FROM RISK TO RESILIENCE:A RESPONSE TO THE UK 2025 NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY

This paper argues that the UK’s National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025 highlights climate change as a national security priority, embedding environmental risk at the core of sovereign resilience, energy autonomy, and geopolitical positioning. The authors welcome the NSS overview amidst a global context of denial, delay, and de-prioritisation. Against the backdrop of heatwaves across Europe, North America, and Asia, the paper critiques the consequences of inaction and commends the NSS for framing clean energy, supply chain resilience, and infrastructure protection as mutually reinforcing pillars of national strength, with the strategy’s emphasis on industrial innovation, critical mineral access, and renewable energy supply chains positioning the UK to convert climate risks into economic opportunity, technological leadership, and diplomatic influence. The paper also highlights a number of omissions. The authors argue that the NSS underplays links between climate, conflict, gender, and instability, and neglects to update frameworks for conflict prevention. The paper calls for the establishment of a UK Climate Security Intelligence Centre to analyse risks and integrate climate foresight across various government departments, including Cabinet Office, DEFRA, FCDO, and MOD, as well as those of overseas partners. Such a capability, it is suggested, would enable the UK to identify risks and act pre-emptively. The authors make clear that the NSS 2025 provides a welcome foundation, but the opportunity remains to lead globally by embedding climate security intelligence into the heart of strategic planning, defence investment, and national resilience.

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