I hope you’re already enjoying some well-deserved time with your family and friends; if not may you be able find time to unwind and recharge in the coming weeks.
Over the course of the year, like a squirrel preparing for winter I collect dozens of news articles, reports, research papers, gifs and other pocket litter. The veritable information hoarder that I am, it builds without me really knowing what to do with much of it other than not wanting to lose an insight or the a “eureka” moment.
While writing the previous post, it hit me that, much like the Legos in the attic or the takeout packet of soy sauce in the very back of the kitchen drawer, much of my source content gathers dust and never sees the the digital light of day. I was frustrated, not only because I wasn’t getting the best out of myself as an analyst, writer and organiser, but I couldn’t get any joy from sharing with others what inspires me.
This is the season for giving, so why not share the wealth!
I’ve had dozens of conversations this year with professionals across finance, ESG, corporate security, climate-tech, government and academia on the ins and outs of the climate x security space, testing various theses and concepts. So I’ve divided the links into broadly categories based on the different yous out there: security / enterprise and operational managers + corporate intelligence analysts; climate risk researchers, policy people and advocates; and investors.
Where I link to long reads, I’ve included health warnings.
Linking corporate security and climate risk / solutions 🔐
From analysts straight out of grad school to seasoned operators and Chief Security Officers, many in the corporate security space expressed concern over the issue but struggled with the “so what” and “now what” for them and their teams or broader internal stakeholders. Some pushed back - “we have climate teams, it’s not our job to think or act on this problem” is one summation. The range of views are all valid because they’re applying what they know and experienced to do what they believe is the right thing. Bridging this gap is what this newsletter’s continued main mission.
If you’re new here 😬, three easy ones: read my first post. Then a discussion on security leadership in a climate emergency. And finish the trilogy with how new climate tech aims to tackle classic security problems.
🔊 If you want the audio version of climate security 101, check out my podcast episode with My Climate Journey from August.
5️⃣ If you got only 5 minutes, read this from the International Red Cross / Red Crescent. If you operate where there is conflict or vulnerable populations, replace climate with drought, floods, famine, dry wells, food shortages etc and it’s abundantly easy to see how it feeds into vicious cycles that inevitably place stress on your remit, ranging from paying your security good wages, relationships with local police and military, and keeping local influencers (not these) onside.
A vendor has developed “climate-induced emergency and crisis management” training. Ops focused, it looks like. I believe they offered ASIS or CFEs with some of the courses. I have not taken this or know anyone who has, so posting for info and not endorsement.
Does your team need to brief the C-suite / ExCos / ManCos on the geopolitical risk landscape in the year ahead. I know some of you do, and if you don’t why not you if no one else is doing? One of the most obvious places to start is thinking about the geopolitics of the energy transition. If your firm has a net zero plan, is involved in wind, solar, carbon credits, electric vehicles, etc - yup, you’re in it. Erin Sikorsky at the Center for Climate and Security and Matt Ince at Dragonfly - great folks in the space - ably walks us through the pitfalls and opportunities. They, like me, strongly believe that the solutions for firms is to adapt their operating models to be able to soak up geopolitical volatility via localisation, resiliency, and being comfortable at challenging assumptions about underlying market conditions which has enabled unprecedented global wealth.
My industry colleague and friend Jayashri Lokarajan published this clearly-written piece when she was at Tufts on how climate change impacts national security (we care about natsec, right? Right?). Jay was one of the first people to reach out after I started writing - she is passionate about solving for climate insecurity and brings an Asia perspective to risk and solutions.
My intel nerds can geek out on this conflict early warning tracker from the Water, Peace and Security project, flagging areas where people are / may go fisticuffs over water stress and insecurity. It’s subnational too so offers a level of precision I haven’t seen from other sources, including commercial ones. I’m looking forward to diving in to see if there are any hotspots for 2024 that have missed me so far.
🇺🇸 If you have an office in downtown Washington DC, how do you keep your people safe in a big flood? How do you keep staff from coming in? What resources do or should you have in place to manage all this? A Washington Post piece this week highlights flooding patterns’ strong relationship with long-forgotten buried creeks and rivers under the city, and what happens when bureaucratic dysfunction, competing fiscal priorities, gentrification and the legacy of redlining meet a perfect storm.
(Long read) A good summary from Vox on what and why are so many things seem to be happening at the same time. “Things have always been happening” but I would argue it’s all going harder and faster as humanity undergoes an “unprecedented transformation,” so as practitioners we help ourselves by understanding the evolving sources of where the problems we deal with - more travel disruption from typhoons, the public caring more and having less patience with what your company makes / does - come from, and how those in other fields have succeeded and failed tackling them. What an extra 0.9 watts per square meter of energy can do.
Connecting academic research, policy, advocacy and ground practice 🔍
The Stockholm Environmental Institute did a piece on the challenges and pitfalls of nature-based solutions a couple of years back. Key points that stuck with me are the power and knowledge imbalance between project developers + funders with local communities, and well-known risks of perpetuating the marginalising of said communities. We’ve seen time and again in conventional infrastructure, forestry and mining projects that poorly implemented projects which create or amplify these risks can end in protests, violence, and the destruction of property and livelihoods. Researchers should connect with project managers and their security teams to better understand how these pitfalls manifest and their root causes.
