Now What: Addressing the Climate-Gender-Security Nexus at NATO

The paper examines the intersection of climate change, gender, and security within NATO, arguing that the alliance must move beyond rhetoric to operationalize this nexus. It identifies implementation challenges, such as resource constraints and a 'tradeoff perception' where non-traditional security issues are seen as distracting from core defense mandates. To overcome this, the authors propose six recommendations: incorporating climate data into gender analyses, developing use cases from past missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo, prioritizing specific mission sets like humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR), optimizing the placement of external climate advisors, fostering collaboration between gender and climate advisors, and advancing the nexus within broader outreach and adaptation efforts.

• The 'climate, gender, and security nexus' describes how climate change impacts—both slow-onset like desertification and sudden-onset like floods—have gendered implications and can trigger conflicts that worsen gender inequality.
• NATO faces implementation hurdles in addressing this nexus due to its consensus-based bureaucracy, domestic political 'green backlash' in member states, and a perception that climate and gender agendas create tradeoffs with traditional military mandates.
• The authors recommend updating the Military Gender Analysis Tool (MGAT) to include explicit climate linkages, such as how local climate patterns affect access to water and food, to help militaries detect impacts on civilian patterns of life.
• NATO can accelerate its understanding of the nexus by reviewing past operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo to identify security challenges that were related to climate exacerbating gender dynamics.
• Humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR) and civil preparedness are identified as high-priority mission sets for incorporating the nexus, as extreme weather events increasingly require militaries to respond to gendered effects on populations.
• To optimize external expertise, the document suggests conducting organizational assessments before hiring climate advisors to determine whether they should be placed at a strategic level to influence processes or a tactical level to provide real-time assessments.

APA

The Council on Strategic Risks (2024). Now What: Addressing the Climate-Gender-Security Nexus at NATO. https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2024/06/20/now-whataddressing-the-climate-gender-security-nexus-at-nato/

Chicago

The Council on Strategic Risks. Now What: Addressing the Climate-Gender-Security Nexus at NATO. 2024. https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2024/06/20/now-whataddressing-the-climate-gender-security-nexus-at-nato/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=The Council on Strategic Risks |title=Now What: Addressing the Climate-Gender-Security Nexus at NATO |date=20 June 2024 |url=https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2024/06/20/now-whataddressing-the-climate-gender-security-nexus-at-nato/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{thecouncilonstrategicrisks2024now, author = {{The Council on Strategic Risks}}, title = {{Now What: Addressing the Climate-Gender-Security Nexus at NATO}}, institution = {The Council on Strategic Risks}, year = {2024}, month = jun, url = {https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2024/06/20/now-whataddressing-the-climate-gender-security-nexus-at-nato/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }