The climate crisis is already reshaping the conditions of security in peacetime and, in doing so, the prerequisites for effective defence. From a preparedness perspective, resilience is decisive for comprehensive defence.
Security Begins Before the Crisis
Security policy debates in Germany and across Europe have intensified significantly in recent years. War in Europe, hybrid threats, fragile supply chains, and geopolitical power shifts define today’s strategic environment. At the same time, the climate crisis acts as a profound structural transformation that amplifies, accelerates, and overlays these developments. Under such conditions, security and defence can no longer be understood exclusively in military or reactive terms.
The climate crisis is already reshaping the conditions of state capacity in peacetime. Extreme weather events such as prolonged heatwaves, droughts, heavy rainfall, or wildfires place sustained pressure on administrations, emergency services, infrastructure, and supply systems – often simultaneously and over extended periods. These stresses affect precisely those civilian structures on which comprehensive defence also depends. This shifts the focus of security planning to the civilian domain.
It is important to be clear: climate change does not occur “out of the blue.” Climate science can now robustly demonstrate that human-induced climate change increases the frequency and intensity of certain extreme events. Not every weather event is climate-related, but the statistical correlations are well established. At the same time, the impacts of the climate crisis are global, affecting fragile states and advanced societies alike, shaping migration patterns, geopolitical stability, resource availability, and conflict dynamics. Anyone who takes security seriously today cannot ignore these facts.
The climate crisis exposes structural vulnerabilities within state and societal systems that are central to comprehensive defence.
Against this backdrop, a fundamental question arises: does the climate crisis primarily act as a risk multiplier for comprehensive defence – or does climate-resilient preparedness itself constitute a strategic added value, a win-win for security, freedom, and democratic capacity to act?
From the perspective of strategic preparedness planning in civil protection, the climate crisis intensifies security risks. At the same time, it exposes structural vulnerabilities within state and societal systems that are central to comprehensive defence. Strain on emergency responders, disruptions of essential services, or limitations of municipal capacity already occur in peacetime and can be analysed empirically. This creates an opportunity to deliberately strengthen resilience and preparedness in the civilian domain – provided preparedness is understood as a permanent responsibility of both the state and society.
The Climate Crisis Is a Structural Risk Multiplier
In security strategies, the climate crisis is increasingly described as a risk or threat multiplier. This assessment is valid but incomplete if it focuses solely on individual extreme events. What matters most is its structural effect: the climate crisis permanently raises the baseline stress on state systems.
Climate-related crises rarely occur in isolation. They overlap with other stressors such as pandemics, economic disruption, or security-political tensions. For civil protection and civil defence, this means that the same personnel, organizational, and material resources are repeatedly and simultaneously strained. Emergency responders are deployed in parallel operations, administrations operate in a constant crisis mode, and critical infrastructure comes under sustained pressure. The ability to sustain operations and adapt under stress thus becomes a decisive factor of state capacity.
This also carries a security dimension that is often underestimated. Climate-related vulnerabilities can be deliberately exploited –for example through hybrid attacks, disinformation, or sabotage below the threshold of armed conflict. Major emergency situations therefore have not only physical but also political effects: they absorb resources, generate uncertainty, and can undermine trust in state institutions.
The climate crisis thus intensifies precisely those grey zones in which traditional instruments of disaster law and defence planning have limited reach. It demonstrates that security is not only decided in states of emergency, but in everyday governance under conditions of complex, overlapping strain.
Emergency Responders, Municipalities, and the Economy: Sustainability of Operations as a Core Issue
Germany operates an integrated emergency response system in which responsibilities are distributed across multiple levels and actors. These elements function as an interdependent system and build upon one another. Within this system, sustainability of operations is a key issue for all levels – particularly for coordination and overall functionality.
This is especially evident among emergency responders within civil protection. Fire services, emergency medical services, relief organizations, and other disaster response structures are already under significant pressure from climate-related deployments. More frequent and more intense extreme events lead to longer operations, increased physical and psychological strain, and direct impacts on personnel and infrastructure.
The climate crisis thus intensifies precisely those grey zones in which traditional instruments of disaster law and defence planning have limited reach
This is of central importance for comprehensive defence. Civil defence relies on the capacities of peacetime civil protection systems. Only if emergency responders remain operational under adverse climatic conditions will they be available in situations of heightened tension or defence. Sustainability therefore becomes a core security resource – not only technically, but also organizationally and in terms of personnel.
