UK foreign secretary says reliance on fossil fuels undermines national security

The British foreign secretary said Wednesday that dependence on fossil fuels undermines national security, citing the economic fallout from geopolitical conflicts, and urged the accelerated transition to clean energy at the COP31 climate summit in Türkiye.

In his speech at the "Clean Energy Transition & Electrification Summit," Ed Miliband said that, for Britain, half of the country's recessions since the 1970s have been caused by fossil-fuel crises.

"Even the world's largest fossil-fuel producer, the United States, is not immune. Vice President (JD) Vance has said the Iran war has had real effects on voters," he said in the Mediterranean city of Antalya.

There can be no security while you depend on fossil fuels, because you are subject to the fossil-fuel rollercoaster you do not control through geopolitical conflict, he noted.

Miliband said the world experienced it with the Iran war and Russia-Ukraine war.

But he added that clean-energy electrification is now an alternative to fossil fuels, which was not in the past.

"I applaud the Turkish Presidency for their vision in putting this idea at the center of COP31. And it's right to say it's only possible because of the extraordinary transformation we've seen over the last two decades in the price of clean energy," noted Miliband.

"And I just want to say one very simple thing: as a foreign minister, this (climate breakdown) is a national security issue," he added.

Miliband said it is time that all foreign ministers and prime ministers see it as a national security issue, "because whether it's food security, infrastructure security, population displacement -- these have profound national security implications."

"We must make the era of clean-energy electrification come of age," he added.