 Hello and welcome and I'm Jasper Humphries of the Marjan Conflict, Biodiversity and Military Sustainability Group in the Department of War Studies, King's College London. And for the next half hour, I shall be talking about conflict and climate change, after which there will be up to 15 minutes for questions sent into the chat room. Politicians, policymakers, think tanks and the like come up with any number of dystopian doomsday scenarios about linking conflict with climate change, of which we are well aware, such as lack of water, drying land, rising sea levels, chronic food shortages, resource wars and various impacts arising from the destruction of biodiversity. And today as we examine these conflict climate change scenarios, it will also lead us to an issue which is currently little examined, but is likely to become more prominent in the future. And that is how could the world apply force to countries that consistently refuse to acknowledge their climate change obligations. Joining those two points together, I will touch upon a few ideas about what a national green defense strategy might look like. By which I mean what factors might dominate governmental and armed forces thinking as they are forced to pursue major sustainability goals in the shadow of climate change and environmental security. For example, what happens to Britain's current nuclear submarine fleet if Scotland becomes independent and the Faslane base is decommissioned as per the manifesto of the Scottish Nationalist Party. Climate change is very much not a new phenomenon. Wolfgang Behringer in his book, A Cultural History of Climate, points out that there have been warm periods throughout history, just as there have been cold periods. For instance, Behringer suggests that the collapse of the Maya civilization in Mexico was in large part due to warming and drought. And at the end of the book, Behringer stresses that we should remember that the changing climate has always caused great changes in society, politics and religion, which sometimes have led to conflict as a social outcome of these changes. And we do know what climate change and war can look like. Geoffrey Parker's book Global Crisis, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the 17th century examined the frequency of both war and climate change 300 years ago, which was not only a particularly violent period of history across the world, but also had lots of extreme weather events, both hot and cold. Parker highlights the impact of droughts, freezing weather and storms, not only on the outcome of battles, but just as importantly, by creating food insecurity through bad harvest famine and the inability to transport food as well as wood for heating, climate change most certainly created huge social stress that fed into the dynamic. However, Parker stresses that even with all this quantitative data, he would not like to pronounce on a clear causal link between climate change and conflict. There are just too many other social, economic and political variables in Parker's opinion. Writing for a broader public audience than Parker is the outspoken academic and former war studies PhD graduate Gwynn Dyer, who 10 years ago wrote climate wars, the fight for survival as the world overheats, in which he made various future project projections based on his reading of conflict, geopolitics and climate change. Here briefly are two scenarios that he outlined. Scenario one. This was timelines to 2019. The Arctic sea ice is melting, and the nations in the Arctic region are divided between supporting either Russia or NATO in the fight over fossil fuel resources. While China, though militarily extremely powerful, would face serious internal security issues as a result of extensive harvest failures and persistent drought. Finally, all this geopolitical confrontation would make international cooperation to fight climate change impossible for 20 years, just at a time when cooperation was most needed. The second scenario imagine the world in 2045, which has become 2.8 centigrade degrees warmer than the 1990 by 2045 meet 2045 methane and CO2 have been released from melting Arctic permafrost to a level which quotes has totally overwhelmed human emission cuts, and the process has slid beyond the human ability to control end quote. This world is now gripped by hunger with the global population having fallen due to widespread famine. Nuclear weapons are much more common, and the most advanced nations are doing all they can to secure their borders from masses of climate refugees. Well, one can argue about the pros and cons of dire scenarios, but they do point out how the elements that I referred to at the beginning such as resource laws and water shortages do interlock with broader components and drivers of the climate climate change narrative journey, one of which is of course conflict. Not everyone is as frightened as Jeffrey Parker about committing to the link between conflict and climate change. For example, Solomon Hissiang and Marshall Burke evaluated 50 rigorous quantitative studies in their paper climate conflict and social stability. What does the evidence say evaluating conflict and social instability is one defined in their words as quotes, where regular patterns of dispute resolution fail and social orders changed end quote. In the book, the majority of studies suggest that conflict increases and social stability decreases. When temperatures are hot and persistent precipitation is extreme, but even in situations where the average temperature is already temperate low temperatures may also undermine stability. In another paper, quantifying the influence of climate on human conflict, Hissiang and others interrogated the impact of