READERS’ CORNER

I have just read Marco Magrini’s ‘Climatewatch’ feature in the July issue of Geographical magazine. As a former Senior Civil Servant in the UK Ministry of Defence, his recognition of the priority placed by NATO and the International Military Council on Climate Change and Security (IMCCS) on the need to address the national security implications of climate change was very welcome; and the first that I have been aware of outside of defence circles. But he may not have been aware of the publication in March of this year of the UK’s Defence Climate Change and Sustainability Strategy. The author, Lieutenant General Richard Nugee, is both a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a fellow alumnus of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and was asked just before the first lockdown last year to lead the development of the strategy. He has been closely engaged with both the IMCCS and the NATO initiatives; indeed, I understand that, at a Panel in the margins of President Biden’s Earth Day Summit in April, the US Defense Secretary acknowledged that the UK had ‘raised the bar’ in terms of preparing the military for climate change. Richard himself, although now retired from the Army, has since been appointed as the MOD’s first NonExecutive Director with a specific remit for climate change and sustainability. With kind regards, Sir Ian Andrews, FRGS

Got something to tell us?

Get in touch at: magazine@geographical.co.uk

Where in the world answers: Moai statues, Easter Island, Chile: E16; Angkor Wat, Cambodia: U10; Tikal, Guatamala: D10; Stonehenge, UK: L5