The report Climate Change and International Security presented by the Council of the European Union discusses the potential security threats resulting from climate change, and measures that can be taken to mitigate such threats. 

Climate change is best viewed as a threat multiplier which exacerbates existing trends, tensions and instability. The core challenge is that climate change threatens to overburden states and regions which are already fragile and conflict prone.

The UN estimates that all but one of its emergency appeals for humanitarian aid in 2007 were climate related. In 2007 the UN Security Council held its first debate on climate change and its implications for international security. The European Council has drawn attention to the impact of climate change on international security and in June 2007 invited the High Representative and the European Commission to present a joint report to the European Council in Spring 2008.

Investment in mitigation to avoid such scenarios, as well as ways to adapt to the unavoidable should go hand in hand with addressing the international security threats created by climate change; both should be viewed as part of preventive security policy.

The full report can be found here.