The militarisation and geopoliticization of the climate agenda

Because the ecological crisis is essentially a multidimensional crisis, as complex as it is scalable, climate change agendas are easily instrumentalised to achieve geopolitical, political, and economic goals other than climate change mitigation or adaptation. Over the last few years, we have witnessed the rise of specific arguments and strategies for economic transformation for sustainability and climate change, which increasingly rely on matters of security, whether it is energetic, national or social. However, it is argued that beyond a strategic re-orientation, modern decarbonization strategies, at their core, have the potential to fuel global security and geopolitical rivalry (Brand and Wissen, 2024), with the ascension of military security “weaponinsing” climate and energetic transition agendas (Voung et al. (2024).

Some scholars have identified the emergence of a "security-sustainability nexus", meaning that, in different national contexts, an interlocking set of policies and justifications that combine state interests in geopolitical dominance with corporate interests in supply chain stability has been put forward as part of sustainable, resilient or green sourcing strategies (Riofrancos, 2024). The root of this intersection between security and sustainability perhaps lies in the fact that, from a material perspective, the so-called critical minerals are essential to the manufacturing of materials relevant for both renewable energy sources adoptions, such as the production of batteries, solar panels and wind turbines, and defense and intelligence high-tech applications, such as high-speed computing, advanced magnetic systems, amongst others.

Riofrancos (2024) cites the 2019 American Mineral Security Act as an example of a U.S. regulatory framework that mobilizes state-led industrial policy to strengthen critical mineral supply chains; this reading can also be extended to the SECURE Minerals Act of 2026. These frameworks are designed to address both U.S. state interests in countering Chinese geopolitical and market dominance and corporate and sectoral demands for supply-chain stability, while being framed as an environmentally superior “green” alternative to foreign imports. The guarantee of “economically sustainable prices” is also a present framing, in an exploration of a particular duality in the meaning of sustainability that has little to do with environmentally oriented prices, but rather with obtaining long-term, sustained, competitive prices in global markets.

Similarly, the 2020s' geopolitical tensions have also pushed the EU policy landscape towards security and competitiveness priorities: in particular, the decarbonisation objectives set out in the EU Green Deal are now contrasted with objectives for improved energy security and open strategic autonomy (Kivimaa and Entsalo, 2026). In this sense, the EU industrial policy also shifted from a climate- and sustainability-oriented agenda to an era of prioritising sustainable competitiveness, defence, and security - as depicted in the European Union priorities 2024-2029.

This intertwining between security and sustainability strategies entails that part of the international environmental politics space has become a site of conflict rather than cooperation, as states prioritise national competitiveness over the actual socio-ecological restructuring of production and consumption patterns, which arguably involves de-scaling industrial global value chains towards locally based and less material-intensive modes of living.

The impacts of war on energy provisioning systems

As briefly mentioned, part of the process of geopolitical shifting priorities was, and continues to be, influenced by the 2020s military conflicts. Here, we refer to what has been coined by some analysts as “The new twin fossil shock”, namely, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the US-Israel war with Iran in 2026. 

According to the International Energy Agency, the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February 2022 sparked the first truly global energy crisis of the century. As Russia is the world’s biggest fossil fuel exporter, energy prices, particularly of liquefied natural gas (LNG), spiked. Although they have now pulled back from record highs, the trend varies widely across regions. In many parts of the world, prices remain elevated and spread across the whole of economies, particularly affecting households' cost of living and access to electricity. This conflict led particularly to the realisation of the EU's dependency on Russian LNG.

It is interesting to note, however, that a considerable part of the LNG deficit in the EU was covered by a shift to US natural gas imports, rather than an effective transition to alternative or renewable energy sources. That is, despite the 2022 shock, vast amounts of EU’s public and private finance have been allowed – and encouraged – to flow into LNG terminals, AI data centres, and military expansion, while the material foundations of energy security - meaning alternative energy provisioning systems, such as renewable grids and amplified storage capacity – remained deficient. 

