Ecological Security: Military or Civil Duty?

Speakers: Thammy Evans (Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center) & Gary Lewis (Author, Former UN Resident Coordinator)

Date: 12 February 2025

Speaker Session Summary

SMA hosted a speaker session with Thammy Evans (Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center) & Gary Lewis (Author, Former UN Resident Coordinator) as part of its SMA AFOE Phase III Climate Effects Speaker Series.

Ecological security will likely be one of the defining security issues of the 21st century. Mr. Lewis emphasized that the world is in a race between the harmful effects of global climate change and the delayed but necessary efforts in mitigation, adaptation, and regeneration. National security can no longer be considered without accounting for the biosphere, as climate change increasingly threatens state security. He stressed that diplomats must look beyond national interests and focus on global threat multipliers such as water scarcity and population displacement.

As an example, Mr. Lewis described the successful recovery of an old oil tanker that was left stranded off the coast of Yemen during the Yemen Civil War. International organizations, including the United Nations and various NGOs, prevented what could have been the worst oil spill in history. Through crowdfunding, they raised enough funds to purchase a newer tanker, conduct safety tests for potential explosions, and safely remove all the oil.

Mr. Lewis also highlighted the disproportionate impact of climate change on resource-limited nations, such as South Sudan. South Sudan faces state fragility due to an influx of refugees fleeing conflicts in neighboring states, worsening water deficits, and ongoing internal violence. He also cited Iran’s struggle with water scarcity, noting that the country’s reliance on upstream states for water flow underscores the growing importance of ecological politics.

Ms. Evans discussed how the military can play a role in addressing ecological threats. She cited the United Kingdom’s long-range reconnaissance group as an example of how military forces can gather intelligence on environmental threats. She emphasized that collaboration between military and civilian sectors could improve forecasting, allowing for better preparation against climate-related risks. Jordan serves as a key example, as its limited resources and finances prevent it from developing resilience without proactive planning. She stressed that with proper preparation, nations can reduce the need for costly reaction and recovery efforts. This will be especially crucial in protecting natural resources.

Speaker Session Recording

Briefing Materials

Biographies:  Thammy Evans is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center. She’s spent the last twenty years of her career in security sector governance, and ten years in sustainability and ecological security, alongside a full career as a reservist in the UK armed forces, where she spent the 23/24 academic year as a member of the Global Strategy Programme of the UK’s Royal College of Defence Studies. She is a senior research associate at the Climate Change (In)Security Project, and chair of the ethics board of the Future Forces Prize. Spanning a broad career in security, climate, and public information, Evans has worked in government, NGO, and the private sector. She was deputy head of the International Security Sector Advisory Team (ISSAT) of the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance and Reform (DCAF), working closely with the United Nations and the African Union. She was political advisor to the senior military representative of NATO HQ Skopje as North Macedonia undertook deep reforms to join NATO and the EU. She worked for the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado on vehicle light-weighting, conducting business development in China, and looking at resource and environmental impacts and solutions. As an officer in the British Army, Evans worked for the UK Ministry of Defence on vision and strategy development, non-lethal operational approaches, partner capacity building, countering disinformation, and on Balkans, African, Asian, and climate security. Her early career provided a foundation in public relations and international qualitative market research in the private and public sector, as well as business development harnessing systems thinking and resource efficiency. Evans has published widely, mostly highlighting the intersectionality of areas ranging from ecocide, to gendered inclusivity in security, earth systems predictability, the ethics of non-lethal defense, and measuring conflict prevention. Her latest book chapter is “Ecological Security: The New Military Operational Priority for Humanitarian and Disaster Response” co-authored with Gary Lewis, former Regional Director of UNEP, in the book Climate Change, Conflict and (In)Security: Hot War, published by Routledge. With a Master of Science in international political science, economics and law from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, she also has a bachelor’s degree in Chinese and German. She speaks passable French, deteriorating Croatian, and some ancestral Welsh. She’s accumulated experience and qualifications in executive education, strategic management and in monitoring & evaluation.

Gary Lewis is a Former UN Resident Coordinator in Iran (2013-2018).  During a near 35-year career in the United Nations, Gary has served in director-level positions in UNODC (drugs/crime), UNEP (environment) and UNDP (development). A native of Barbados, his work has taken him to serve in UN duty stations in Switzerland, Kenya, Iran, Thailand, India, South Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Austria and Barbados. Gary is a published author on Barbadian history and has written and contributed to academic articles related to drug control and security.  Currently he mainly presents on ecological security and drug control issues.  (See for instance his TEDx Talk on climate change and human security in Iran.) He has retired from competitive soccer, but plays bass guitar, classical guitar, drums and percussion.  His main academic interests are paleo-anthropology and evolutionary psychology.   He has been with his partner Elizabeth Lewis since 1982 and together they have three daughters.  He lives in southern France.

This speaker session supported SMA’s Anticipating the Future Operational Environment (AFOE) Phase III project. For additional speaker sessions and project publications, please visit the AFOE Phase III project page.