Frontline Voices explores human security through thoughtful conversations with practitioners, researchers and specialists working across defence, humanitarian assistance, academia and international development.

Hosted by Rosie Stone, each episode looks at the pressures shaping people, communities and security, and asks what can be understood, challenged or changed before crisis turns into conflict

Climate change is no longer only an environmental issue. It is increasingly shaping food security, migration, economic stability and competition between states.

In this episode of Frontline Voices, Rosie Stone speaks with Bru Pearce and Guy Jackson from Envisionation, followed by Sabrina Kaschowić from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, to explore what happens when climate breakdown collides with geopolitics, resource competition and human security.

Bru and Guy discuss the Biosphere Restoration Plan, which looks beyond carbon reduction towards restoring forests, oceans, soils and the wider natural systems on which human life depends.

They also explain the idea of a digital twin of the Earth — bringing environmental, agricultural, economic and human data together to help us understand where pressures are building and where intervention may be needed.

The conversation then turns to the increasingly political question of climate security.

Sabrina explores how the transition towards cleaner energy is creating new competition for critical minerals such as lithium and graphite. Ukraine, Greenland and parts of Africa are becoming strategically important not only because of geography, but because of the resources beneath their soil.

Rosie and her guests ask a question that runs through much of Frontline Voices:

Whose security are we actually protecting?

In this episode

• Climate change as a threat to human security
• Food security and the risk of social instability
• Restoring forests, oceans and damaged ecosystems
• The Biosphere Restoration Plan
• Creating a digital twin of the Earth
• Financing environmental restoration
• Critical minerals and the green-energy transition
• Ukraine, Greenland and global resource competition
• The securitisation of climate change
• Climate justice and inequality
• Feminist and decolonial approaches to climate policy
• Why climate action needs to consider who benefits and who carries the cost

The episode contains serious warnings, but also reasons for hope. Our guests argue that damaged ecosystems can recover, technological change is already reshaping energy markets, and many of the solutions we need are already understood.

The question is whether we are prepared to act quickly enough — and whether that action can be fair as well as effective.

Guests

Bru Pearce and Guy Jackson — Envisionation

Sabrina Kaschowić — Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

Host: Rosie Stone

Podcast: Frontline Voices

Mentioned in this episode

Sabrina’s paper, Climate Cooperation in a Divided World

The Biosphere Restoration Plan and Envisionation’s work on ecological restoration, Earth-system monitoring and new approaches to environmental finance.

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More episodes and information can be found at frontlinevoices.net.

If you found this episode useful, follow Frontline Voices wherever you listen to podcasts and share it with someone who may find the conversation valuable.

You can find more episodes, information about the podcast and ways to contact Rosie at frontlinevoices.net.