ASIS Europe: Opening Keynote by General (Ret) Tom Middendorp, International Military Council on Climate and Security

General Middendorp was The Netherlands Chief of Defense for five and a half years and spent 38 years serving his country. He commanded soldiers on all levels, led a large multinational taskforce in the south of Afghanistan and was involved in over twenty different military missions as the Director of Operations.

In his work he experienced how climate change is already acting as a risk multiplier. To him it is clear that climate change is also a matter of national security, and that the security sector has a role to play when it comes to mitigation and adaptation efforts.

His keynote at ASIS Europe will bring these challenges to life with his personal observations from his time in Afghanistan and Iraq. He will examine climate change in a context of global population increase and resource scarcity bring, especially at a time when frayed international relationships make global initiatives challenging to implement.

Speaker: General (RET) Tom Middendorp, Chairman, International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS), will open the first conference day.

This session was recorded at ASIS Europe 2024.