SECURITY FOR WHOM?
The climate crisis is increasingly being framed as a security challenge that has to be dealt with by military means. However, militaristic approaches not only fail to address the root causes of the climate crisis, but also intensify the driving factors of the climate crisis — capitalism, extractivism, and imperialism. The climate crisis is a security threat to people who are already at risk and face various forms of oppression – Black and Indigenous people, disabled people, children and youth, older people, LGBTQI* individuals, low-income people and people in the so-called Global South. However, in order to truly and sustainably address how the climate crisis leads to insecurity for many people, we need to redefine security and unlink it from militaristic understandings – militaries cannot be part of solutions and paths to climate justice and lasting peace. Not only are militaries huge emitters but they are often perpetrators as well – specifically targeting Indigenous and critical climate activists. Further, military spending is heavily increasing since 2020 whereas we see clear gaps on climate finance, specifically on climate action by feminist activists and frontline defenders.
CFFP and the Women’s Environment & Development Organization (WEDO) have thus published a report based on 10 interviews with activists, academics and advocates from around the world working at the intersection of gender, militarisation and climate.
