China, India and the USA’s different approaches to climate security

The three major powers at the centre of COP26 - China, India and the USA, have differing perspectives on the link between climate and security. Yet how does this impact their climate policy? What are the drivers behind the ways the different countries think about the relationship between security and the environment? How does this impact the vital cooperation needed to make COP 26 a success?

Recorded just as COP 26 was getting underway, the third episode of this five-part mini-series on Climate Change and National Security focuses on these questions. Dr Duraid Jalili from the King’s Environmental Security Research Group and Professor Matt McDonald from the University of Queensland, speak to leading climate security experts including Erin Sikorsky, Director of the Center for Climate and Security and the International Military Council on Climate and Security, Dhanasree Jayaram, Assistant Professor in the department of Geopolitics and International Relations at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education in India, and Karl Hallding, Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environmental Institute.

In this honest discussion, reveals where the governments are going wrong the experts reflect on the barriers and obstacles of different climate security approaches as well as emerging opportunites. Including whether China’s Belt and Road initiative is actually as ‘green’ as they claim, how territorial contestations undermine climate cooperation and how bringing a climate lens to security can help strengthen relationships with partners and allies.