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Fostering Leadership in NATO on Climate and Women, Peace and Security
On 12 November 2024, CCS hosted a roundtable on NATO’s efforts to tackle non-traditional security threats, including climate change and Women, Peace, and Security (WPS). The following summarizes the key points of the Chatham House Rule discussion.
By Siena Cicarelli and Erin Sikorsky
In 2021, NATO launched its Climate Change and Security Action Plan, which committed the alliance to mainstreaming climate security in its plans, posture, and international engagements. Since then, the Alliance has made notable progress in implementing the Action Plan, recently opening the Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence in Canada (CCASCOE) and building critical internal climate literacy throughout the Alliance.
This mirrors the institutional pathways used by other cross-cutting priorities like the WPS agenda, which has made significant inroads over the past 15+ years by leveraging binding UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) commitments and institutions like the Nordic Centre for Gender in Military Operations (NCGM) to elevate gender considerations within the Alliance. As a result, there is more cross-cutting gender and climate policy today than ever before, including the Alliance’s explicit recognition of “the compounding impacts of gender inequality, conflict, and climate change on women and girls, with implications for security.”
However, given the ongoing war in Ukraine and major political shifts amongst leading Allies, both these agendas face the risk of being deprioritized or sidelined. As the Alliance looks to 2025 and beyond, gender and climate advocates must be prepared to overcome the perception that there is a trade-off between tackling climate and WPS issues and more traditional “hard security” issues.
(more…)Girl Security Fellows Offer Fresh Perspectives on Climate Security
By Elsa Barron and Brigitte Hugh
Girl Security is an organization that seeks to address the challenge of the under-representation of women in the national security field, highlighted by the fact that, “women make up less than 40 percent of the U.S. State Department’s leadership and 26 percent at the Pentagon.” The group’s National Security Fellowship program offers young women interested in national and global security challenges the opportunity to learn about some of the most pressing issues of today and develop a strong community with similar interests. As a capstone to the program, the fellows released a National Girl Security Strategy in January, which is led by a chapter on “Advancing a More Inclusive Approach to Climate Security.”
(more…)This Month, Meet the CSR Women Making History
As Women’s History Month draws to a close, we are excited to highlight the women across the Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) who are leading and shaping all of our organizations components: the Center for Climate and Security (CCS), the Converging Risks Lab (CRL), and the Janne E. Nolan Center on Strategic Weapons (the Nolan Center).
First, we must recognize that the Council on Strategic Risks would not be what it is today without the immense and irreplaceable support of founding board member, the late Dr. Janne E. Nolan. She had a long career as an author and a dedicated public servant, working across the State Department, the Senate Armed Services Committee, and as the defense advisor to several presidential campaigns and transition teams among numerous other positions. Her work continued into nonprofits and academia as she pioneered nuclear security affairs and practical, non-partisan solutions for anticipating, analyzing and addressing systemic risks to security. CSR’s CEO Christine Parthemore penned a blog post earlier this month about how this organization—and the entire field of national security—would not be what they are today without Janne’s leadership and contributions.
The depth of talent across CSR cannot be overstated. The women on our Board and our core teams have trailblazed their way through security and scientific spaces, and worked tirelessly to push boundaries and build new career fields for others. Many have served as the cornerstones of growth and progress in their fields, and continue to build on those foundations and advance solutions to nuclear, climate, environmental, and biological threats and beyond.
We reached out to some of those women to ask about each of their paths, and we share their answers with you below:
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