The Elephant in the Climate Room: Why Climate Security Must Shape the Future of Global Climate Governance
Climate security, the collision of climate vulnerability and political fragility, is no longer a distant concern. It’s a defining challenge for global governance. Yet despite growing awareness, it remains conspicuously absent from formal COP negotiations. In this timely and strategic report, Surge Africa argues that COP, starting with COP30 in Belém (Brazil), must confront this blind spot or risk deepening global instability.
The report charts climate security’s rise from the margins to the mainstream, though the nexus has been overlooked in key COP negotiations like the Global Stocktake and the New Collective Quantified Goal continue to omit conflict-related language. Brazil’s presidency adds further complexity: historically resistant to the climate-security agenda, Brazil frames environmental degradation as a sovereignty issue and prioritizes development-first finance narratives that exclude fragile states.
Five systemic barriers were identified to explain the absence of climate security discussion during negotiations: fragmented definitions, institutional siloes, financial competition, geopolitical tensions, and the chronic underrepresentation of fragile states and frontline communities. Yet the report doesn’t stop at diagnosis and rather offers a roadmap forward.
By framing climate security both as a risk lens and a governance framework, the report shows how COP can become a platform for peace. It calls for non-negotiated initiatives, integration of climate-security indicators into national plans, inclusive finance reform, and cross-sector coalitions that bridge climate, peace, and development.
COP30 presents a pivotal opportunity. If climate security is institutionalized, COP can evolve from a technical forum into a driver of resilience and global cooperation. If ignored, it risks becoming irrelevant to the world’s most pressing threats.
Read the full report to explore what’s at stake, and what must change.