• Analysis
UK appoints Madeleine Alessandri as world's first special representative for climate security
The UK government has created the world's first special representative for climate security, naming Madeleine Alessandri, chair of the joint intelligence committee, to the role. Prime minister Andy Burnham will announce the appointment on Thursday at Cop31 in Antalya, Turkey.
Who takes the new role
Madeleine Alessandri, chair of the UK's joint intelligence committee (JIC), which oversees MI5 and MI6, will take up the post of special representative for climate security. The job is designed to advise the government on national security risks from the climate crisis before they spell catastrophe.
The intelligence report behind the job
Alessandri arrives in the role with direct experience of the threat. Under her leadership, the JIC collaborated on a secret report assessing that within five years the UK could begin experiencing national security impacts from the collapse of ecosystems overseas.
The report's warning set out the specific consequences the UK could face:
- •food shortages and rising food prices
- •mass migration
- •conflict among nuclear-armed countries
That assessment was suppressed under former prime minister Keir Starmer. Its contents were revealed by the Guardian last year, before a redacted version was published earlier this year.
Alessandri's priorities
Alessandri said climate change and nature loss are increasingly shaping the security environment in which the UK operates. In her view, timing matters most: the best moment to address these risks is before they develop into crises.
She set out how she intends to operate in the role:
"I will work with partners across government and internationally to strengthen our understanding of climate threats."
Building resilience against those threats is the stated aim of the partnership work she describes.
What Burnham told Cop31
Prime minister Andy Burnham will announce the appointment on Thursday at Cop31, the UN climate summit in Antalya, Turkey. The talks are presided over jointly by Turkey and Australia.
His intervention came after the UK's hottest summer on record, with back-to-back heatwaves that caused health services and transport to suffer, schools to close and thousands of people to lose their lives prematurely. Burnham said wildfires had devastated lives and livelihoods everywhere.
In his first Cop as prime minister, he said the UK is still determined to hit net zero by 2050 and intends to join forces with partners on a clean energy future.
Alessandri takes on the role with the stated aim of strengthening understanding of climate threats and building resilience with partners across government and internationally.
