SIS welcomed environmental leader Jennifer Morgan, SIS/MA ’94, to campus on September 15, 2023, for a discussion on climate policy in a time of multipolarity and multiple crises. Morgan, an environmental activist and leader in climate foreign policy, was the executive director of Greenpeace from 2016 to 2022 and currently serves as a special representative for climate policy for Germany’s Federal Foreign Office. After remarks, she participated in a Q&A session moderated by SIS professor Simon Nicholson, director of SIS’s Institute for Carbon Policy and Removal.

Morgan delivered remarks highlighting three main points on climate change, climate action, and climate policy. First, Morgan emphasized that climate change is one of the greatest security risks and foreign policy issues of our time. Germany recently released its first national security strategy that recognized the climate crisis as a security risk due to its destabilizing nature. Morgan referenced the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which states, “There is a rapidly closing window of time for actions to secure a livable and sustainable future for all, and the actions we take now will have impacts for thousands of years.”

Morgan’s second point was that climate action is one of the greatest foreign policy opportunities and unifying forces of our time. Every part of the world is threatened by climate change, and that threat can unite nations in the search for sustainable solutions. Morgan described how climate policy can shape geopolitics and how competition can help fuel cooperation.

“When the Paris Agreement was signed almost eight years ago, climate change impacts were almost theoretical to most countries, but now, you have no country in the world that's immune to the extreme impacts. In a way, it's a unifying force that can only be overcome with collaboration,” said Morgan.

Morgan’s final point highlighted the importance of bringing a more just and social-focused approach to climate foreign policy and domestic policy. Reaching the goal of climate neutrality cannot happen if people and communities are not involved, Morgan emphasized. Her take: implementing a values-based climate foreign policy ensures that those who are most vulnerable to climate change are heard and supported in the transition toward climate neutrality. Bringing climate knowledge into peace-building missions is one approach being used to ensure that vulnerable populations are receiving the benefits of the transition and not being left behind.

Morgan ended her remarks with a warning about the perilous state in which the world finds itself, leavened by a bit of optimism: “I think that we’re at a crossroads. We still have a chance to build a world that is healthier, more resilient, and more prosperous, but we’re close to the cliff’s edge, and we need to work together to build that world.”