A NATO Center for Climate Security? Canada and Holland say yes

The Netherlands supported a new NATO Center of Excellence to study security threats posed by climate change during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s official visit to the Netherlands.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said during a joint press conference with Trudeau on Friday that, like many around the world, “NATO is also focusing more attention on the climate problem.”

“And that is why we are working at NATO’s center of excellence on climate and security,” he said, standing next to Trudeau.

“Canada has offered to host the center. In the view of the Netherlands, Canada would be the perfect home for this platform, given a strong profile and commitment to this important issue.”

Trudeau first announced his intention to ask allies to support the development of such a center during the NATO leaders’ summit in Brussels in June.

The hope is that the design and negotiation process will take place this year and next, and begin establishing the center in 2023. Canada said the center would help NATO members better understand, adapt, and mitigate the implications. climate change security.

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Earlier this month, the United States released climate security strategies from various departments, including Defense, Homeland Security and Commerce, to seek ways to deal with how climate disasters could force mass migrations of people, exacerbating conflicts and starting new wars.

The Pentagon and British defense departments have been developing climate security plans for more than a decade.

The new Canadian center would become a strategic addition to NATO’s more than two dozen think tanks. The centers offer the military alliance’s expertise and research capabilities to develop doctrines and approaches for a wide range of global security challenges.

They are based mainly in European countries, and are dedicated to the study of civil-military operations, cyber defense, military medicine, energy security, naval mine warfare, counter-terrorism, operations in cold weather, among others.

In recent years, the Estonian-based NATO cyber center of excellence has focused on fighting internet-based warfare which has included countering threats posed by Russian hackers with the aim of disrupting Western democracies through of disinformation campaigns.

Trudeau also took up these types of campaigns on Friday in a speech to Dutch MPs at the historic Ridderzaal.

Paying tribute to the friendship between Canada and the Netherlands that grew out of World War II, Trudeau said that the very values ​​and security that the Allied forces fought to defend are in jeopardy.

“It’s not just conspiracy theorists and outcast and angry people online,” he said. “They are also the state actors who use disinformation, propaganda and cyber warfare to damage our economies, our democracies and undermine people’s faith in the principles that hold us together.”

Trudeau did not name any particular state actor, but more than one question from Dutch MPs focused on China’s growing influence, a fact that Trudeau said “poses tremendous challenges around the world for democracies and our trading systems.”

And yet Trudeau said China is too big of a player to withdraw the commitment entirely.

“We cannot pretend that China is not there, just fold our arms and ignore it,” he said. “He’s too big a player in our economies right now.”

Trudeau added that countries like Canada and the Netherlands should constructively engage China in trade, climate change, while challenging it on human rights, the situation in Hong Kong, the Uighurs, Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Trudeau also lobbied the Dutch parliament to ratify the comprehensive free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union, known as CETA. While the agreement is now largely in force, the legislatures of EU members are also expected to ratify it.

Trudeau said CETA has opened markets while protecting the environment and labor rights, as he offered a strong rebuke to opponents of the deal: “If you can’t do a free trade agreement with Canada, maybe you’re not in favor of it. of free trade “. absolutely.”

Trudeau also visited the Canadian War Cemetery with Princess Margriet of the Netherlands on Friday morning, where he laid a wreath and paid tribute to the 968 Canadians buried there.

Trudeau was repeatedly thanked for Canada’s role in helping liberate the Netherlands at the end of WWII.

He also held a panel discussion with climate adaptation experts at the Global Center for Adaptation in Rotterdam, which Canada helped establish. His trip also included a question and answer session with university students in The Hague and an official dinner with Rutte before leaving for Italy.

Trudeau will spend the next two days at the G20 leaders’ summit, before flying to Scotland for the UN COP26 climate talks.

This Canadian Press report was first published on October 29, 2021.