Check against delivery!

Mr President, Honourable Members of the European Parliament,

I deliver this statement on behalf of the High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell.

I would like to thank Rapporteur [Thomas] Waitz and all MEPs [Members of the European Parliament] who have contributed to this timely report.

In a poll taken by Eurobarometer in January 2022, EU citizens ranked climate change and environmental issues first among the main global threats. It would be more accurate therefore to say, as your Report rightly does, that climate change acts as a threat multiplier. It exacerbates socio-economic instability in fragile countries leading to increased insecurity. This is also what the Strategic Compass clearly highlights upfront.

Global energy transitions will also change the geopolitical landscape, and the war in Ukraine is a catalyst in this regard. It provides an additional strategic urgency to invest more in green energy and reduce our external dependencies on oil and gas imports. This applies also to the defence sector, and we do have to pay close attention – as your Report underlines – to security of supply and manage the dependencies on critical raw materials.

As your report also rightfully emphasises, our aim is to incentivise Member States to prepare their armed forces for climate change and to contribute to the energy transition of our continent, not to put any constraints or limitations on the use of their equipment. Greater energy efficiency equals greater operational efficiency and safety. In Afghanistan and Iraq, re-supply convoys of fuel and water accounted for 40 to 50% of the casualties. 

Later this month, we will present the first joint progress report on the implementation of the Climate Change and Defence Roadmap, as well as the Concept on an integrated approach for climate change and security and reflect on additional work strands. In this context, we take up your proposal to develop an Action Plan by 2023 that builds on ongoing work, while prioritising and updating our activities in light of the changed strategic context. We will take the valuable proposals of your Report fully into account as we move forward.

The aim is to equip ourselves to tackle the different climate security challenges that we see emerging already today. Take the example of the Sahel, where climate change is leading to increased instability. We are improving the way our early warning, planning and programming take the relevant climate-related conflict drivers into account. We deployed environmental advisors to our CSDP [Common Security and Defence Policy] missions in Mali and in the Central African Republic and will start to measure their environmental footprint.

To strengthen our strategic foresight on the future operational environment in the Sahel, but also other regions like the Arctic, we propose to prepare regional or thematic “Climate Trend Analyses”, in line with your Report. They will inform our future operational and capability development efforts, as our armed forces will need to operate under the more extreme climatic conditions. We have already seen examples of helicopters which cannot fly because the electronics do not work when it is well over 40 degrees Celsius.

Another key challenge is to make the armed forces gradually more energy efficient and sustainable. Their combined energy consumption is comparable to a smaller Member State. We need to invest more in research and development, as we are doing through the European Defence Fund and PESCO, and we continue to build on the work done by the European Defence Agency in gathering data on energy efficiency, circular economy, green procurement and energy resilience.

In taking forward all this work, we will continue to cooperate closely with our international partners, notably the United Nations and NATO, but also bilateral partners, such as the United States or Canada.

Climate change will impact our security landscape for the decades to come. It is only by working together that we can address global challenges of such magnitude.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-226108

Closing remarks

Thank you very much Mr President, Honourable Members,

We think that the debate today testifies your interest and engagement towards addressing the cross-cutting impact of climate change on security and defence.

We reiterate that we will respect the “mission-first” principle, as we need to make sure that the armed forces can do their job – namely to protect and defend us. That said, energy efficiency and environmental sustainability will strengthen, not hamper, our operational efficiency if done in the right way.

Your report provides an encouragement to continue to push forward. 

Thank you.

Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-226110