UK launches climate security taskforce to assess national risks

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UK launches climate security taskforce

Highlights

UK launches an expert climate security taskforce on 26 June, co-chaired by Katie White and Dame Angela Eagle, to assess national security risks.
The taskforce aligns with the UK's 2025 National Security Strategy and reviews resilience plans to address threats from climate change and nature loss.
Extreme weather in the UK led to £800 million in crop losses in 2025 and over 1,500 heat-related deaths last summer, underlining economic and security risks.

Government taskforce and policy scope

As announced by GOV.UK, Climate Minister Katie White on Friday 26 June launches what the government describes as a first-of-its-kind expert taskforce to help the UK better anticipate and respond to climate-related security threats. The group brings together security, military and academic experts and is co-chaired by White and Security Minister Dame Angela Eagle.

The taskforce is meeting to identify the most serious climate and nature threats to national security, review resilience work already under way across government and produce recommendations to improve readiness. The move aligns with the UK’s 2025 National Security Strategy, which identifies climate change and nature loss as drivers of global instability, economic disruption and wider security risk.

The government says the initiative builds on broader climate policy, including the seventh Carbon Budget target set out earlier this month. That target aims to cut emissions by 87% between 2038 and 2042, with ministers linking the plan to lower energy bills, reduced exposure to fossil fuel price shocks and stronger investment in the UK’s clean energy economy.

Economic and national security implications

Recent conditions are underlining the domestic cost of climate pressures for households and businesses. As Britain experiences another record heatwave this week, the UK Health Security Agency estimates there were more than 1,500 heat-related deaths last summer, while analysis shows hot and dry conditions in 2025 led to £800 million in crop losses for British farming.

Ministers say the risks now extend across borders and sectors, affecting migration, food and water access, energy systems, supply chains and financial stability. The taskforce is taking what the government calls a joined-up approach, including assessing how climate impacts overseas can translate into domestic pressures and how geopolitical tensions may intensify in regions such as the Arctic, where melting ice is creating new security challenges.

Taskforce members also frame climate change as a core security issue for the current decade. Janani Vivekananda of Adelphi Global says climate security now requires early, integrated and evidence-based action, while General Richard Nugee of the Ministry of Defence says climate change and biodiversity loss have major implications for the country’s security and wider well-being.

In our earlier article on Europe’s heatwave-driven economic disruption, we noted that extreme heat is increasingly being treated as a structural risk as power systems, transport networks and labour productivity come under growing strain. We also highlighted research pointing to rising GDP losses and widening corporate exposure to heat-related operating and valuation risks as temperatures remain elevated.

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