Reflections on the Berlin Climate and Security Conference

The briefing note reports on the 2025 Berlin Climate and Security Conference, hosted by the German Federal Foreign Office and Adelphi. The conference emphasised that security, freedom, and prosperity depend on addressing the climate security nexus through integrated, localised, and inclusive approaches. Discussions covered a broad range of themes, including the geopolitics of the clean energy transition, resilience in fragile states, climate disinformation, defence preparedness, and the role of women in peacebuilding.

Key insights included the strategic advantages of decentralised renewable energy systems in conflict resilience, the dual defence-environmental benefits of ecological tactics; and the urgent imbalance in climate finance, with fragile states receiving less than 10% of total funding. 

The briefing note provides a selection of the author’s insights on a diversity of topics: the West's underestimation of its own vulnerability to climate-driven instability, with the suggestion of a greater need for introspection in Western policy and strategy; a warning against diluting terminology for political acceptance, noting that reframing "climate" communications to appease sceptics risks undermining "shared truths" and coherent global action; and that the "and" between climate and security misrepresents their inseparability, calling instead for a unified "climate security" framing. 

The conference urged a shift from words to action - both in emissions reduction and in developing the human, institutional, and financial capacities to manage climate risks. The author suggests that future work include enhancing intelligence-led monitoring of corporate climate compliance and expanding climate security's contribution to mitigation. The conference concluded that maintaining shared truths, reinforcing democratic legitimacy, and accelerating systemic transformation are essential to ensure that humanity can still avert the most catastrophic consequences of climate inaction.. See full report here.