🎧 If you’re looking for a new podcast to get into, Climate Diplomacy, from the folks at German think-tank adelphi. They go into a wide range of topics, connecting climate themes to things from the war in Yemen, resilience gone wrong, farmer-herder conflicts in the Sahel, and climate justice. I covered security and climate justice / just transition a few months back.
🇦🇺 It’s not just companies who can do much better at connecting the dots. Australia, it seems, does not have a national security adviser. It’s ridden on the coattails of globalisation, cheap credit, sunshine, Kylie Minogue and pax Americana for decades, but clouds are on the horizon. Worth a read from thinktank ASPI.
One of the first times (I think?) the US State Department has come out with an out-and-out climate security presser after COP 28. With an obvious focus on disaster risk reduction, crisis response and defence cooperation - the conversation is headed in the right direction.
Cool use of AI-enabled modelling to map trends in water-related conflicts - including in “conventional” ones like Ukraine. Could be an interesting input into the policy toolkit when thinking about what’s in the mix of a military / development aid package.
How are we gonna make some money out of this? 💰
☸️ Navigate geopolitics by getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. You’re on board with sustainability and climate risk? Well, poorly managed geopolitical risk becomes a big core business risk, as well as the literal literal sustainability of your business model. The fix, which the author of this FT piece and I are in violent agreement:
Asset management houses need to make sure they have the relevant skills for today’s world. The industry should consider where they recruit from, for example, to equip themselves with right perspectives and expertise. Graduates with politics and history degrees are as important and relevant today as those who have studied finance and economics. Diversity of thought is as important as diversity of background. Often, the two go together.
(Long read) The Boston Consulting Group, alongside Nate Matthews and the Global Resilience Partnership, launched a new report at COP 28 on investing in climate resilience. I’ll be digging more into this in a future post, but I like the report breaking down opportunities into protect / grow / participate to make thinking about the space more manageable. Worth a read if you’re thinking about how to go beyond the words “climate resilience” / “climate security” into real, targeted, bankable opportunities across the spectrum of capital.
Water is at once an attractive and challenging as an asset class. Everyone needs to consume it, but the value of it is way out of whack. Prioritising water security - making it cleaner, better managed, accessible to as many people as possible - is one of the hills I’ll die on as a risk practitioner, investor and human being. I wrote at length about water security and the opportunities for both risk managers and investors here and here. Mazarine Ventures is one of the VCs really leaning into adaptation themes, with a particular focus on water as a key pillar for climate adaptation (recall that at COP 28 it was agreed that water is a key criteria for measuring progress on the Global Goal for Adaptation).
Burnt Island Ventures is another water-focused VC, and they just started their own podcast.
Data, data, data. Models, models, models. Everyone’s doing it - consultancies, startups, insurance firms, banks, governments. I’ll add one more to the mix because it’s publicly available: Oxford’s sustainable finance institute has a both a resilient data hub and an assessment tool intended to help drive climate-resilient infrastructure investments - particularly in developing and island nations.
Standards for “what is good” climate resilience across many sectors is critical to unlocking private capital at scale. The IFC and World Bank are trialling such a standard for the building sector.
Many climate adaptation opportunities beyond capex to protect existing assets e.g. a flood wall around a factory by the river, especially those dealing in new tech innovations, will face the same valleys of death as countless other startups. I like CTVC’s overview of this landscape via the climate tech lens, layering on the impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act.
⛅️ Finally, geo-engineering, or the more innocuous-sounding solar radiation management. I think it’s going to happen whether we want to or not, with some serious side effects ranging from agriculture, water supply and military use. It’s an ethical choice whether to “get ahead of it.”
To wrap up the year…thank you 🙏🏼
This doesn’t happen without you, the reader. Thanks for the feedback and kind words over the past year. Your support is a big part of what keeps me motivated to write, even when it hasn’t been easy.
And special thanks to those who have helped me grow on this journey by sharing their expertise and experience, and sounding out ideas and solutions: the global security team, CSO and multiple colleagues at my employer; Erin Sikorsky, Lorraine Schneider, Richard Nugee, Jay Koh, Darius Nassiry, Tom Ellison, Scott Moore, Jay Lokarajan, Lewis Sage-Passant, Colin Reed, Pranoti Surve, Nikki Deiner, Cory Combs, Melissa Burghardt, Cody Simms and Leone Baron from My Climate Journey, my Zebras cohort and the folks at Terra.do, Nathanial Matthews, Emma Whiteacre and many more.
And like the Driving Crooner, from the new year I plan to test a couple of things to gauge interest in a paid version of this newsletter. It may include guest interviews, more detailed primers, comms guidance etc. For now though, everything will be free, nothing will change. Get in touch if you have any feedback or wish to discuss more!
See ya in the new year!
Alan