Rising Global Warming Sparks Security, Economic Concerns

(MENAFN) Global leaders and experts have raised alarms that the planet has already breached a major climate threshold, potentially triggering irreversible consequences, according to discussions at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. Reports indicate that rising temperatures are increasingly driving instability, economic disruptions, and security risks worldwide.

During a panel titled Degrees of Instability: Climate Security in a Warming World, Mads Flarup Christensen, executive director of Greenpeace International, described the current situation as perilous.

“We passed the first tipping point officially,” he told participants, adding: “We are in the danger zone now.”

Christensen highlighted that the planet is nearing systemic environmental changes capable of destabilizing ecosystems and societies, including the collapse of critical natural systems.

“If that's not security, what is?” he asked, emphasizing that climate threats should be treated as top-level strategic priorities.

Erin Sikorsky, director of the Center for Climate and Security and panel moderator, noted that global temperatures are already exceeding key limits.

“We're already heading into a world past 1.5 degrees of warming,” she said, warning that this would result in “greater instability, more extreme weather events … coming more frequently and more intensely than ever before.”

Sikorsky added that these effects are already straining security infrastructures around the world, observing that “militaries around the world (are) deployed to respond to climate disasters,” while competition for essential resources like food and water is heightening geopolitical tensions.

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman emphasized that climate shocks are actively disrupting communities and livelihoods, particularly in the most vulnerable regions.

“We have to look at saving climate … and equally, saving communities,” she said, noting that climate instability is also affecting defense preparedness. “Our warfare and our soldiers and our equipments will have to be adept at all these places, climate change is disrupting even that.”

German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider pointed out that ecological threats now rank among the most pressing global risks.
“Top 10 threats to the economy, five of them were ecological,” he said, characterizing climate change as “a threat to our growth, to the livelihood of the people, and the security issues.”

Meanwhile, US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse warned that climate-related impacts are already causing financial stress, particularly as insurance providers retreat from high-risk regions.

“The insurance industry in America (is) leaving entire states,” he said, cautioning that this could signal “the opening stage of an economic cascade … to recession.”

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