climate across multiple regions, adopting a mathematical formula used for economic forecasting that evaluated hundreds of papers which reference both weather and three different types of human conflict, ranging from personal violence such as murder to intergroup violence like civil wars and abrupt changes such as revolutions. To evaluate their findings, Hissiang and colleagues converted climate change variables into units of standard deviation. For example, they found that a one unit shift towards hotter conditions cause the likelihood of personal violence to rise by 4% and intergroup conflict by 14%. For these researchers, the link between climate change and violence was clear, made possible by bringing modern research techniques to previous data analysis to harm their conclusions. Inevitably though, not everyone agrees with their conclusions, especially Halva Duhang. Climate change represents the latest in a series of environmental drivers of human conflict that have been identified in recent decades that include drought, desertification, land degradation, failing water supplies, deforestation, fisheries depletion and even ozone depletion. And with climate change being invisible and presenting no obvious enemy, this not only places climate change in a puzzling semantic no man's land, but it also makes strategic thinking, in this case, equally difficult. Instead, the narrative of climate change as a strategic threat has been depicted as a threat multiplier or secondary threat floating on a sea of environmental issues that stretches seemingly beyond the horizon. With the environmental drivers as primary agents, these then bleed into secondary agents such as social, economic and cultural deprivation clustered around human security. And all this heaving and tangled environmental mass lies at the heart of the climate change security dilemma that face military planners and politicians alike. With so many interlinked targets, at first sight, along with a little bit of creative imagination, developing a security strategy against climate change could seem more like conjuring urgency. But on closer inspection, the compilation of problems are so inherently different as to make any comparison in creating an overarching strategy impossible. A recent example is pinning down the origins of the Syrian Civil War. The argument beginning with a neatly packaged narrative of overlapping climate change drought and politics that gradually unraveled when more data suggested that at the very least, though numerous question marks about this origin story. The result of this strategic conundrum is that discussion about the military's role in tackling climate change becomes circular, something close to suggesting that an echo changer effect of think tank roundtables, conferences and articles, has created a straw man construct that broadly arrived back at the beginning, leaving the military to conveniently stick with strategizing against known enemies, both abroad and in the Treasury. So in view of all this conceptual thought, it is clear that strategic climate change thinking has to find a new direction as a re-examination process of how and what can actually be achieved. The answer quite simply is to put the cart before the horse. If climate change is the grave threat to human existence that many say, then the empirical justification for military intervention grows exponentially. So what might military intervention within the context of climate change actually look like. Here I will explore two avenues. The first being the well established argument for ecological intervention based on Professor Robin Eckersley's seminal paper ecological intervention prospects and limits. And the second is the much more recent concept of atmospheric intervention that is still evolving. Eckersley's definition of ecological intervention is quotes exploring the use of military force for environmental protection that enables a useful stock taking and clarification of the relationship between new ecological norms and the fundamental political and legal norm of non intervention and its corollary self determination and quotes. Her paper is a foundational document, both of the growing ecostide movement that wants to make the sixth crime against humanity, adding to the five that followed the Nuremberg Trials, as well as the growing United Nations engagement with protecting the environment after armed conflict conflict that has spawned organizations such as PACs and the conflict and environment observatory. Eckersley's structured argument is logical, moral and empirical, and is focused on the fact that if we care about the environment as much as we say we do, the world has to make hard choices about protection intervention. While Eckersley is clearly spiritually enthusiastic about intervention, she doesn't shy away from the pitfalls of ecological intervention, using the last minute operational failure to save the northern subspecies of the white rhino DR Congo as a sad but instructive case study. Just as crucially, Eckersley ends by saying that while military intervention to save the environment and biodiversity makes logical and moral sense, it is unlikely to happen. However, threatening the environment and biodiversity may be from the effects of climate change, such as water depletion or habitat loss. It is clear that any form of military action is highly unlikely, given that there is a clear bias in the international mindset towards seeing malicious human activities as more important than the mishandling of environmental issues. The irony here is that the protection of biodiversity relies totally on the altruistic and moral endeavors of humans, the various species that provides the main threat. The