipment and installations, and imposing financial cutbacks for environmental agencies and overseas aid. The perceived contradiction between its rhetoric and its own climate actions reduced its moral authority in the eyes of other nations, environmental campaigners and the wider public, hampering its ability to lobby credibly for radical global action. 

Quiet Gains

Away from headline grabbing political statements, inter-governmental agreements and controversies, however, government ministries have been quietly developing responses to the Integrated Review’s climate and biodiversity goals.

Cross-governmental and inter-sectoral coordination has been increasing. This includes new initiatives to enhance inter-departmental collaboration, such as the X-WH climate security community of interest, which brings together desk level officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the Ministry of Defence (MoD), and other relevant departments to coordinate lessons identified, good practice, and common strategies regarding the domestic and international stresses generated by climate change. Dedicated environmental advisors are also being appointed to review the climate and biodiversity risks and opportunities of different projects, including the government’s flagship cross-departmental Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF).

UK government outreach to wider partners and stakeholders also appears to be growing. In partnership with allied nations and inter-governmental working groups, FCDO officials have been engaging in sustained lobbying – both within the UN and through ‘climate diplomats’ worldwide (i.e. embassy-based officials assigned to undertake focused diplomacy on climate issues) – to enhance the level of political focus, joint policymaking, and response mechanisms available to deal with the security and stability implications of climate change. There has also been a notable flurry of outreach to non-governmental stakeholders, from the commissioning of reports and the creation of interdisciplinary working groups on the climate and security nexus, through to the launch of the UK Cabinet’s Collective Intelligence Lab (CILab), designed to crowdsource external expertise on current approaches to UK policy (including environmental issues).

One particularly significant area for development is the growing role of the MoD in climate-related issues. Historically, militaries have faced minimal political or legislative pressure to engage with climate and sustainability issues, providing the MoD with significant flexibility in applying environmental principles to operations, infrastructure, capabilities, and policies. Although binding legislative measures are unlikely to be applied across the full spectrum of defence activities in the near future, the traditional politico-military mindset of ‘environmental exceptionalism’ appears to be shifting. On 30 March 2021, the MoD took a significant step in working towards the Integrated Review’s climate ambitions by releasing the first NetZero strategy of any military force, within its Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach (CCSSA). This is a notable act, not simply because Defence is responsible for at least 50% of all UK government emissions and, thus, represents a major global polluter; but also because it faces significant risks in terms of stranded assets and operational threats resulting from climate change, as well as a raft of prospective climate-related financial, legal, and reputational risks and obligations.

The CCSSA outlines the relevance of climate change for defence, areas of existing progress, and bottlenecks for sustainability and adaptation. It also proposes a method for achieving NetZero and greater climate-resilience in three ‘epochs’, in which defence will seek to: create comprehensive sustainability baselines and enhanced sustainability collaboration with suppliers (2021-2025); reduce emissions and increase resilience through existing and emerging technologies (2026-2035); and, finally, invest in novel technologies for resilience and emissions reductions (2035-2050). There are, of course, any number of relevant and important concerns regarding this strategy, including its perceived reliance on prospective technological solutions and its non-binding nature. At the same time, the report has become a commonly referenced proof of concept for other militaries that are considering whether, how, and how far to implement government NetZero and sustainability goals. Together with Chief of Air Staff Mike Wigston’s bold (or, as some commentators have argued, wholly unfeasible) goal of achieving NetZero for the RAF by 2040, these actions have raised the MoD’s international visibility and status as a potential climate leader across the global security sector.

Alongside the release of the review, the MoD has been starting the uphill process of developing more coherent internal systems and procedures for enhancing mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. Importantly, there currently exists no official Defence Line of Development (DLOD) for climate and sustainability, limiting the degree to which military commands must consider such issues when making decisions on military capability. However, the MoD has created a dedicated Climate Change and Sustainability Directorate headed by James Clare, a civil servant with experience in the workings of MoD infrastructure and capability reform. Although still very much in its nascent stages, the directorate is already working to gain cross-governmental backing for key concepts and strategies (particularly in relation to ‘climate security’), and to help ensure that current sustainability ambition and intent within the MoD is supported by suitable methodologies and cross-departmental coordination. In their current form, such actions may not abate concerns amongst external and internal commentators regarding the degree to which the MoD can achieve significant gains at the pace and scale required. Once again, however, by creating a dedicated climate and sustainability directorate, the MoD has been able to deliver a proof of concept for various militaries, increasing the prospect that coordinated climate and sustainability initiatives could be used as a route for enhancing defence engagement and stabilisation activities worldwide.

What next…

Even with the room for manoeuvre built into the language of the Integrated Review, it is difficult to overemphasise just how much work would need to be done to achieve the climate ambitions it sets out, including: developing creative diplomacy and multilateralist efforts to solve joint climate challenges; upscaling public and private climate finance for nature-based solutions, novel technologies, and climate action across Africa, Asia and Latin America; integrating biodiversity considerations into economic decision-making; and enhancing resilience across national infrastructure, education, governance, human rights, health security and the ocean. Since COP26, the government’s ability to press for this in an effective way at the highest political levels has inherently diminished, with Alok Sharma and his team facing an uphill battle in pushing countries to act upon their NDCs before handing over the presidency of COP to Egypt in November 2022.

Internally, the UK government faces an equally daunting set of challenges. Perhaps above all, whilst advances in scholarship have provided greater insight than ever before on the potential impacts and solutions surrounding climate change, the ability to link these together through holistic, cross-governmental policies will face significant bottlenecks and hurdles. These challenges stem not only from the sheer scale, pace and non-linearity of environmental trends, but also from more general but equally intractable issues inhibiting global environmental governance, such as fluctuating political support, vested interests, lobbying and protectionism, as well as limitations and inequities in resources, funding, and access to decision makers, and a continued reliance on skewed models for economic and mitigation planning.

Despite these challenges, significant opportunities for climate gains exist over the course of the next year. In the run up to and the last few days of COP26, there was a flurry of interest on the question of limiting military emissions as part of countries’ NDCs, with pressure liable to build further for COP27. Increased focus on climate security issues is also being seen in debates and statements from the UN Security Council and NATO. In line with its ongoing intra-governmental reforms and membership of key coalitions and working groups, the UK government has the potential to lead and support discussions in these areas and, perhaps, generate more wide-reaching sustainability gains by leveraging cross-national procurement initiatives with greater purchasing power. The release of the IPCC’s Working Group II and Working Group III reports this year may help to further bolster inter-governmental goals as well as intra-governmental initiatives, particularly for government officials seeking to connect existing policy with associated concerns of climate justice, loss and damage. As the past year has shown, however, the degree to which the UK can make meaningful strides on its Integrated Review priorities may rely as much on hard work and quiet gains as it does on any number of possible black swan events that could emerge as a corollary of the very environmental crises that the government is seeking to address.

Duraid Jalili is a Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London and the founder and co-director of the King’s Environmental Security Research Group. His research focuses on environmental security and methods for driving socio-organisational change through education.