German minister urges Munich Security Conference to keep climate risks on agenda
Deutschlandfunk
Germany’s environment minister Carsten Schneider has said he will push to keep climate change and international climate action high on the agenda at this year’s Munich Security Conference (MSC), arguing that global warming poses direct risks to national and international security.
In an interview with public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk ahead of the conference, Schneider said he wants to “make clear that climate change is real and that it has consequences for our security.” Rising temperatures and extreme weather events could contribute to migration pressure and conflicts over scarce resources, such as water, he added.
Ensuring that dangers like these are addressed at the MSC at a time when geopolitical turmoil and revisionist policies are undermining global decarbonisation efforts would be “one of my core tasks” at the MSC, the Social Democrat (SPD) politician said.
Schneider is set to meet with US lawmakers in Munich, including California governor Gavin Newsom, to discuss the link between climate and security. Despite the US government’s retreat from international climate commitments under president Donald Trump, maintaining dialogue with climate-focussed actors in the US remains essential, he argued. “In a democracy, things can change.”
At the same time, Schneider criticised what he described as the Trump administration’s “attack” on Germany’s and Europe’s energy transition “with renewables marked as the enemy,” including calls to expand fossil fuel imports from the US. “I will strongly object to that,” Schneider said, adding that renewables are key to Germany’s independence and resilience. “Energy policy is always also security policy,” he added.
The minister also rejected reported attempts to avoid the term “climate change” in official communication with the US in the context of NATO operations, calling it “dishonourable in a democracy”. He said such practices reminded him of the political control of language in his youth under the communist regime of the German Democratic Republic in former East Germany.
The global expansion of decarbonisation and renewable energy made concessions to a single country’s climate-sceptic positions “dishonest” and unnecessary, Schneider said. “We will make policy based on science in Germany,” he said. The Trump administration’s decision to repeal key climate policy legislation lacked any scientific foundation and was primarily aimed at pushing oil and gas sales, the minister added.
Germany’s defence ministry expects climate change to have a profound impact on security issues and published a "Strategy on Defence and Climate Change" in 2024. The MSC has also identified climate change as a key security issue, and urged European and US lawmakers to cooperate more closely on strategies to curb the threats caused by global warming. The boost in military spending in recent years has led to concerns that funding for climate action could come under pressure.