Militaries need to take a proactive rather than reactive approach to climate related strategy. Climate change poses an operational threat to militaries through more frequent extreme weather events like flooding, droughts, and storms. It can cause social upheaval causing mass migration events, political unrest, and disruption to supply chains globally.

For Ireland, a changing climate has the power to alter fish migration patterns bringing new fisheries protection challenges. It could open new shipping lanes to the Pacific in our territorial waters as artic ice to the north melts. It could cause a race for resources among the superpowers in the North Atlantic as the ice fields recede. On a practical level it can also increase the degradation rate of military infrastructure such as our aerodromes and naval service bases and limit the availability of fossil fuels to power machinery, equipment and remote command posts.

This Deloitte Global paper seeks to explore the defence challenges and opportunities that climate change brings for a country like Ireland and how it can adapt to them to build comparative advantage.

Hear from Shane Mohan, Partner, Consulting and Government and Public Services Lead

Hear from Kieran O’Neill, Partner, Consulting and Government and Public Services

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