How can NATO be enhanced through decarbonization?
Source: CTV news
The following essay was written by one of our founding members, Giancarlo Da-Ré. Earlier this year, it was awarded first place in the Masters/PhD category for NATO’s Safer Tomorrow: Security Starts with You(th) competition.
NATO is facing increasingly complex threats exacerbated by climate change. Severe environmental events can increase instability and fuel conflicts that threaten NATO’s ability to fulfil its core tasks of collective defence, crisis management, and cooperative security. NATO is uniquely placed to enhance stability via early warning system information for climate risk and resilience intelligence. I propose for NATO to use its procurement power to promote the adoption of unmanned, green technologies for surveillance and early warning systems that improve response times and increase NATO presence in geographically challenging environments.
Reliable and timely intelligence is an essential aspect of NATO’s decision-making and consultation processes. While early warning systems are helpful in the event of a crisis, they also provide benefits relating to conflict prevention and risk assessments. This includes ongoing analyses on the impacts of climate change on NATO’s strategic environment and assets, as well as the integration of climate change considerations into security risk and resilience assessments on security situations in regions of interest. Intelligence reports are particularly important when considering NATO’s human resource constraints. While it is essential that NATO continue to establish a presence in areas of interest, it is unrealistic to assume that there is an endless supply of human resources to draw from for these purposes. NATO will be further stretched in terms of its resource allocation by nature of the fact that climate change is a threat multiplier.
One way to gather intelligence for informed and timely decision-making is with unmanned technologies. Unmanned technologies can be deployed to monitor situations or environmental conditions through the gathering of data, which, when combined with AI algorithms, can detect risks that may otherwise be missed by the human eye. These risks can then be fed directly into surveillance and early warning intelligence reports. As NATO continues to improve its interoperability between internal and allied systems, this will make for extremely efficient intelligence gathering. An example of this could be data-gathering in the Arctic using interoperable systems that can be accessed by NATO and allies like NORAD. NATO’s current use of autonomous systems to examine the effects of climate change in the Arctic already demonstrates the explicit link between NATO’s Autonomy Implementation Plan and its Climate Change and Security Action Plan (CCSAP). This link can expectedly strengthen in the future in light of the recent 5-year contract with Northrop Grumman to supply NATO with a fleet of UAVs. Northrop Grumman has publicly shared their progress towards more energy-efficient UAVs, in line with an industrial shift towards a more sustainable future.
My proposal aims to further leverage the link between NATO’s Autonomy Implementation Plan and CCSAP to expedite the adoption of green technologies. With the help the NATO Science & Technology Organization and other private industry partners like Northrop Grumman, NATO’s Support and Procurement Agency can continue to update its RFP requirements to include special considerations for renewable, unmanned technologies that may be used for surveillance and early warning systems intelligence.
Some heightened reasons for increased surveillance and early warning systems include the opening of Arctic due to melting sea ice. The dual uses of surveillance technologies mean they can improve scientific, security, and military capacities in the Arctic all at once. Financially, these dual uses enhance burden-sharing and are cost-effective for NATO. When using autonomous technologies, data-gathering capacity for informed and timely decision-making is expanded, and use of interoperable systems (or systems of systems) to feed AI-rendered data into shared intelligence reports will increase trust between allies. Furthermore, by utilizing NATO’s procurement power to increase demand for sustainable technologies, NATO can both decrease its own emissions and push suppliers to be more sustainable. A push towards more sustainable technologies will also decrease NATO’s reliance on a volatile energy market, thereby increasing energy security and ease of fiscal modelling for the Alliance.
However, there are also risks. The largest being that, when these technologies are perceived to be in a defensive posture, they can provoke escalation through military spirals.
Another risk is that if one of these data-gathering technologies is intercepted by state or non-state actors, there is the possibility that data can be extracted from the device. Even without a physical interception of the technology, it may be possible these systems are targeted by a cybersecurity attack. It would therefore be necessary to have the highest level of cybersecurity used in these devices, as well as in any interoperable systems that could leave NATO or its allies vulnerable.
The increasing adoption of green technologies is a critical aspect in the fight against climate change. The impacts of climate change on political, financial, supply chain, food system, health, energy, and migratory systems mean that collective defence, crisis management, and cooperative security will be increasingly challenged. These implications disproportionately impact women and girls, as well as vulnerable populations already at heightened risk of exploitation by state and non-state actors. It is important for NATO to seize opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to use its influence to help push industry in a sustainable direction. Additionally, the use of surveillance and early warning systems will help decision-makers to remain informed and to mobilize appropriate resources during times of crisis, whether they be triggered by climate events or otherwise. Countries with limited early warning coverage can have disaster mortality rates eight times more than those with higher coverage. The integration of AI-rendered data into risk reports on interoperable systems will further increase preparedness and response. This will be particularly critical for Arctic security when considering Chinese plans for the Polar Silk Road and anticipated increased traffic of LNG shipments.
Overall, the increased use of unmanned, green surveillance technologies by NATO and its allies will help NATO to achieve its core tasks and advance its climate and innovation policy agenda. While not a silver bullet, it is an important step forward towards a safer and more sustainable future.