Lost in Translation: A Climate Actor's Guide to Conflict and Security Terms

If you work in climate change as a negotiator, campaigner, scientist, or funder, you've probably felt the ground shift in recent years. War and security keep showing up in conversations that used to be purely about emissions and finance, and the vocabulary doesn't always translate cleanly across the two fields. This is a starting glossary: what these terms mean in conflict and peacebuilding circles, and how to put them to work in climate advocacy.

Security

What it means: In peacebuilding circles, "security" rarely means just military defense and security for nation-states against (external) threats. Human security refers to protection of all people, which includes their access to food, health, livelihoods, and stable governance and safety from human rights violations. Climate change doesn't directly cause wars on its own, but it threatens and undermines countries’ and people’s security and coping capacities to deal with tensions peacefully, and heightens conflict risks through different indirect avenues. Military activity in turn drives emissions, destroys ecosystems, and derails the institutions needed to increase resilience and decarbonize - it threatens human security by increasing climate vulnerability,

How to use it: Treat climate and security as one feedback loop, not two separate problems. If you're arguing that climate change is a security issue, be clear whose security you refer to: do you mean the security of people and groups in different contexts (human security) or the security of nation-states, their sovereignty and national interest (traditional military security)? Both concepts demand very different policy responses.

Fragile and Conflict-Affected Settings (FCAS)

What it means: A shorthand for the countries and/or regions where weak governance, social and socio-economic instability, and active or recent violent conflict overlap. FCAS contexts face high vulnerability and are usually disproportionately exposed to climate risks but receive a tiny share of global climate finance, partly because funders see them as too risky. More on country classifications here.

How to use it: Use FCAS when you want to name the finance gap specifically, because it signals that you're talking about a structural blind spot in the system, not just "conflict zones" in general. Useful shorthand in finance and funding conversations.

Do No Harm

What it means: A core principle originally from humanitarian practice: any intervention should be designed so it does not create negative consequences for people, like worsening conflict dynamics or creating new ones, even unintentionally.

How to use it: Apply this as a design test for climate projects in fragile settings. It’s not just "does this cut emissions" but "could this, even with good intentions, harm people, fueling local tension over land, water, or other resources?"

Conflict Sensitivity

What it means: An approach that reduces risks and maximizes positive outcomes by anticipating how an intervention, whether a renewable energy project, a carbon market or a land-use scheme, interacts with local contexts and might inadvertently fuel tension, and how that intervention can be designed to avoid that and build on existing positive factors. Peacebuilding experts at International Alert define it as “The ability of an organisation to: 1) understand the context it operates in, 2) understand the interaction between its intervention and that context and, 3) act upon this understanding in order to minimise negative impacts and maximise positive impacts on conflict.”

How to use it: Reach for this term when you want to argue that a climate project needs to be assessed for conflict risk before it's implemented, not just for its emissions or biodiversity impact. Conflict sensitivity is a risk reduction tool that can increase effective climate outcomes. It is a concrete and practical approach, not a critique.

Peace and/or social impact / Peace co-benefits

What it means: A climate programme that fosters cooperation, equality and fair governance, creates benefits for people and society, meaning it creates peace co-benefits or social impact. It is especially needed in FCAS. It means intentionally embedding measures within climate interventions that reduce (the risk of) conflicts, strengthen social cohesion and effective institutions and foster socio-economic equality. In practice, this might look like a project for alternative, sustainable livelihoods that ensures equal benefits for all groups, strengthens governance to reduce disputes for example over access to land or water and builds trust within and between communities and the government. Investing in social co-benefits contributes to a stable environment in which climate action is more effective, creating lasting positive change for people and planet.

How to use it: Use this term explaining that technical climate solutions alone cannot fix the structural imbalances and governance challenges that create and increase climate vulnerabilities - especially in places with interconnected fragility, conflict and climate change impacts. Social cohesion, equality and fair governance is a foundation and guarantor for effective and lasting climate action. Investing in co-benefits can be a business strategy for climate adaptation in FCAS.  

Note: Do No Harm, Conflict Sensitivity, and Peace Co-benefits form an upward scale of engagement and impact.

Climate–Security Nexus 

What it means: The broad field of evidence looking at how climate change interacts with and affects conflict and security risk. The honest headline: it's real, but complex. Climate stress is a risk multiplier that can worsen existing fragilities but is rarely a sole or direct cause of armed conflict.

How to use it: Avoid implying climate change directly causes conflict - that overstates the evidence and is an easy line for skeptics to attack. "Risk multiplier" or "exacerbates existing tensions" are more defensible framings.

Just Transition (through a conflict lens)

What it means: In climate circles, "just transition" usually means a fair shift away from fossil fuels for workers and communities. Add a conflict lens and it also means: mineral extraction, land use, and economic disruption from the transition itself carry risk to create or fuel conflicts, especially in fragile settings.

How to use it: When discussing just transition, ask not only how fast we decarbonize but how, and who benefits from economic gains, at both the global funding level and the local implementation level. This is the phrase to reach for when arguing decarbonization speed alone isn't the whole story.

Military Emissions

What it means: The greenhouse gas emissions or ‘carbon bootprint’ of militaries, including the impacts of warfighting, running military bases, and delivering training exercises as well as the supply chains which make military activity possible. Reporting military emissions to the UNFCCC is voluntary so the data on the military’s contribution to global emissions is patchy or missing completely. This is called the Military Emissions Gap - the gap between what Governments report their militaries are emitting and the true scale of the pollution. 

How to use it: Use this when you want to make a concrete, trackable policy ask (e.g., "track and cap military emissions") rather than a general statement about war being bad for the climate. No sector should be exempt from reporting and climate action, so it's a data and accountability argument as well as a moral one.

Energy Security

What it means: In security and geopolitics circles, this usually refers to a state's reliable access to energy supplies. It's a legitimate concern, but it is also a term frequently invoked to justify new fossil fuel infrastructure or slower phase-out timelines.

How to use it: Treat "energy security" as a framing to interrogate, not accept at face value. Ask: security for whom, on what timeline, and does the proposed fix actually reduce dependence on volatile fossil markets, or just reroute it? To what extent are the proposed approaches conflict-sensitive?  What alternative clean-energy approaches can produce the same level of energy security, without exacerbating climate change?