Europe’s shift in attention for defence focussed security

It will not be soon forgotten: the June 2025 NATO-top in the Hague where the heads of the 32 NATO countries came together to discuss the future of the alliance. Under pressure from US president Trump, members agreed to increase annual defence expenditure from 2% to 5% of GDP over the coming decade, raising defence spending to levels not seen since the Cold War. Although 1.5% of the agreed 5% raise can be directed to “defence-related expenditure”, such as critical infrastructure, the remaining 3.5% is supposed to be achieved entirely through core spending on arms and troops. For most members this will require a stark increase in military expenditure, as most are still hovering around the 2% mark, with some even not reaching the initial commitment. This historic agreement signals a shift in Europe’s focus to defence and security. With the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and with the US and Europe facing greater insecurity due to Trump’s claims that he will shift his focus to domestic issues, Europe is directing more attention to its potential insecurity. While before this shift, Europe was primarily focussed on climate decarbonization, economic integration and cooperative interdependence over hard defence.

Alarmingly, this change of attention comes at the cost of other issues. With limited state budgets, capacity and time, the shift in attention to defence means a decrease in attention to climate action. This, while climate change has been named a major security threat and the environmental impacts of military expenditure remain understudied. This raises the question what the connections are between climate change, militarisation and security. This article examines the tension between militarisation and climate change and argues why Europe should have climate action at the core of its security mission.

How climate change impacts security

The field of climate security has long been conducting research on how climate change increases conflicts and therefore negatively impacts (inter)national security, which is called the climate-security nexus. This nexus describes how climate change impacts, exacerbate existing social, economic, and environmental challenges in many contexts, which can contribute to insecurity at local levels, or even internationally. Security concerns linked to climate change include impacts on food, water and energy supplies, increased competition over natural resources, loss of livelihoods, climate-related disasters, and forced migration and displacement.

One geographic area that has given a lot of insight in the study on the climate-security nexus is the Sahel region, which faces temperatures rising 1.5 times faster than the global average. Most small-holder farmers and herders in this area are reliant on rain-fed agriculture, which is especially sensitive to changing rainfall patterns. Climate change has resulted in an increase in water scarcity, which fuels conflicts between farmers and herders and strains agricultural productivity. Scarcity of water and food has resulted in forced migration which led to further tensions and made communities more vulnerable to extremist groups. Although climate change does not directly lead to more terrorism and other forms of violent conflict, factors associated with it have appeared to be a catalyst to instability in the entire area, with cascading effects on the overall global security. As António Guterres described it: “Climate change is not the source of all ills, but it has a multiplier effect and acts as an aggravating factor for instability, conflict and terrorism”.

The understudied impacts of militarisation on climate change

In contrast to the impacts of climate change on security, the impact of militarization on climate change is an understudied field. The main reason for this is a lack of transparency because governments are not obliged to report on the emissions generated from military activities to the UNFCCC. Military emission reporting was kept out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, under pressure of the US. The 2015 Paris Agreement made emissions reporting voluntary. Only a handful of countries do report information on their military emissions, however data is often patchy or completely absent.

Amidst the uncertainty due to missing data, experts are developing ways to estimate the impact the military has on climate change. A 2022 report by the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) estimates the total military carbon footprint at 5.5% of global emissions. This means that if all the militaries in the world combined were a country, it would have the fourth highest carbon footprint, with only China, the US and India as higher emitters. If this estimation is true, the global military emission footprint is larger than that of shipping (3%) and civilian aviation (2%). Militaries, arms industries and wars themselves have a high carbon footprint. Fighter jets, tanks and warships are uniquely fuel-hungry and lead thus to a high level of direct emissions of the military. Additionally, military equipment also relies on supply chains of materials like aluminium, steel and critical raw materials, which production, refinement and transport are carbon intensive. Furthermore, military spending will also continue our system's dependence on fossil fuels, due to their military value and the lifetime of military equipment being 20-30 years. If we make more fuel-running tanks now, we will be needing fuel to power them for the coming decades.