This highlights the close interdependence of the federal, state, and municipal levels, the private sector, and emergency organizations. Municipalities are responsible for essential public services, operate key infrastructure, and serve as the first point of contact for the population. Their preparedness decisions – such as backup power, personnel planning, fallback facilities, or crisis communication – directly affect operational capacity on the ground. The private sector is likewise part of the solution: as operator of critical systems, employer of emergency personnel, and partner in regional supply chains.
Resilient comprehensive defence emerges where these actors do not first coordinate during a crisis, but clarify roles, dependencies, and support mechanisms in advance. Persistent climate-related stress makes this coordination both more urgent and more visible.
This expanded understanding of preparedness also aligns with the objectives of Germany’s National Resilience Strategy, which explicitly defines resilience as a permanent cross-cutting responsibility of the state, the private sector, and society as a whole.
Preparedness Planning: Less Abstract, More Operational
Preparedness is often equated with stockpiles or emergency plans. From a comprehensive security perspective, this is insufficient. Strategic preparedness planning does not aim to pre-script every crisis in detail, but to secure the ability to act under uncertainty.
In practical terms, this means:
First, systematically identifying dependencies. Energy, water, IT, personnel, logistics, and communications are tightly interconnected. Preparedness planning reveals critical interfaces and cascading effects – for example where a power outage immediately affects healthcare, administrative capacity, and command structures.
Second, clarifying priorities before a crisis occurs. Which functions must be maintained under all circumstances? Where are temporary limitations acceptable? These decisions are politically sensitive but unavoidable – and without preparation they will be made in crisis mode under extreme time pressure and public scrutiny.
Third, ensuring organizational sustainability. This includes realistic personnel planning, redundancy in leadership and communication, and exercises that simulate scarcity rather than ideal conditions.
Fourth, operationalizing cooperation. Preparedness planning establishes coordinated procedures between administrations, emergency services, the private sector, and – where relevant – military actors. Trust matters, but without prepared structures it remains fragile.
From this perspective, preparedness becomes the hinge between civilian resilience and military defence capability. It strengthens security without unnecessarily restricting civil liberties – precisely because it operates in advance.
Supply Systems and Resilience as the Foundation of Comprehensive Defence
One particularly sensitive domain is the supply of essential goods and services. Energy, water, food, healthcare, mobility, and communications are not merely everyday services; they are pillars of state legitimacy. Climate-related disruptions affect these systems directly, with impacts comparable to scenarios relevant for defence planning.
This creates a strategic lever: measures that strengthen the climate resilience of supply systems simultaneously enhance comprehensive defence capability. Resilience is not an add-on, but a planning logic. It focuses not on maximum protection of individual assets, but on the ability of systems to remain functional or adapt under stress.
The most recent report by the German Environment Agency highlights that resilience is less a matter of individual technical protection measures than of clear responsibilities, robust data foundations, and coordinated procedures between municipalities, state and federal levels, infrastructure operators, and emergency response structures.
A European Dimension: Resilience Has No Borders
The climate crisis does not stop at national borders. Extreme events, supply chain disruptions, and resource constraints affect Europe as a whole. Comprehensive defence and resilience therefore need to be understood in a European context – for example through aligned preparedness standards, shared situational awareness, and mutual support during large-scale emergencies.
A resilient democracy is defined by its ability to manage crises without abandoning its core principles.
Civil protection offers a particularly effective entry point for European cooperation below the military threshold. Climate-resilient preparedness thus strengthens not only national, but also European security architectures.
Protecting Freedom Means Preparing in Advance
The climate crisis forces a rethinking of security – not as an exceptional state, but as a permanent responsibility. Freedom and security are not opposites. A resilient democracy is defined by its ability to manage crises without abandoning its core principles.
Strategic preparedness planning makes a vital contribution to this goal in everyday governance as well as in extreme situations. It creates capacity to act, transparency, and trust. In this sense, the climate crisis is not a marginal issue for comprehensive defence, but a critical test: it reveals whether security can be shaped in a forward-looking, cooperative, and freedom-compatible way.