second avenue to explore military intervention is atmospheric intervention, which broadly rests on the pillars of just war theory and United Nations involvement, focused on issues such as definitions of security within the context of climate change, especially who is liable for transgressions. Is it the state, a business, or both? And how can one bring rogue states or operations into line? Though it is highly unlikely that military intervention will be launched to save biodiversity, but if the threat was a series of coal power power stations being built as figures show the planet is still heating up, or there was a dam building program that serious compromise downstream neighbors, the geopolitical stakes are significantly raised, and the idea of military intervention will be an option under consideration by the aggrieved parties. So what options do they have? Even if full scale war is not sanctioned, there are a number of alternatives, which could loosely be categorized as international discussion, soft war, and use admin Latin for force just short of war. Regarding the last two options, Adam Betz's seminal paper, preventative environmental wars, explains, quote, the question is what to do about those environmental wrongdoers given that peaceful remedies have failed. I have suggested that coercive measures short of war, such as short soft war and just admin tactics, should then be tried. If, and only if those measures prove ineffective, should a policy of preventative environmental war be entertained. And even then, hope for success considerations might militate against it. End quotes. Under the software heading best lists using social media platforms to manipulate information and come to propaganda. Also cyber warfare uses of viruses and malware and economic embargoes with conditions attached. And these cyber contours are reflected, for instance, in the formation of the British armies dedicated cyber operation units that began with the 77th Brigade, and has expanded with the 13 signals regimen, which in turn forms the basis of the new army center information security operation concerning use admin betz suggests that it consists basically of software tactics, but with greater teeth, such as no fly or no go zones and economic sanctions were with greater costs. The application of just warfare in relation to intervention was embedded, but not endorsed within the United Nations high level panel on threats, challenges and change, which stated in December December 2004 quotes. The international community does have to be concerned about nightmare scenarios, combining terrorists, WMD and irresponsible states, and much more besides, which may conceivably justify the use of force, not just reactively, but preventively, and before a latent threat becomes imminent. The global war on terror was justified as part of a general right of protection and prevention, shaped by the fact that in Western countries during the Cold War, national security was what was called structuralist. Security and society broadly were ordered and controlled in a structured hierarchical manner. However, since the end of the Cold War, there has been a shift noted by Sir David Oman, former head of GCHQ and visiting professor in the Department of War Studies, he wrote, There is a state of trust on the part of the citizen that the risks to everyday life, whether from man made threats or impersonal hazards, are being adequately managed to the extent that there is confidence that normal life can continue. Climate change for an increasing number of people falls well within Oman's definition of a national security issue, and this link between risk, security and climate change defines how climate change is securitized. While the international community basically only allows preventative wars to stop atrocities, it should be remembered that natural disasters caused by climate change also kill and displace millions, even if they are not traditionally seen as an area for military intervention. For instance, what if a government decides to neglect climate change prevention measures and spend its money on military items, such as North Korea has done, or use this military to block humanitarian relief, like Myanmar did in 2008, following a cyclone that killed and displace many thousands of people. Furthermore, if we expect governments to protect its citizens from natural disasters yet we observe that the government is doing nothing, and actually a dangerous people's lies, then is the level of blame attached to that government, the same as allowing the supporting terrorist groups. Policy makers today contemplating atmospheric intervention would have to provide a multi justification case. Firstly, the process should involve a wide group of states, such as mobilized to the Gulf Wars, and secondly case must be put to the UN Security Council, which would include both the rationale and proportionality of the war strategy, echoing the just war theory under the United Nations Charter chapter six and chapter seven article 39. This is just war thinking in the context of climate change is unambiguous. He feels that here, preventative war does fulfill the conditions for a just cause, justified not only to defend present day life, but also future life. However, Beth feels that on balance, that the combination of the sheer destructiveness of war, along with a valid list of alternatives, as mentioned above, rules out the ad bellum last resort condition, and therefore war must be discounted. And finally, though he urges vigilance, quotes, if the majority of climate scientists are correct, climate change is the grave threat to humanity, exceeded perhaps only by large scale nuclear war, end quote. And even another visiting professor at the Department of War Studies has tackled the climate change and security conundrum as part of his biggest bigger realist argument that nations should not rely or expect international cooperation to solve climate change. And instead, primarily pursue their own interest, even if global cooperation picks up at some stage. After climate change reached dire levels of dystopia, leaving forces a massive strategic reconfiguration of security, including quotes. In the decades to come, the most important single branch of the US armed forces will become not the Marines, all the special forces, but the Army Corps of Engineers and quotes. In this context, civil unrest or even conflict will be a major consideration of which the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans at the end of August 2005 gives a good insight. Violence, both actual and threatened is likely to be increased in times of crime crisis, especially in countries with high gun ownership like the United States. So the authorities will be faced with how to increase protection. In New Orleans, the military headcount went from 7400 on August 29 to 46,000 within a week. With the then Louisiana governor, Kathleen Blanco warning quotes, the army have M 16s and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill, and I expect they will end quotes. She was clearly trying to message reassurance the wider world and President Bush that there will be no half measures to bring the situation under control. Meanwhile, the then federal emergency management agency director Michael Brown said his agency in New Orleans was working quotes under conditions of urban warfare. With police placing snipers on the station rules and the Gratian Greyhound bus station turned into a temporary jail. Bearing out Leven's prediction, the US Corps of Engineers were heavily involved in building the New Orleans flood defenses. The work which was later heavily criticized for being a major contribute to the Katrina disaster, which leads us to the wider issue of how to envisage a green defense strategy. But before we do that, it is worth mentioning a historical path to environmental security that is the opposite of Leven's nationalistic focus. In 1991, the United Nations Environmental Programme UNED established the United Nations Center for Urgent Environmental Assistance influenced by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The following year, the Security Council endorsed quotes, the non military sources of instability in the economic, humanitarian and ecological fields may become a threat to police and security. While Switzerland advocated setting up an environmental green cross comparable to the Red Cross that was developed at the conference on security and cooperation in Europe in Helsinki. From this, Germany, Switzerland and other countries supported setting up a green helmets national environmental task force that would also be available globally. Mikhail Gorbachev, scarred by the impact of the Chernobyl disaster established green cross international and invited the United States to join him and offer that fade it with a dissolution of the Soviet Union. However, as Linda Malone has remarked quotes, environmental disasters with trans trans boundary effects loss of a vital global resource or actions in violation of international law can no longer be regarded as matters of domestic jurisdiction. On October 19, 1992, the bodies of two leading German Green Party figures, Petra Kelly and her partner, Gert Bastien, were found in what was thought to be a double suicide, even though it has never been fully explained. Kelly had rockstar iconic status, while Bastien was a retired Bundeswehr General, who had been wounded on the Eastern Front, serving with a Wehrmacht in the Second World War. Following their deaths, the ensuing leadership turmoil within the German Greens forced the moment of truth in the party between the fundies who stuck rigidly to their idealistic principles and the realas who were happy to adapt to political realities. And it was that group over time, who won out to the point that the German Green Party could be the dominant party in the coming September federal elections. As green politics and ideas of sustainable living, not only focus on climate change, increasingly create an impact, green activists, the armed forces and wider politics will have to seriously confront how these ideas shape a defence policy. Western villages are increasingly acknowledging their role in what might be termed the non-controversial easy bids, such as reducing their carbon footprints by fuel consumption, mix of fuels, accommodation upgrades and greater environmental sensitivity on training areas. However, the crunch comes with deeper strategic thinking. Here, I will engage with only the broadest of principle outlined by the simple expedient of imagining a meeting between a politician, a member of the armed forces, an environmentalist who is opposed to nuclear armament. The politician invites the other two to outline their arguments first. The armed forces representative says that while being sympathetic to many aspects of sustainable thinking influenced by their own children, this must not jeopardize practicality and strategic thinking which is their job after all. Translate this means the armed forces do not want their hands tied now or in the future. The environmentalist argues that conflicts destroys the environment, the homeland defence and peacemaking should be priorities, while conflicts abroad are expeditionary and too often delivered by political considerations that later turn out to be disastrous. Furthermore, soft power such as humanitarian programs and international engagement should be integrated much more tightly into a broader conception of the word security, which should also include the environment and updating the laws protecting the environment during and after conflict. Finally, there is a demand from the environmentalist for a fully fledged civil defence organization to cope with national environmental disasters and pandemics on the par with exemplary Scandinavians, plus another demand for greater environmental integration into military, strategic and operational plan thinking. The politician says the idea of civil defence organization is excellent and under active consideration, but warns that military operational capability must not be compromised by large scale diversion of resources for non military operation. While operational and strategic thinking will always be left to the armed forces in time into a war, it will be a political duty to consider and act on the wider diplomatic and long term consequences, said the politician, adding that peace was what everyone wanted, but not at the cost of ignoring political reality. The cardinal principle of homeland defence means that keeping enemies at bay, which is involved sometimes fighting abroad, said the politician, adding that the strategic upside of having nuclear weapons outweighed any reservations, even though proliferation was a worry for everyone. And it is that it was at that point that the politician said that they needed to dash away to prepare for a long standing committee meeting, which could well prove very especially painful and difficult, given that the subject was cut from the armed forces in line with the president's general treasury forecast to reach sustainability commitments. Thank you very much. Now, we're going to the chapel. In view of the increasing prevalence of natural disasters obviously climatic disasters. Yeah, you not think it's time for there to be. an emergency secretariat set up by the United Nations. It would be directly responsible to Secretary-General. There would be resources set aside by states in various ways, obviously, to drag people out from, you can imagine, every kind of capability, which would be first and foremost, obviously, used by individual states, but in the event of a catastrophe would be made available, so that as soon as there was the knowledge of the event, there would be an immediate phone call from emergency secretariat, shall we go in to help within the half hour, rather than the catastrophe, and days later the state realises it can't deal with it, and it might ask for help, so that we have this system. People will say, oh, there is already something existing, no, no, no, that's just the database of what is available, but to actually have a capability set up, maybe stores in various continents of important resources needed for such things. Do you think something like that would be useful? And the same way, do you think because of the, you mentioned, wildlife parks and all the animals being killed over a period of time, do you think there should be an international wildlife range of force provided by maybe under the justice of some parts of the United Nations, so that we can have completely trustworthy rangers who will be guarding these parks? I think you just got yourself a job there. No, I couldn't agree with you more, I mean, I think any sane person would agree, and the initiative I mentioned about the Green Helmets initiative by Golbachev was trying to get that going. The reason was that the United States, and this points to the future problems on this side of it, was that the Americans felt that there was no need to join up, and they might be considered to be seen to be helping the Russians, just at the time at the moment where they felt the Russians were on their Soviet Union was falling apart, so they didn't need to bother to do. And in a sense, I think that points to the problems. I mean, and I'll answer the question again by turning around, what do you think are the problems stopping these sort of things, these organizations? What do you think stopping them? Well, international collaboration, people might be thinking, will their sovereignty be interfered with by having these organizations, but after all, NGOs go in, the NGOs are often treading on each other's toes, maybe even going over the same grounds looking for dead bodies that some other organization already went into. So it's a mess, and often the state doesn't ask for a week, for days, maybe a week, maybe two weeks, so that they should be instantly called and instantly go in. And if they say no, well, the UN could use its media savvy to embarrass or shame the state to say, this is a natural catastrophe, climatic disaster, or whatever it is. I agree with it. I mean, everything you say is, it's just, you've highlighted sovereignty issues, collaboration, process, you know, you name it, the list is just so long, long, long, long, that it's disappointing. And look at the problems they are trying to get a global vaccine response. I mean, that's just highlighted. So I know it is a bit grim, but, you know, let's just hope maybe from the list, you know, look optimistically and say, out of this pandemic, this is that we will learn to collaborate better and get machinery getting better and that they will have a spin-off into other situations. So, and to answer your point about the world, the ranger situation, again, lovely idea, but again, the problems there is sovereignty and also money. And also the issue that I've touched on Robin Neckisley's paper saying that, you know, the world considers human problems more important than wildlife problems. So this is any money around that goes to humans and not wildlife. I'm afraid that's the reality, but surely when you actually got your long controversial saving of life as the agenda, presumably countries do like to, you know, have lives safe. It's just that they usually try for a week or maybe two weeks to save lives of days by which time many people are dead when it's not necessary. The call should come within minutes of knowledge of a disaster so that there can be action stations. And surely there will be some states who will be willing to have appropriate equipment, no pated, so it won't take so long to get them in. I know all these things. Well, you know, I'm sad, I just can't say what we've, I think we've covered all the, just some of the reasons why there are many, many, many, but it's just... It's never been tried yet. So it's worth while to have a convention on saving life and the establishment of an emergency secretary. It could perhaps be done through the General Assembly, wouldn't necessarily have to go through the Security Council. No, no, exactly. All these are done. Yeah. Well, I've got nothing more to add, I'm afraid. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, anyway. Hi, Jasper. Can you... Hi, Gerard. How are you? Doing well. Some really interesting points there, and I think your role-playing scenario is fantastic. Which one did you want to play, Gerard? Well, I may, I may end up being the environmentalist in the room, but something, something that I will certainly, something that I think we'll be hopefully doing with our UKMOD students very soon. I was interested to ask, obviously, with the sort of leadership of Jen Stoltenberg in NATO, NATO has created this new communiqué, which focuses significantly on climate change, in which they talk about, and I'll quote, to adapt to climate change, NATO will incorporate climate change considerations into its full spectrum of work, ranging from defence planning and capability development to civil preparedness and exercises. Now, obviously, that's not specifically, it doesn't specifically mention intervention at any point, but given both that increased focus and that concept of the full spectrum of work, and issues such as Russia's increasing securitisation of environmental security, as has been outlined in the conflict environment observatory report, do you think that this NATO communiqué is providing greater flexibility for that intervention in future climate security issues? I think it's, it's, as ever, sort of political as the statement, gives some, gives all sorts of flexibility to whoever wants to use the flexibility in the way that they want to use it. Does that sound like a politician's answer? And the only, so there's nothing of real substance in that, so there we are, but the only, the sort of more, the only bit of substance I could take away from that, and even the, you know, the new G reports into the, which we've discussed into the British Armed Forces, that it does at least suggest that they have, it's on their radar to what level, we don't know, whatever that, but at least it's on the radar, but you know, more than it was, you know, until a few years ago, so to speak. Is it, is it just, you know, sort of greenwash, I don't know, a little time or tell? I mean, I'm deliberately sounding vague, because I don't want to, to commit to say, yeah, I think that's really, you know, they've really got the bit between their teeth, or no, they haven't got it, because as ever, one never really knows what's, what the thinking is. I mean, I'm sure that the intention is there, but of course we want more than intention, so I would only, could only say, you know, keep a close eye, is that, is that, does that answer your question, or would you like to add something more? Certainly no, no, I think it's, it's a sort of, it answers the question, and I suppose that question is to, when you have wider security communities, or even, you know, higher up communities, creating these statements, at what point does it provide that, that sense of moral legitimacy, you know, the moral legitimacy that is afforded by being in line with these statements of the international community. So yes, I suppose it's, I suppose it's interesting in the sense, as, as you say, as a political statement, but how far does it feed into that principle that any form of intervention would certainly need to be done as part of, you know, an international community-based agreement? Yeah, absolutely. What might be an interesting scenario is that people use ecological environmental intervention as an excuse for state warfare, you know, let me say it's a dam-building project, no, the Ethiopia and, you know, the Renaissance dam, that's got, you know, Ethiopia and, and Egypt have a lot of long-standing, serious, all sorts of problems, whatever, but the dam is being used by both parties as a major geopolitical point of conflict of various levels. And it would be quite interesting to see whether Egypt says they will invade Ethiopia to, to stop the dam-building program. In fact, what they want to do is to sort of start meddling in Ethiopian politics, because they see the Ethiopas in the weak situation with their, you know, with their wars, Tigray and all, you know, that sort of thing, you know, would do, do you see my point like that? Or maybe I'm going off on a tangent. And I think, you know, I think it speaks to that issue you raised earlier as to soft security versus hard security, you know, what point, for example, might that conflict be more, you know, be more easily resolved through diplomatic measures and a level of persuasion, let's say, or coercion through soft security measures, in contrast with that idea of a hard security response. I mean, I just, here's a sort of wild prediction, but if the climate, the temperatures keep moving up the way it's, they seem to be going, I mean, it can't be that long before the world is going to seriously start considering intervention. Of course, then we have all the problems about, you know, big countries, small countries, but these are issues which are going to have to be confronted, you know, as they move up the agenda. So this is, you know, what I've been just saying is just a sort of an early warning, you might say. Thank you, John. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I was curious if you, in your opinion, the militaries at this point, whether that's NATO, you know, the US, the UK, I guess you could say the usual suspects, are they taking it seriously enough in your opinion? While, for example, Joe Biden at this point is saying far more than his predecessor, you know, he said that while he was vice president, the Joint Chief said that climate change was probably the biggest threat to the US, but so much of climate change needs to be dealt with collectively. And so the will is there for the nations that we usually look to for joint action in any capacity. What do you mean by will, Joan? They sort of put your money where your mouth is in terms of, you know, yeah. When you say money, do you mean funding operational capability? So what to do, environmental intervention? Yes, an arm and a lot. You know, as far as, let's say, sort of the US, you know, we'll take that as, for now, as an example, but in terms of the money that is spent on equipment or programs that they're doing overseas, so it is impacting beyond their borders. In your opinion, are they doing it in a way that suggests they are actually going forward in a climate aware sort of capacity? Are they sort of being green? Right. Well, there are very different variations of how we interpret the word green, isn't it? And I think the Pentagon's version of green is maybe different from an environmentalist idea of being green, but just going backtracking in time a bit, I mean, I've noted 20 years, have had climate change, they've realized the problems caused by climate change in terms of leading to conflict and also particularly as flooding of US bases that's been on their radar. And that has become that those issues have got, they've highlighted those issues with more and more emphasis every quadrennial review. And the last one, they was talked up a lot. So the money will probably be put aside or probably not enough, but the money is to put flood defences for US bases on the eastern seaboard and the US and that sort of side. So that's protecting that the US armed force from the ravages of climate change. But as for, you know, the American army has got any amount of weaponry to deal with problems abroad that might arise from climate change. But the problem you have here is that problem caused by climate change, let's say desertification or drought, is that, is those, and people are fighting over, over drought, is that a national problem, which has just, that has arisen and therefore to be sorted out by the national army. Or because of the drought, and let's assume it's probably caused by climate change, then should the US army join in to try to, you know, to sort of pacify the country. I mean, an example might be Mali, you know, there we are. I mean, it's incredibly dry, harsh, and it's very difficult to do operations there. So are we expecting the American US army to go into pacify the situations that have been caused by climate change? I think that's sort of what you're saying, is that right, Joe? Yes. You know, should they be called on in a capacity to sort of help, as you've mentioned, of course, there'd be political ramifications for, you know, any sort of military intervention, regardless of the reasoning. But it seems as though, you know, dual horses have come out so far from the Biden administration in terms of priorities. One is that there is emphasis on climate impact and climate change, and it being a very genuine threat, and then, of course, everything to do with China. And I'm curious whether it's, you know, whether it's NATO addressing it in a collective fashion, whether it's this sort of current US president, while much seems to be discussed, you know, do you feel that there is sort of genuine intent behind it as someone who's been watching this for a long time? Right. I feel so. Yeah, I mean, I feel there's genuine intent. I don't think there's any, Biden doesn't, there's no benefit for Biden to be lying about his commitment and interest in it. And it certainly goes with the current, you know, I know there are lots of climate deniers, but there is obviously a great international traction but behind climate change. So I don't have any particular reasons to suspect Biden or indeed NATO to that. I mean, of course, that's all very well, but you know, we all have good intention. But of course, as we know, when it gets to the nitty gritty of politics and sovereignty issues and all that, that's where the real things are sorted out or not sorted out because it just, they could run into, you know, brick walls all the time. And not last but not least, if we're having a sort of cold war, you know, the West is having a cold war with China, and we find that China's adding more coal-fired power stations, is that are we going to invade China, you know, over this? Probably the answer to that is no, at the moment, but maybe in five years' time when temperatures, if temperatures are still rising, and if the world is getting absolutely hysterical about the effects of climate change, the pressure on Western governments to take some form of military into it will be very large. That's no doubt about it now. Thank you very much. Okay, thanks, John. Okay, I declare this meeting finished.