From September 7th to 11th, 2026, the “Climate Change and Security – Advanced Course 2026” will be held at the Carabinieri Corps’ Center of Excellence for Environmental Protection (CoEEP), located in Sabaudia. This international course is organized in collaboration with the NATO Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence (CCASCOE) in Montreal, the European Security and Defence College (ESDC), and the CoEEP itself.
The initiative in Sabaudia, which stems from a meeting held last year between the Director of the NATO CCASCOE, Mathieu Bussières, and the Commander of the CoEEP, Col. Cristina Avanzo, will see the participation of 36 international representatives from various countries, including both military and civilian personnel. They have been invited to examine the increasingly close link between climate change, security, and crisis management.
At the heart of this advanced-level course will be the relationship between climate change and security. Indeed, climate change rarely constitutes the sole origin of a crisis, but it can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and critical issues, affecting community safety, infrastructure, resource availability, and the ability of systems to cope with emergency situations.
Participants will be engaged in simulated scenarios and operational situations in which they will have to make decisions under conditions of uncertainty and confront the effects of environmental stress, taking into account operational, humanitarian, political, and infrastructural implications. Topics addressed will include the protection of critical infrastructure, coordination between civil protection and military components, and potential hybrid threats in contexts characterized by particularly critical environmental and operational conditions.
The training will be conducted by experts from the CCASCOE, the ESDC, and Officers of the Carabinieri Corps, using a highly interactive approach that will alternate between lectures, case study analyses, decision-making exercises, group work, and opportunities for discussion and sharing experiences. Special attention will be dedicated to the ability to assess risks and vulnerabilities, manage uncertainty, and identify priorities, while developing tools to support decision-making processes and strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity in the face of the consequences of climate change.
The course is part of the international training activities of the CoEEP, which conducts its training exclusively for foreign personnel in the fields of environmental protection and management, as well as the recovery and management of crisis consequences, whether they are of natural origin or caused by human action, including conflicts.
The Advanced Course 2026 therefore represents an important opportunity for international exchange on one of the main emerging security challenges, fostering a shared vision and greater interoperability among different professions and organizations, with the goal of improving the capacity to prevent, address, and manage increasingly complex and interconnected crises.
Homepage – NATO Climate Change & Security Centre of Excellence (ccascoe.org)
Homepage – European Security and Defence College – European Union (europa.eu)