An increase in military expenditure will increase all these emissions. Although it is hard to already predict what exactly the money will be spent on, Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) published a report estimating that the planned NATO military expenditure increase will lead to a rise of about 130 million tCO2 annually, similar to the total emissions of a country the size of Brazil each year. This will push the estimated 5.5% military contribution to the global footprint far higher, while it does not even take into account the emissions of actual conflict and the environmental impact of war.

There is no consensus on the question if an increase in global military spending will actually guarantee security. More money spent on defence fuels arms races, deepens mistrust among countries and has cascading effects leading to a potential higher risk of conflict. And military conflicts have a far greater environmental impact than just that of an increase in military expenditure. If shown a picture of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the complete decimation of Gaza, one can easily imagine how destructive war is on the environment. Polluting water basins and soils with highly toxic material, white phosphorus usage and the eradication of vegetation all contributed to experts describing Israel’s destruction of Palestinian land an “ecocide”. The destruction of the environment is often a strategy in war, with enormous impacts on climate change.

Even if an increase in military expenditure does not lead to more conflict, it still redirects public money away from climate action. The NATO commitment to raise defence spending by 3.5 percent of GDP will require most member states to redirect substantial portions of public funds toward arms and personnel, leaving less available for other critical priorities. Education, health services, social welfare programs, international development assistance and climate mitigation and adaptation efforts could all see their budgets squeezed. This is particularly concerning because investment in climate action and development abroad not only addresses environmental and humanitarian needs but also contributes to long-term stability and security. By prioritizing short-term military spending over these areas, governments risk undermining the very resilience they aim to protect, creating gaps in human, economic and environmental security that can have cascading effects for society at large. As said by US president.

These dynamics reveal a dangerous feedback loop between climate change and militarisation. As climate impacts intensify, governments perceive growing instability and respond by strengthening military capacities. Yet this very process of militarisation, through its massive carbon footprint and resource demands, accelerates the climate crisis that fuels insecurity in the first place. Instead of breaking the cycle, the current approach risks reinforcing it: more climate disruption drives more military spending, which in turn deepens the causes of that disruption. Understanding this loop is essential if Europe is to build genuine, lasting security rather than an illusion sustained by ever-rising defence budgets.

A broader understanding of security

Europe urgently needs to rethink what security means in an era of accelerating climate disruption. Military expenditure should not be exempt from climate accountability. National governments must require full and transparent reporting of military emissions under the UNFCCC, in line with recommendations from Scientists for Global Responsibility. Only with reliable data can military planning be aligned with national and international climate targets.

Additionally, a security strategy fit for the future would direct investment toward measures with dual civilian and defence benefits. Strengthening rail infrastructure, energy-independent bases and resilient supply chains contributes to both climate mitigation and strategic autonomy. It will lessen our dependence on fossil fuels from foreign powers, such as gas from Russia. By scaling up our renewable energy systems, we can produce the energy for our own demands, strengthening long-term resilience. At the operational level, greening military logistics and procurement would reduce emissions while improving long-term operational resilience, rather than reinforcing fossil fuel dependency for decades to come.

This is not to suggest that militaries have no constructive role to play in responding to the climate crisis. They have been essential in disaster relief efforts over the past decade, such as flood evacuations in Germany and wildfire responses in Greece. These capabilities do not require maintaining large, fossil-fuel-dependent militaries, but indicate that the focus should be on adaptive capacity building and increasing climate resilience.

However, democratic oversight is essential. Citizens and civil society have a role in ensuring that rising defence budgets are not financed at the expense of climate mitigation, climate adaptation or international development. By organizing events to raise awareness, discussing the topic in our communities and pressuring our politicians, we can create public discussion on these issues. Polluters, including the military sector, should no longer be shielded from taxation and need to commit to carbon pricing. This would incentivise cleaner practices, generate revenue for climate and security priorities and prevent the burden from falling on essential public service.

