The climate crisis is the greatest security threat of our day and age. Prolonged droughts, severe flooding, dangerous storms and devastating crop failures already cause damage running into the billions each year and claim thousands of lives.

If such extreme climate events follow one after another worldwide and so-called ‘once-in-a-century’ disasters strike here year after year, it can only mean one thing: the climate crisis is real. It destabilises societies, exacerbates conflicts over land, water and food, creates new flashpoints and increases migration – including to Europe. It also threatens people’s property in Germany and has already claimed lives here.

Anyone who neglects climate action endangers people’s livelihoods, their prosperity, our internal security in Germany and Europe, and ultimately puts global security at risk. In short: climate action is a hard security issue and a matter of geopolitics. The National Interdisciplinary Climate Risk Assessment compiled jointly by experts on climate, security, defence, foreign policy and intelligence services, makes this abundantly clear. And it also shows that, as a society, we cannot afford to expose ourselves to such climate security risks.

Every tenth of a degree of warming that we prevent makes our country, Europe and the world safer. For that reason, and for our own resilience, we must reduce emissions now. Because anyone who allows our economy to remain dependent on fossil fuels is not only short-sighted, but also willingly accepts dependence on fossil-fuel-producing regimes and states.

Anyone thinking about security needs to think about climate as well. This is a central component of our National Security Strategy, and it will also be integral to discussions at the Munich Security Conference this weekend.

The statutory mandate of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is to identify and analyse developments in foreign and security policy. In this regard, climate change is an increasingly important factor that further exacerbates existing challenges facing societies worldwide. If we are to form a realistic understanding of security risks to the Federal Republic of Germany, we must take into account the diverse and far-reaching impacts of climate change and also consider global climate policy.

The BND regards the consequences of climate change – such as destabilisation and migration – together with an aggressively expansionist Russia, China’s geopolitical ambitions, increasing cyber threats, and the persistent challenge of international terrorism, as one of the five major external threats to our country.

As highlighted in this assessment, there are both direct and indirect interdependencies among these five risks. The effects of climate change place increasing pressure on states, at times even reaching geopolitical dimensions. For us as an intelligence service, this means that we will continue to contribute to the nexus of climate and security.