Climate change increases the risk of armed conflict by destabilizing the environment and the economy. Now NATO says its militaries will also play a key role in their homelands, countering disinformation and responding to extreme weather events.

Last year was a year of fires, with 93,000 hectares burned in northeastern Greece, 99 people killed in fires in Hawaii and at least 2,200 troops deployed to battle wildfires in Canada, while 235,000 people were evacuated.

In a report published this month analyzing the impact of climate change on NATO’s strategic, operational and tactical planning, the world’s most powerful military alliance described profound changes on the horizon as the climate crisis deepens. Rising temperatures and associated environmental changes will impact its capabilities on land, at sea, in the air, in cyberspace and in space, the alliance said.

NATO outlines the physical threats posed by climate change. Examples include extreme heat warping roads and railways and making ground combat more difficult, rising sea levels threatening satellite launch sites, and changing ocean salinity affecting submarines’ sonar capabilities.

“While the relationship between climate change and armed conflict is complex, a growing body of authoritative research and analysis notes that climate change has the potential to contribute to higher levels of conflict, instability and violence,” the report said. “Indirect effects of climate change, such as climate-induced instability, large-scale population movements and disruptions to global supply chains, are likely to alter the strategic environment in the medium to long term.

“Moreover, climate events that represent a tipping point – such as abrupt changes in key ocean currents or the collapse of agricultural systems – can cause a rapid escalation of instability and displacement in regions already experiencing climate stress.”

During the NATO summit held in Washington DC in mid-July, the alliance published its “Washington Summit Declaration,” outlining its priorities. The declaration focuses on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, accuses China of enabling the Russian invasion and trying to “divide NATO,” acknowledges that climate change is a threat, and calls on countries to exceed the 2 percent of GDP military spending target set a decade ago.

At the summit, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would reach the 2 percent target by 2032. For Canada, home to NATO’s climate change research agency in Montreal, the rapidly warming Arctic is a major concern.

NATO’s report on climate change and security specifically notes that the North Warning System (an early warning radar system stretching from Alaska to the Atlantic coast in Labrador) is vulnerable to loss of sea ice, thawing of permafrost leading to ground instability, and increased risks to wildlife as Arctic warming occurs.

Domestic Climate Disaster Response

NATO warns that increasing extreme weather events could “overwhelm” national resources, making an international response necessary. In 2023, there were at least 29 international military deployments in 14 countries, according to the Council on Strategic Relations Military Responses to Climate Hazards Tracker. Since 2022, the tracker has recorded 317 deployments in 82 countries.

Former General Wayne Eyre told a House of Commons defence select committee in 2022 that the Canadian military is increasingly being deployed to natural disasters, but that the Canadian Armed Forces should only be deployed as a last resort.

Similarly, the Canadian military’s top operational commander, Vice Admiral Bob Auchterlonie, said in an interview with the CBC last year that the military spent 141 days responding to wildfires and assisting with evacuations. While the Yellowknife evacuation was an example of the military playing a critical and relevant role, he said the military was over-resourced and used as a stand-in when other agencies could have helped.

The argument for military response to disasters such as floods and wildfires is that troops are spread across the country and can be deployed relatively quickly to provide relief.

But “militaries are notoriously expensive to do anything,” and troops are not specifically trained for disaster relief, said Andrew Heffernan, a political science professor at the University of Ottawa who specializes in climate change, mis/disinformation and international relations, in an interview with Canada’s National Observer

“I completely agree that NATO and all the militaries in the world probably need to be better prepared to respond to these kinds of things… but I also don’t think that’s the best response,” he said, suggesting that “purpose-built” organizations could be created and funded accordingly.

Dimitri Lascaris, a Montreal lawyer and prominent NATO critic who finished second in the 2020 leadership race for the Green Party of Canada, said the military should not be deployed to natural disasters.

“I think the reason we continue to use the military to provide emergency relief is: A) it’s really good PR for the military; and B) it’s another excuse to give the military more money,” he said.

For Lascaris, increasing military spending to address the climate crisis is precisely the wrong thing to do, for several reasons. First, there are the high greenhouse gas emissions associated with the military, as well as pollutants and contaminants that result from warfare. But beyond warfare, more military spending means less money for reducing emissions and adapting to the warming that has already crept in, he said.

“To deal responsibly with the climate crisis, we need to achieve unprecedented levels of international cooperation,” he added. “Militarism is an obstacle to that level of cooperation.”

In other words, as NATO increasingly targets Russia and China, as recently happened in the Washington Summit Declaration, cooperation between Western countries and Russia and China on climate change is becoming more difficult due to increased geopolitical tensions.

Who is actually spreading disinformation?

According to NATO, Russia and China have spread disinformation and outright conspiracy theories in the West to undermine climate action and sow division.

The alliance says it has seen increased disinformation linked to Russia in Europe regarding investments in renewable energy, that social media accounts with Russian ties are smearing climate activists and that the devastating Hawaii wildfires are being exploited with a social media campaign and the slogan: “Hawaii, not Ukraine.” NATO accuses China of spreading a similar conspiracy theory suggesting that the Hawaii wildfires “were a deliberate result of a secret test of a ‘weather weapon’ by US intelligence agencies.”

Heffernan said it is difficult to determine which disinformation campaign is linked to whom. It is easy for NATO to say that “actors like Russia and China” are behind the campaigns, “but it is also far too simplistic to suggest that Russia is doing all of this, or that China is doing all of this,” he said. “There is a lot of gray area, with many different actors doing this for many different purposes.”

For example, researchers from Carleton University, McGill University’s Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy and Climate Action Against Disinformation found that right-wing influencers spread disinformation as last year’s wildfires engulfed much of Canada. The disinformation promoted conspiracy theories that the fires were the result of “eco-terrorists, left-wing extremists and governments” seeking to advance a climate agenda — a conspiracy theory that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has stoked.

Far-right Canadian media outlet The rebel similarly developed conspiracy theories regarding the Hawaiian wildfires, through a series of reports called “The Truth About Maui,” which cast doubt on climate science, and the Calgary-based organization Friends of Science, which denies climate change and has received funding from the oil and gas industry.

As previously reported by Canada’s National ObserverDisinformation has been spread by pro-natural gas groups and Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre to mislead Canadians in an attempt to stoke outrage against the federal Liberal Party.

Because disinformation can come from domestic sources, such as the fossil fuel industry and politicians who support them, Lascaris said it is wise to be skeptical of NATO’s claims that Russian and Chinese disinformation is sowing divisions in Western countries.

“The idea that Russian disinformation is more influential in the West than American disinformation is laughable,” he said. “How many people in Canada, the United States or any other Western country get the majority of their news or information… from Russian sources? How many of them get it primarily from the United States? Or from other Western corporate media?”