Shrinking spaces, new levers: Turning climate adaptation into strategic advantage for energy and defence

When: Tuesday 06 October 2026 | 09:30 - 10:15

Format: Panel Discussion

Hosted by: adelphi global and the German Federal Foreign Office

Geopolitical fragmentation has not killed climate action, it has rewritten its logic. Energy security, critical minerals and defence resilience are now the primary languages in which governments are making the case for climate ambition. This opening session makes the affirmative case: that the current moment, precisely because of its instability, has created new and durable entry points for integrating climate adaptation across national security, industrial and economic planning. The task is no longer to argue for relevance. It is to identify which cross-sectoral coalitions and governance innovations are already translating ambition into results and how to scale them.

Guiding Questions: 

• Where has geopolitical pressure accelerated, rather than blocked, climate integration into national security planning, and what made that possible?
• Which governance innovations — across defence, finance, trade, and energy — are most effectively translating climate ambition into security co-benefits at scale?
• As coalitions of the willing replace multilateral consensus, how do we ensure that the communities most exposed to climate impacts retain a seat at the table?

Return to the BCSC 2026 Agenda.