A New Security Agenda

The report advocates for a 'New Security Agenda' that treats clean energy and ecosystem health as critical national security infrastructure. It argues that breaching planetary boundaries and relying on volatile fossil fuel markets create systemic risks to food security, public health, and economic stability. The authors call for binding legislative measures to phase out fossil fuels, the adoption of national restoration plans for biodiversity, and the alignment of public budgets to eliminate environmentally harmful subsidies.

• The report asserts that energy, nature, climate, and economic security are interdependent, and that states failing to protect these systems cannot guarantee basic needs like affordable food or reliable power.
• Seven of the nine planetary boundaries have been breached, leading to unpredictable and irreversible ecosystem shifts that translate into geopolitical and economic risks such as crop failures and water stress.
• The 2026 European heat, drought, and wildfire season serves as a case study for the convergence of climate vulnerability and ecosystem degradation, resulting in approximately 10,000 excess deaths in late June and economic costs of €3.5bn for the five worst-hit eurozone countries.
• True energy security requires a managed fossil fuel phase-out to remove dependency on volatile markets and conflict-prone supply chains, rather than new extraction which risks creating stranded assets.
• Nature security should be treated as critical infrastructure; the report highlights Poland’s 'Green East Shield' as a model where restoring wetlands and forests supports both territorial resilience and ecological recovery.
• Public finance must be realigned to eliminate environmentally harmful subsidies, noting that the world loses between €3.5 and €18.5 trillion annually in ecosystem services.
• International legal obligations to protect the climate are now binding, as clarified by various courts and a 2026 UN General Assembly resolution following an ICJ Advisory Opinion.

APA

ClientEarth (2026). A New Security Agenda. https://www.clientearth.org/media/1lbnzwp1/clientearth-unga-a-new-energy-security-d4.pdf

Chicago

ClientEarth. A New Security Agenda. 2026. https://www.clientearth.org/media/1lbnzwp1/clientearth-unga-a-new-energy-security-d4.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=ClientEarth |title=A New Security Agenda |date=September 2026 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/1lbnzwp1/clientearth-unga-a-new-energy-security-d4.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{clientearth2026new, author = {{ClientEarth}}, title = {{A New Security Agenda}}, institution = {ClientEarth}, year = {2026}, month = sep, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/1lbnzwp1/clientearth-unga-a-new-energy-security-d4.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }