Minister McGuinty’s Remarks at the 4th Montreal Climate Security Summit

Montreal, Quebec
October 9, 2025

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Good morning everyone.

Let me begin by thanking the NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence for hosting us here in Montreal and inviting me to speak.

Thanks also to CDAI for co-hosting this wonderful event.

I’m so sorry to not be able to join you in person, but it’s a great privilege to be able address you virtually this morning.

The work that you do —your research, and your leadership in addressing the defence and security impact on climate change – has never been more important.

I am just shy of six months as Canada’s Minister of National Defence, just under a year serving as a cabinet Minister and just over 21 years serving as a Member of Parliament.

But before all of that – I spent years working on sustainability and climate change around the world, and previously served as President of Canada’s National Round Table on the Economy and the Environment.


So in a sense, today is an intersection of the last 40 years of my life – where national security meets natural security.

As Minister of National Defence, I know it is critical that we deter the effects of climate change to support operational readiness of the Canadian Armed Forces, community needs, and, by extension, our national security.

This can save lives, and deter an adversary who wishes to harm us.

When it comes to nature and the systems that sustain us — our wetlands, our waterways, pollination — there is no substitute.



Our security and our prosperity are fully dependent on a healthy and functioning environment — think of it as a three-legged stool that must be kept in balance.


And that balance is, lately, getting harder to achieve.

Our international system based on shared rules and norms is under strain.

War rages in Ukraine, instability persists throughout the Middle East, and tensions are simmering in the Indo-Pacific.

And our adversaries are active across a multitude of domains — cyber, space, quantum, artificial intelligence and the information space, too.

Every day there are new reports of Russian incursions into NATO airspace and of our approaches being tested.

At the same time, China is displaying increasingly aggressive behaviour toward its neighbours, as well as toward other countries with a presence in the Indo-Pacific, including Canada.

Amplifying all of these challenges right now is climate change — a threat multiplier that’s driving insecurity across the globe.


Against this backdrop, Canada and its Allies need to ensure our militaries are resilient and ready. 



This means future-proofing our military by adapting to climate change and mitigating its impacts on our operations.

It also means working to ensure our actions don’t make it worse.


The changing climate has profound implications for National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces.



It poses a threat to all Canadians, especially Indigenous and Northern communities, and for our Allies.


It directly affects how our countries train, equip, deploy and operate. And nowhere is that clearer than in energy.

Fuels and energy are the lifeblood of any military. 



Without secure supply chains at risk from climate disruption, fleets cannot move, bases cannot function, and operations cannot be sustained.


That’s why climate resilience isn’t just environmental policy — it’s operational policy.

It’s force readiness.

And it’s national security strategy, too.


At National Defence, we have already begun to integrate climate risk into our planning and operations. 



In 2024, we completed a Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment across our real property footprint.

The results were sobering: 64% of our assets are at a high climate risk, especially in our coastal and northern regions.


That’s why we’re strengthening energy resilience in our bases and infrastructure, ensuring that new construction accounts for sea-level rise, flooding and permafrost thaw.

National Defence is the largest federal emitter of greenhouse gases, and we recognize that achieving our targets will be crucial in order for our government to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Already, we have reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 38% since 2005.

DND is implementing measures to reduce emissions in its real property portfolio.

To do so, we are using energy performance contracts, purchasing clean energy, modernizing heating systems, decommissioning old buildings, and improving our energy management approach.

For nearly two decades, we’ve been working on research into alternative fuels.

Today, we are pursuing low-carbon fuels that meet military requirements — fuels that will help secure our military fuel supply chain, strengthen interoperability with our Allies, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our primary military fleets.

For example, the Royal Canadian Air Force has a net-zero plan for its air platforms — and sustainable aviation fuel is at the heart of that plan.

Until then, we are preparing our fleets for the day when sustainable fuels will become the norm. And we will get there.


And, as the framework nation for the NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence, Canada is proudly hosting this key venue right here in Montreal.

Here, Allies and partners can share expertise, develop best practices, and strengthen our ability to confront the security impacts of climate change.


All this work shows that we are indeed capable of adapting and mitigating.

That we can future-proof ourselves as strategically as possible.



But adaptation and mitigation alone are not enough.

If we stop here, we are only treating the symptoms.


To truly safeguard Canada’s future, all our futures, it’s time to stop the fiction that

our planet’s carrying capacity is unlimited.

That we are not seeing stressors, that species aren’t being depleted and rendered extinct, that we’re not compromising the plant’s ability to restore itself.


Because when it comes to nature, there is no substitute.

Natural capital provides essential services — clean air, fresh water, fertile soils, flood control, climate regulation, pollination — without which, our life on this planet is impossible.

This natural capital also provides valuable products — medicines like penicillin and codeine, and technologies inspired by the natural world, like Velcro from burrs, and aircraft from bird flight.


By not protecting this critical wealth of natural capacity and the potential it promises, we run the risk of degrading or depleting altogether solutions to the defence and medical challenges of the future. 

We cannot manage and sustain this critical resource, nature, if we don’t know how to measure it. Or even know how much of it we have.

We have a geological survey in Canada – but no biological survey.

There are encouraging developments: for example, Canada’s Water Agency is creating a new national water security strategy.

Yet here in Canada, we still don’t have a national survey or measure for our natural capital.

What is pollination worth to food sovereignty?

What is watershed integrity worth to clean water?

If we don’t answer these questions, we leave blind spots in our security planning.

And that is why the work we do here — to integrate climate, economy and security — must also integrate the environment. 


In defence, innovation has always been about staying one step ahead of our adversaries.

Today, that increasingly means drawing lessons from the oldest and wisest systems of all: nature’s own designs.


Harnessing nature’s solutions is not just science — it’s strategy.

It’s how we keep our forces interoperable, resilient and effective in the future fight.


Bioprospecting and biomimicry aren’t just fancy buzzwords.

These are the next level of strategic advantage.

And nations that preserve their biodiversity and draw from their design will have decisive options.

We don’t have to look very far to see that artificial intelligence is accelerating this process. 



It’s allowing us to design new materials and systems at speeds we never imagined:

think of wildfire suppression technology using satellites, AI, and a fleet of specialized drones.


We are already deploying some nature-based innovations in the form of scalable, dual-use infrastructure with natural or engineered features.

Everything from wetlands to reefs and barrier beaches that mimic ecological processes designed to reduce the risk of coastal flooding and erosion, while supporting biodiversity and local communities.

In fact, much of our economic activity is already financed by the “DNA Bank of Nature” — 500 million years of evolution, on deposit.


But you can’t manage what you don’t measure.


Nowhere is this issue more evident than in our Arctic.


Canada’s sovereignty and security in the region are non-negotiable.

And yet they are under increasing threat.

An Arctic warming at four times the global average means more access — and more interest—from competitors and adversaries alike.

That has significant security and sovereignty implications for Canada.

But defending the Arctic mustn’t come at the expense of the very environment we’re trying to protect.

Our Arctic ecosystems are fragile.


Sea ice is melting, making the North more navigable and vulnerable to intrusion.

Permafrost is thawing, threatening communities and critical infrastructure.

Ocean coastline is exposed for longer and eroding faster, placing at risk communities, cultural heritage and wildlife habitats.

If we treat the Arctic as a disposable resource, we risk undermining the very foundations of Canadian sovereignty.

This sovereignty relies on strengthening partnerships and effective management with territorial and municipal governments, Indigenous and northern communities and organizations, as well as other partners and stakeholders.

That’s why we need to think of this country’s natural capital like we do a retirement pension: we want to live off the interest and sustain the capital, not deplete it.


We need to balance development, national security and ecological integrity.

Have strength through sustainability.



Protect nature as a form of deterrence.

In military strategy, deterrence is about preventing harm before it happens.

We build credible defences not because we want to use them, but to avoid the devastating costs of conflict.

The same principle must apply to climate security.

Protecting and reinvesting in nature is a form of deterrence.

Where natural ecosystems are under strain, displacement and conflict are inevitable.

Water scarcity is already wreaking havoc along the Yellow River in China, Asia’s second-longest river; and it’s driving tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia along the Blue Nile.

Climate disasters alone displaced some 800,000 people in 2023, and some experts now predict up to 1.2 billion so-called climate refugees by 2050, those displaced by climate change and natural disasters.

In 2023, Canada saw 192,000 people internally displaced due to climate disasters like wildfires. This is the highest number ever recorded.

This puts a strain on the operational capability of the Canadian Armed Forces, which are increasingly called upon to respond to natural disasters as a force of last resort.

We are fortunate to have the necessary resources to respond, keep people safe, and protect critical infrastructure.

But this isn’t always the case in other parts of the world.

Disaster and ecological collapse fuel instability, as surely as an aggressor crossing a border.

That’s why I believe measuring our natural capital and protecting natural systems is also about preventing loss of life on a massive scale.


This is neither theoretical nor abstract for me.

In the 1980s, I was stationed for two years with the United Nations in Côte d’Ivoire.



In the nearby Sahel Region, I got to see the effects of desertification and soil collapse firsthand.


In hindsight, one can see how thousands of young men with no hope for a better future might be drawn into the ranks of extremist groups that provide money, camaraderie and purpose.



Today, we have groups like Boko Haram terrorizing communities in northern Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

In this conflict zone alone, 60,000 people have already paid with their lives.

This lesson is clear: if we don’t slow or reverse the effects of climate change, the bill will be paid in ever-increasing human suffering and insecurity.

My friends, in the defence and security domain, we invest in preparedness because it saves lives.

We build credible deterrence because prevention is always less costly than conflict.


I believe the same logic must apply to climate and nature.

Investing and restoring in our ecosystems and natural capital is strategic preparedness.

It is national defence.

And it’s natural security.


In the end, something is only worth defending if we can ensure there will always be something left to defend.

So, I’ll say it again.

We can replace equipment, we can rebuild infrastructure, we can resupply our forces dealing with the next climate disaster.

But we can’t replace nature — there is no substitute.

Our national and natural security are inextricably linked.


Thank you, merci.