The Climate Security Narrative Toolkit

THE CLIMATE SECURITY NARRATIVE TOOLKIT

Communicating Safety and Security in a Climate-Altered World

February | 2024

Content Our Purpose Climate Security: A Working Definition Countering Dangerous Narratives 6 Narratives for Safety and Security in a Heating World A Climate Science Narrative: Migration is Adaptation Narrative Matrix More Narrative Opportunities

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Our Purpose In the United States, veterans of war deeply understand the tensions between democracy, justice, safety and security. We have seen how war and climate change multiply insecurities, both globally and at a very personal level. We have fought in wars over oil and we have aided the front lines of climate disaster.

📢 That is why we believe that protecting democracy and fighting for climate justice is what is going to keep us safe through the coming century.

This toolkit has been produced by Common Defense, the largest grassroots group of military veterans in the U.S., in order to develop and deploy new, principled climate narratives about real safety and security in a climate-altered world. We are doing this to increase climate literacy among veterans and within the military and security establishment, and to offer clear alternatives to prevalent dangerous narratives about climate change.

Real security means safety, community, dependability, and confidence.

Climate security means you feel safe and you are confident that other people also enjoy similar levels of safety from harm. It means we are all surrounded by dependable neighbors, helpers, first responders and teachers. We plan for our future, for our families’ futures, together.

Safety and community security are universal human values. Climate impacts — the effects of extreme weather and disasters on people —are also universal, but the means to adapt and recover are not equitably distributed.

📢 Real security means fighting for climate justice and for an equitable transition to a world rich in renewable energy.

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Climate Security: A Working Definition The U.S. government does not have a unified definition of the term “climate security.” We propose climate security means that continued safety for Americans is inextricably tied to the global imperative to reduce carbon pollution so that all people can all enjoy a safe, thriving, and liveable world in the immediate future and for generations to come. The U.S. climate security mandate should: Move the U.S. rapidly to 100% carbon-free energy to keep the planet below 1.5C temperature rise.

Acknowledge the impact of historic U.S. carbon emissions on the U.S. and the globe, and work to compensate for that impact in partnership with nations, states, industries and global partners.

Work together across borders to address climate consequences and drive ambitious climate action to advance security and quality of life of people, at home and around the world.

Establish safe pathways to ensure that climate-driven migrants have both the right to stay in their homes and the right to move to a safer place.

Rapidly shift long-standing U.S. military, political, humanitarian and trade priorities to protect U.S. and global communities from human-caused climate change.

📢 Real climate security means safe pathways — both domestic and international — for those who need to move, to ensure that they and their families can live in dignity and safety.

Countering Dangerous Narratives U.S. veterans, and our wider military community, are already fighting for climate justice, working to decarbonize our defenses and our economy and building resilience at home. But we are concerned that military planners, scholars, politicians and leading voices in the climate movement are establishing a dangerous climate security narrative that, whether intended or not, paints the people most vulnerable to climate change as a security “threat.” In many cases, this security threat narrative is used to press for more urgent climate action. But this same dangerous narrative — which portrays the very real needs of people experiencing climate impacts as a type of “risk” — feeds into our fears, and is then further exploited by those who stand to gain from a society governed by fear.

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📢 We must oppose the war profiteers, the border and surveillance industry (BSI), and military contractors,

whose business model is based on othering and chaos. They aim to emphasize future global conflict, degrade international relations, and further militarize borders, building bigger walls between societies.

This toolkit offers a few ways for veterans and other folks with an interest in safety and security to respond to the climate crisis in a way that strengthens democracy, unites people, leads with justice and respects basic rights.

6 Narratives for Safety and Security in a Heating World Below are six broad narrative ideas that communicate safety and real security in a climate-altered world.

Narrative

Supporting arguments

The real threat to our communities are the billionaires and politicians who continue to delay climate action and therefore endanger us all.

Climate change calls for a civil society response, a financial response, a scientific response, and a social response, not a military or police response.

We need new institutions, expertise and funding mechanisms to adapt.

Those experiencing the worst impacts of climate change have deep knowledge of our changing environment and resilience that the rest of the world can learn from.

Climate impacts are hurting people all over the world. Climate change — and those continuing to deny it exists or profiting from its devastating toll — is the real threat to humankind.

Fossil fuel companies and their financial backers continue to pollute the planet and delay climate action. They should be held to account.

We all just want our basic needs met on a heating planet.

The border and surveillance industry is using climate change to create an even more hostile, insecure environment for all of us.

The companies, lobbyists, investors, and banks who are influencing government policy and profiteering from migrant abuse can be called the Border and Surveillance Industry or BSI for short.

They are also using fear mongering and threats to sell more border walls, surveillance equipment to keep people divided.

Organizers fighting for climate justice, migrant justice, labor and tech justice as well as funders and activist investors can put effective pressure on the BSI, consistently pointing to their role in delaying decarbonization for dirty profits, endangering all of us.

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Real security means moving from fossil fuel scarcity for some to energy abundance and democracy for all.

We are at the end of the age of oil wars (up to half the wars since 1973) and well on our way in the race to clean energy.

Clean energy is plentiful, powered by sun and wind. Clean energy is cheap.

And clean energy is distributed, meaning communities can control their own power.

Abundant, low-cost electric power means new opportunities for many countries that have not seen the growth in industrial production that wealthier countries enjoy, allowing them to leapfrog decades of carbon pollution and hard lessons.

We need more opportunities for regional, cross-border climate solutions.

