Key facts
- Madeleine Alessandri chairs the UK joint intelligence committee, which oversees MI5 and MI6.
- Burnham was to confirm UK backing for a proposed 35% electrification target by 2035.
- The UK was to help toward plans to raise £5bn in private finance for clean energy projects worldwide.
- The JIC collaborated on a secret report warning of national security impacts within five years from ecosystem collapse overseas.
- Campaigners cited a possible weakening of electric vehicle targets and approval of the Jackdaw gasfield as double standards.
- Foreign secretary Ed Miliband said he has been briefing foreign capitals on the JIC report's findings.
The UK government appointed Madeleine Alessandri, chair of the joint intelligence committee, as the world's first special representative for climate security, prime minister Andy Burnham was to announce at the Cop31 UN climate summit in Antalya, Turkey on November 12, 2026. The role is to advise the government on national security risks from the climate crisis before they become crises.
Burnham arrived in Antalya late on Wednesday night ahead of high-level meetings at the talks, which Turkey and Australia preside over jointly. He was also to confirm UK support for a proposed 35% electrification target by 2035 and help toward plans to raise £5bn in private finance for clean energy projects worldwide.
In remarks prepared for the talks, Burnham said: "We should all recognise the summer was not normal. The climate crisis is upon all of us now." He said the UK remains determined to reach net zero by 2050. The report said this year's summer was the UK's hottest on record, with heatwaves causing health services and transport to suffer and schools to close.
Alessandri said: "Climate change and nature loss are increasingly shaping the security environment in which the UK operates." Under her, the JIC collaborated on a secret report warning that within five years the UK could begin experiencing national security impacts from the collapse of ecosystems overseas, including food shortages, rising food prices, mass migration and conflict among nuclear-armed countries. The report was suppressed under former prime minister Keir Starmer, the report said, and its contents were revealed by the Guardian last year ahead of a redacted publication earlier this year.
Foreign secretary Ed Miliband, also at Cop31, said he has been briefing foreign capitals on the JIC findings. He said: "Climate breakdown is one of the greatest national security threats we face."
Campaigners pointed to what they said were Burnham's failures on domestic emissions cuts and funding for vulnerable countries. The government is considering a weakening of electric vehicle targets and has approved the Jackdaw gasfield in the North Sea while considering the Rosebank oilfield west of Shetland. Mohamed Adow of the Power Shift Africa thinktank said: "We can't have Britain preaching a clean development gospel but expanding fossil fuels back at home." Asad Rehman of Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland said UK credibility was "crumbling".
The report said the UK has rolled back climate finance, and in July Burnham fronted a pledge to lower the cap on UK bus fares funded by converting international climate donations into repayable loans. Prakash Dahal of Pro Public and Friends of the Earth Nepal said funding must come as grants, not loans.