This scrutiny matters because the drivers of higher military spending are not always strategic. There are a number of reasons why Trump pushed to increase the NATO commitment, but we should not forget that he was first and foremost a businessman with stakes in the US military industry.

Although the impacts of climate change are uneven, their consequences are interconnected. A stable climate is a precondition for lasting security. Climate action must therefore move from the margins to the core of Europe’s security mission. The question is whether we act in time. Shall we?

This article is part of The Outside World, ftrprf’s very own research center.

For organizations, it’s pivotal to thoroughly understand what is happening in society. We help companies generate comprehensive insights into societal change and its potential effects on their strategy and operations, both negative and positive. With actionable societal insights, courageous plans, and a can-do mentality, we connect the outside world to your company's strategy. For these outside-world insights, we use a rigorous methodology that includes data processing, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and a thorough review process to ensure the accuracy and consistency of our findings.

For more information, please contact theoutsideworld@ftrprf.com.

The Outside World Weekly

At The Outside World, our research center, we keep a pulse on global developments through a societal lens. As part of this mission, we’ve created The Outside World Weekly—a digest delivering a curated selection of the most compelling news insights with our interpretation of why this matters and what the consequences for society might be.

Next articleAI and the Music Industry

Meet Tilly Norwood. She’s everything Hollywood could ever dream of. Her beautiful brown locks. Her poreless skin. Her 24/7 work ethic. Most importantly, she won’t age a single minute. Created by Particle6’s Eline Van Der Velden, Tilly is an AI-generated actress, who is said to be paving her own path for a new genre of AI actors and films (1). We’ve already seen, expectedly, uproar from actors with the recent criticism from actors union SAG-AFTRA, calling it “a replacement of human performers by synthetics”(2). Though, for Hollywood and the movie industry, it may seem easier to call out the rise of AI in displacing human creativity considering the conspicuousness of a synthetic woman acting out a scene. It’s perhaps not only because the sight of a non-human engaging in human conversations is awkward; after all, animated films still captivate audiences and the box office. But, the underlying factor may be the uncanny valley effect, where we, as viewers, question objects that verge on human appearances, but fail entirely in appearing human. We even raise our eyebrows at bad CGI; refer to the reception to Tarkin in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (3). However, before AI entered the final stage of long-form entertainment, it seeped into the media ecosystem on the wings of seemingly harmless melodies. As benign as they present, most lo-fi beats playing in the background as we attend to our studies are AI-generated (4). Though this particular kind of music fulfills a certain purpose–simple background music to calm the listener–it evolves into songs with lyrics generated by AI, or even sung by AI, and ultimately reaching the charts, fooling everyone. Say hello again to Xania Monet, an AI-generated R&B singer, created by Talisha Jones with Suno. Her streams have amassed millions, while Jones negotiated a $3 million record deal, approximately, with Hallwood Media(5). As personal a medium music is, listeners may stray away from the artificial sounds of Monet, but little do they know that the algorithms of music streaming apps incentivize these AI-generated artists. They even go as far as to purchase streaming bots that add to the monthly listeners for these “artists” to add to their credibility. How has AI affected the music industry, and if there are any, what are the boundaries to its exposure to art? Even though it may seem the use of AI in the music industry is a relatively new and noticeable phenomenon, it’s used in spaces where music listeners don’t often explore. According to a recent study in Gitnux, 45% of record labels are investing in AI-driven tools in production and mixing and mastering (6). Moreover, 52% of record labels believe AI helps them identify future hit songs and chart performances (6). Specifically, record labels who have directed methods of promotion from traditional outlets such as television toward social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, rely on the AI within social media platforms to configure how songs are discovered by new listeners(7). What’s surprising is that we are entirely blind to how many of our favorite and most-listened songs have undergone AI treatment in any step of its creation process. It’s quite reasonable to understand why record labels may employ AI in any aspect of their industry. As profit-driven companies, record labels could cut down on investing in songwriters, producers, while sacrificing the classic appeal of a musician. With 65% of record labels using AI for music creation, AI-generated music is projected to generate $1.5 billion by 2025 (8). At the same time, labels have been feverishly protecting their artists, songwriters, and producers from the infiltration of AI. As it is known, AI, when writing, producing, mixing, or mastering, is using current and past music catalog, identifying patterns, in order to generate lyrics and create instrumentals. Of course, most of the current and past music catalog, represented by artists currently on the label’s roster, or owned by the label, are worth protecting. Last June, music label conglomerates Sony Music, UMG, and Warner Records sued AI companies Suno and Udio for copyright infringement(9). These AI companies were using music by the labels’ artists to generate AI-versions of such music. Considering the duality of record labels in implementing AI in their practices, but also vehemently opposing other AI companies from exploiting their artists, it is worth questioning where do we draw the line when it comes to AI in creative spaces? Does the use of AI in simple fine-tuning of a finished song still contribute to AI in songwriting, or producing? And when AI generates songs that are consumed, who owns these creations? Does it belong to the artist whose catalog the AI based their creation on? Who ends up benefiting from AI in creative spaces? These questions are still left unanswered. The recent conversation surrounding AI music and artists began with “The Velvet Sundown,” a rock band with more than 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify, who was revealed to be AI-generated. Their most popular song “Dust on the Wind” has topped the charts in Sweden, which shows some appeal with AI-generated music (10). Many artists in the music industry have raised valid concerns about the rise in AI-generated music and AI music creation, signing a petition from the Artist Rights Alliance; notable artists include Billie Eilish, Katy Perry, and Nicki Minaj, to name a few (11). For artists, certainly there are AI uses that can be beneficial in production and composition. But the nefarious effects lie in siding with AI-generated statements based on statistics and abstract values over their own creative decisions. For independent artists, a Gitnux study indicates that 82% believe AI can be beneficial in their music creation, lowering the barriers for access to songwriting camps, production tools, and promotion (12). AI’s impact is not limited to the music industry. For film, publishing, gaming, and marketing, AI is used to copy the likeness of existing or past celebrities for their own incentives. Spotify, a major music streaming service, has navigated the new waters of an inevitable presence of AI in music. Certainly, there are parts of their service that will always be dependent on AI such as its algorithm for music recommendation on “Discover Weekly” or “Daily Mixes.” For many consumers, this curation and discovery of new music are likely convenient to using Spotify. At the same time, Spotify is partnering with record labels mentioned earlier as well as rights-holders such as Merlin Network to develop responsible AI music products (13). While no specific details have emerged as of late, it is certainly in the right direction for Spotify to protect artists as issues such as undercompensation of artists’ work on Spotify has been a major issue (14). In addition, with the rise in false, spam tracks on the platform, Spotify has revealed its removal of 75 million of these tracks, most of which generated by AI (15). Their policy is to introduce a 1000-stream minimum for royalty payments to filter out spam artists and songs, which could be a double-edged sword, when interpreted in the undercompensation issue. With the rise of AI in all parts of society, there are definitely difficulties AI assuages. However, its entry into creative spaces, which has been bound to happen, is always concerning. But we can agree that there must be a balance between quantity and quality; quantity, that is at the expense of displacing so many of our human artists. So how do companies ensure AI doesn’t influence their artists or compromise authentic work, and how can consumers play a role in preserving art? Shall we? This article is part of The Outside World, ftrprf’s very own research center. For organizations, it’s pivotal to thoroughly understand what is happening in society. We help companies generate comprehensive insights into societal change and its potential effects on their strategy and operations, both negative and positive. With actionable societal insights, courageous plans, and a can-do mentality, we connect the outside world to your company's strategy. For these outside-world insights, we use a rigorous methodology that includes data processing, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and a thorough review process to ensure the accuracy and consistency of our findings. For more information, please contact theoutsideworld@ftrprf.com. At The Outside World, our very own research center, we keep a pulse on global developments through a societal lens. As part of this mission, we’ve created The Outside World Journal—a weekly digest delivering a curated selection of the most compelling news insights with our interpretation of why this matters and what the consequences for society might be. Read the journal here . Sources: Duffy, Clare. “Hollywood Is Fuming over a New ‘ai Actress’ | CNN Business.” CNN, October 1, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/30/tech/hollywood-ai-actor-backlash. SAG-AFTRA statement on Synthetic performer | SAG-AFTRA. Accessed October 20, 2025. https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-statement-synthetic-performer. McMillan, Graeme. “‘Rogue One’: That Familiar Face Isn’t Familiar Enough.” The Hollywood Reporter, April 17, 2023. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/rogue-one-grand-moff-tarkins-familiar-face-isnt-familiar-957178/. Press-Reynolds, Kieran. “How Ai Wreaked Havoc on the Lo-Fi Beat Scene.” Pitchfork, July 2, 2025. https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-ai-wreaked-havoc-on-the-lo-fi-beat-scene/. Melville, Doug. “Al Singer Xania Monet Just Charted on Billboard, Signed $3M Deal. Is This the Future of Music?” Forbes, October 6, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougmelville/2025/09/27/al-singer-xania-monet-just-charted-on-billboard-signed-3m-deal-is-this-the-future-of-music/. Jannik.lindner@Globalcommercemedia.com. “Ai in the Record Industry Statistics Statistics: Zipdo Education Reports 2025.” ZipDo, May 30, 2025. https://zipdo.co/ai-in-the-record-industry-statistics. Ai in the Social Industry Statistics Statistics: Market Data Report 2025. Accessed October 20, 2025. https://gitnux.org/ai-in-the-social-industry-statistics/. Music labels Sue AI companies Suno, Udio for US copyright infringement | Reuters. Accessed October 20, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/music-labels-sue-ai-companies-suno-udio-us-copyright-infringement-2024-06-24/. Winkler, Daniel, Christian Hotz-Behofsits, Nils Wlömert, Dominik Papies, and Jura Liaukonyte. “The Impact of Social Media on Music Demand: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment.” arXiv.org, May 23, 2024. https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.14999. Nied, Michael. “Rock Band with More than 1 Million Monthly Spotify Listeners Reveals Itself as AI Project, Including Its Musicians.” People.com, July 10, 2025. https://people.com/rock-band-velvet-sundown-ai-generated-including-musicians-1-million-spotify-listeners-11769532. Alliance, Artist Rights. “200+ Artists Urge Tech Platforms: Stop Devaluing Music.” Medium, April 23, 2024. https://artistrightsnow.medium.com/200-artists-urge-tech-platforms-stop-devaluing-music-559fb109bbac. Jannik.lindner@Globalcommercemedia.com. “Ai in the Record Industry Statistics Statistics: Zipdo Education Reports 2025.” ZipDo, May 30, 2025. https://zipdo.co/ai-in-the-record-industry-statistics. “Spotify Partnering with Multinational Music Companies to Develop ‘responsible’ Ai Products.” The Guardian, October 16, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/16/spotify-ai-products-partnering-multinational-music-companies. “Spotify Made £56m Profit, but Has Decided Not to Pay Smaller Artists like Me. We Need You to Make Some Noise | Damon Krukowski.” The Guardian, November 30, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/30/spotify-smaller-artists-wrapped-indie-musicians. “Spotify Removes 75M Spam Tracks in Past Year as AI Increases Ability to Make Fake Music.” The Guardian, September 25, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/sep/25/spotify-removes-75m-spam-tracks-past-year-ai-increases-ability-make-fake-music.

2025-10-27

AI and the Music Industry

The Tension Between Militarisation, Security and Climate Change

Europe’s shift in attention for defence focussed security

How climate change impacts security

The understudied impacts of militarisation on climate change

A broader understanding of security