News about global climate impacts that elevate mortality, wreak weather havoc, and create massive displacement is inescapable. And those are just the stories that make the headlines. Droughts in Africa are estimated to impact 250 million people and displace 700 million more by 2030. Climate impacts brought on by El Niño are devastating the food supply chain, exacerbating Guatemala’s struggle to reduce childhood malnutrition.

Climate change’s ripples reach every corner of the globe, but nowhere is their geopolitical impact more pronounced than in China’s relations with the United States. This is especially the case as the undisputed security risks posed to both nations by climate change become intertwined with broader arcs of political, economic, and military competition on both sides.

The impacts of a changing climate touch every region of the globe, but they are acutely felt by people in Uganda, where floods, droughts, and shifting rainfall patterns disrupt agricultural productivity, livelihoods, and the health and well-being of millions of people. According to the ND-GAIN index, Uganda is the 13^th most vulnerable nation in the world, and action there is urgently needed to better prepare for and adapt to climate change’s impacts.

The latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlights the small window of opportunity available to achieve climate resilient development, despite the growing risks of reaching tipping points. Environmental advocates argue that the UN’s warnings should remain front-and-center, including those that highlight worsening climate trends already experienced by developing nations.

The Horn of Africa now faces an unprecedented drought, with conditions not seen in the last 40 years. The implications of this looming catastrophe reach beyond the most recent severe drought periods in the region, which occurred in 2010 and 2011 and again in 2016 and 2017.

As of November 2022, over 36 million people in the Horn were affected by drought, including 24.1 million in Ethiopia, 7.8 million in Somalia, and 4.2 million in Kenya. More than 20 million children in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia need immediate water and food assistance. In addition, nearly 1 million pregnant and lactating women are acutely malnourished. Since mid-2021, more than 9.5 million livestock have perished in the region due to a lack of water, starvation, and disease.

Climate impacts are growing more frequent and severe as global temperatures rise. Weather-related disasters have seen a five-fold increase over the past half-century. In many cases, these calamities are already testing the adaptation capabilities of vulnerable communities across the world. If emissions follow the trajectory set by current country targets, the chance of temporarily overshooting the 1.5 °C target in the next five years is 48 percent.

This failure would have implications for the global economy and international security. Yet despite the fact that climate change shapes geopolitics, climate risk itself has rarely been featured in international geopolitics and diplomacy.

Ever since the CNA’s Military Advisory Board—composed of former U.S. military personnel—named climate change as a “threat multiplier” in a 2007 report, the term has gained widespread currency both in environmental and national security circles. It also has propelled the need to assess and address climate-related security risks higher up overall policy agendas.

“One of the challenges of responding to climate risks is that climate’s impacts and how those impacts interact with existing systems on the ground are so varied and specific to a given place,” said Lauren Risi, Director of the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change & Security Program, at a recent PeaceCon conference panel on climate change, violence, and migration in Central America. “But there is also an opportunity in how we respond to develop more agile, just, and sustaining programs and policies that go beyond a singular focus on responding to climate change and instead build the overall resilience of communities.”