On Tuesday (2 November 2021), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg participated in the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference, hosted by the United Kingdom in Glasgow. At the World Leaders Summit, the Secretary General addressed the high-level roundtable “Climate, Peace and Stability: Weathering Risk Through COP and Beyond”. Mr Stoltenberg explained how climate change is now at the heart of NATO’s agenda, because: “climate change is a crisis multiplier, climate change is making our world more dangerous.”
The Secretary General described the action NATO is taking on climate change, including the first alliance-wide assessment to evaluate the impact of climate change on infrastructure, operations, and the security environment: “Windier, wetter and wilder weather matters for everything our armed forces do. So this will impact our exercises, our capabilities and we are integrating this into our military planning and our capability development. So climate change matters for NATO because it matters for our security, and NATO is now addressing these challenges.” Mr Stoltenberg also explained how NATO Allies are working to reduce their militaries’ dependence on fossil fuels by investing in sustainable solutions, including biofuels and solar energy.
While at COP26, the Secretary General met with several international leaders, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark, President Sauli Niinistö of Finland, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway, President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine.