Can Climate Security Survive the Crisis of Multilateralism?

Feb 3, 2026 | Tabea Campbell Pauli and Benedetta Zocchi
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Multilateralism is under threat, as many global powers increasingly choose to center their security priorities around defense and economic competition over international cooperation. This shift toward short-term national interests risks undermining progress on joint challenges, including climate change, peace and justice. What will be lost if the climate security agenda becomes a battlefield of competing interests? How can peacebuilding and development actors respond?

While originally rooted in hard security and defense-driven perspectives, the international climate security agenda has expanded over the past decade. Greater considerations of the ways in which climate risks impact on peacebuilding, justice and human security are prominent additions. 

Yet these hard-won gains risk being lost if international climate governance is no longer supported by strong multilateral institutions that are able to hold governments accountable. Since achieving global climate resilience depends on effective, cooperative responses, any loss of momentum diminishes the genuinely multilateral responses so critical to building it. Conflict-affected countries may lose the peace dividend of climate action. Developing countries where critical minerals are heavily concentrated may not benefit from the race for these resources.

Indeed, if peace and justice values are sidelined or stymied in governance, efforts to combat climate change may actually contribute to instability and inequality.