Ditchley holds its 2025 climate conference in the run-up to COP30

A month before COP30 kicked off in Brazil, Ditchley held a climate conference entitled After 1.5°C: Climate adaptation, security and resilience in a warmer world. The conference asked what fast-evolving changes to Earth’s climate would mean for security, and how societies could build resilience while reducing risks in a fraught geopolitical situation. While overshooting the 1.5°C increase in global warming since pre-industrial times in 2024 does not transgress the Paris Agreement ambition (which would need an average temperature rise over 20 or so years), it takes us into unprecedented and uncertain territory. Meanwhile, as one participant put it, “climate is the collateral of conflict”, with leaders’ attentions and budgets devoted to near-term hostile threats and competitiveness in a time of trade wars. 

The conference also came nine months into the second Trump administration, which has made clear its antipathy to terms such as climate change and energy transition. At the same time, leaders in Brussels and London were figuring out how to deliver on their enlarged NATO commitments. Many in the conference group had low expectations of the UNFCCC process, especially now that the US had pulled out of the Paris Agreement.

Participants, comprised of senior practitioners and experts, came from the UK, US and continental Europe. There was a mix of security and defence, civil resilience, climate science, and business and investment expertise, as well as several people actively involved in informing public and military strategy on adaptation. 

Read the discussion summary here.