It is not a surprise then that, similarly, due to the spiralling Middle East conflict sparked by the US-Israeli war with Iran, the EU is now reviving the supply struggles of the 2022 gas crisis. The tensions around the Strait of Hormuz, a pivotal waterway for Gulf oil and gas to reach global buyers, led to the interruption of the world’s largest oil and LNG supply route, constraining global fossil fuel supply (Ember Energy, 2026).

Source IEA (2026)

Both wars profoundly altered trade patterns for oil and natural gas, making it explicit the need to restructure global fuel chains and local energy systems. However, it is also argued that the war in Iran exemplifies this shift in the logic of national security with regard to renewables (Center for Climate and Security). The fact is that rising tensions involving interconnected global energy systems and the inevitable crisis of energy dependence may stimulate specific forms of critical materials and energy supply that are deeply nationalist and geopolitically aggressive, threatening to disrupt the global cooperation needed to confront the polycrisis that defines the contemporary world.

The cost of war for Brazil’s economy and ecological transition

The impacts of the war in Iran on Brazil were mainly associated with fuel prices and their effects on logistics, transportation, and trade, given the inflationary potential of these products across all production chains. Although Brazil’s trade agenda with Iran is limited, Iranian fertiliser imports carry relative weight, mostly due to the input's relevance to Brazilian agribusiness. The dependence of Brazilian agriculture on the international supply of fertilisers, especially those from Russia, is one of the vulnerabilities associated with the military conflicts mentioned.

Thus, the clearest impact on the Brazilian economy was inflationary pressure on fuels, but not on the national energy supply. Brazil’s oil dilemma calls into question Petrobras’s international parity pricing policy - an extensive and controversial debate that fundamentally concerns the government’s willingness to adopt measures of national sovereignty and to protect the economy and the population from the inflationary shock.

Although Brazil still depends on LNG imports, the impacts of the wars on energy supply systems and on Brazilian energy security - defined as the uninterrupted availability of energy, in sufficient quantity and at affordable prices for all - were not as severe, given the diversified nature of Brazil’s energy matrix.

Thus, energy security in Brazil today depends more on the impacts of climate change and on the structuring of an energy provision system that strategically harnesses the country’s renewable energy generation potential. At present, there is a mismatch between electricity generation and consumption, leading to supply shortages and outages. Energy storage systems are essential to the energy transition, compensating for the intermittency of renewable sources.

It is noteworthy that economies are increasingly interconnected and that risks of disruptions to value chains, whether driven by climatic or geopolitical factors, have also been increasing. Brazil’s position in light of this reality should therefore reflect the lessons learned in the international context, with particular focus on (i) transforming domestic systems of social provision so as to make them less vulnerable to international dependencies - for example, through diversification and decentralization - without (ii) intensifying a predatory stance toward global natural resources in ways that would weaken international spaces for cooperation through expansionist and ultranationalist posturing.

In the case of protecting the national energy system, which is partially dependent on natural gas imports, a policy more appropriate to national energy security could take as its starting point the diversification and decentralization of the energy matrix, fostering (i) the popular production of energy, for example through the community production of biogas via the circular management of local organic waste, together with (ii) the expansion and strengthening of the public provision and storage of electricity.

References

BRAND, U.; WISSEN, M. Eco-Imperial Tensions: Decarbonization Strategies in Times of Geopolitical Upheaval. Critical Sociology. p 08969205241252774. 2024. doi: 10.1177/08969205241252774

KIVIMAA, P.; ENTSALO, H. Synergies and Tensions between Decarbonisation, Security and Strategic Autonomy in EU Energy Policy. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions. v. 59. p 101109. 2026. doi: 10.1016/j.eist.2026.101109

RIOFRANCOS, T. The Security–Sustainability Nexus: Lithium Onshoring in the Global North. Global Environmental Politics. v. 23. n. 1. p 20–41. 2023. doi: 10.1162/glep_a_00668

VUONG, Q. H.; LA, V. P.; NGUYEN, M. H. Weaponization of Climate and Environment Crises: Risks, Realities, and Consequences. Environmental Science & Policy. v. 162. p 103928. 2024. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103928