Countries that share borders, face many of the same climate impacts. Climate security demands that we find climate solutions that work across watersheds, agricultural regions, and economic blocks.

The earth is abundant in critical minerals needed for battery storage and other elements of the clean energy economy — we need strong labor and environmental standards, and international regulations to protect the rights of local and indigenous populations to their land and mineral resources and to guarantee access to green minerals for all.

In a globalized world, with abundant, low-cost energy, violent, militarized borders are an impediment to free commerce and freedom of movement.

We need a climate justice framework to ensure that people everywhere have equitable opportunities to adapt their lives and communities.

As we build a more climate secure world, we must recognize that people and nations with abundant energy, resources, and power bear more responsibility for our dangerously-altered climate and therefore also have a greater responsibility for the financing and the labor of repair.

Indigenous people, people from low carbon emitting economies in the Global South, people of color (the global majority), and women have a right to feel climate secure.

Climate justice means people experiencing climate threats have the right to stay on their land and be provided resources to adapt to climate impacts — but also the right to move — safely and with dignity if needed.

Climate action: There is a role for current and former military personnel in the energy transition.

It is essential and patriotic to rapidly decarbonize the military — including military objectives.

Veterans are uniquely positioned for good jobs in the clean energy economy and as leaders in ambitious national climate action.

Nations can help shape our future by dismantling the substantial military might that has propped up fossil fuel dictators, and usher in a future world order rooted in abundant clean energy, peace, and democracy.

That means that nations should be working together to invest in urgent climate action instead of reaching new military spending records (just over $2.2 trillion in 2022). Just 5% of global military spending could fund long overdue climate finance commitments.

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A Climate Science Narrative: Migration is Adaptation This is not the first time humans have moved for a more secure life and it won’t be the last time. Across the world people are already using migration as a way of coping with climate change.

For example, between 1910 and 1970, some 6 million Black Americans moved from the Southern U.S., where they were not safe, to the North, where they built homes, established new traditions, launched a Renaissance of art, literature and music in Harlem, moved politics, and helped the young nation become a more democratic, just, and dynamic place.

More recently, some 8 million Ukrainians fled the fossil-fuel driven war in their country and were welcomed in countries all over the world, from Poland and Germany to the United States, where they received emergency immigration statuses, had access to jobs and housing and were able to work for peace in Ukraine and return, if they chose.

People only leave their homes when they absolutely need to find a more secure home.

The Border and Surveillance Industry (BSI), propped up by the same investors who have benefitted so greatly from a century of fossil fuel pollution, is making human movement to safety more dangerous. BSI infrastructure, including a vast surveillance dragnet, puts everyone at risk, not just migrants.

In addition, significant national spending that is going to the BSI, is not being spent on real climate solutions, including climate finance, payments for losses and damages, and safe pathways for climate migrants.

When we talk about the billionaires and politicians driving climate change and extreme weather as the real threat facing humanity, it becomes immediately clear that people migrating for safety and security is a form of adaptation to these significant climate impacts. With the right policies and legal frameworks in place, migrants and host communities can all benefit from this movement.

We need to change the conversation about climate-driven migration because with the right support, migration can be a powerful tool for resilience.

📢 Real security means collaboration, resilience, demilitarization, and justice.

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Narrative Matrix The table below offers a quick menu of key phrases and specific story and campaign opportunities for communicating about climate change, safety and real security for people.

Opportunity

Threat

Values: Underlying frameworks that form a worldview

Real climate security in a clean energy world is: Safety Community Dependability Confidence Collaboration Resilience Peaceful societies Justice

Security, based on national/military/police response, is: Fear Threats Danger Nationalism Scapegoating, eco-fascism, nativism Race to the bottom More dangerous and less secure

Narratives: Connected stories and messages that evoke emotion, analysis and action

Advancing migration as adaptation: Defining security as safety Freedom to thrive Dignity Abundance

Calling climate change a “threat multiplier” leads to: Flood, surge, wave metaphors

Energy democracy Security for all Freedom to stay and freedom to move Solidarity between communities facing climate impacts Exposing the real villains who profit from border violence and climate chaos

Threat displacement, climate gentrification, elite fortification, disaster capitalism, and weaponizing vulnerability (Warner and Thomas) Fighting climate change with wartime footing and metaphors of war More weapons Militarized borders Vast surveillance dragnet

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More Narrative Opportunities

Stories: Characters and story arc to create meaning

Linking US internal climate migration and global climate migration stories of people.

Stories of climate insecurity in sending nations (Central America, Sahel, Pacific Islands, etc.), linked to wealthy country (U.S.) emissions.

Bring home (repatriate) deported US veterans.

Support legislation like the Climate Displaced Persons Act — agreement around specific goals for climate-linked migration.

Keep onus on climate change — and billionaires and politicians driving it — as the major threat to people.

Climate-linked migrants as protagonists; don’t impose vulnerability on people.

Increasing climate literacy among military ranks and veterans, including retraining for renewable energy/green jobs.

Protecting Arctic ice and keeping Arctic resources in the ground.

Victory gardens, local food production, veterans and migrants in sustainable ag Cooperation and friendly competition with China on clean energy build out War in Ukraine, Palestine, Congo, Sudan and everywhere is setting back climate progress and premised on dated extractive ideologies

Messages: Hashtags, slogans, etc, to inspire us to think and act To protect our communities and our country, we must act now to prevent the most catastrophic outcomes of a warming planet.

Climate justice is migrant justice.

We all deserve the right to stay with dignity AND the right to move with dignity.

Other?

February | 2024

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