Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the blog articles belong solely to the author of the content, and do not necessarily reflect the European Commission's perspectives on the issue.

Despite significant advances in climate science, a persistent divide remains between the production of scientific evidence and its uptake in policymaking. This divide is not only technical in nature; it is also conceptual and communicative: Scientists discuss models and probabilities, policymakers are in need for ad-hoc solution, and society searches for meaning and relevance. The operation of these separate “bubbles” with different time horizons, priorities, and conceptual frameworks slows down collective action. In my intervention, I argued that foresight methodologies can help bridge this persistent gap. They work both as a translation tool, breaking down complexity into scenarios and pathways that policymakers can act on, and as a meeting space, creating environments where scientists, policymakers, and societal actors can reason together and build trust. This dual function is crucial for climate security, where uncertainty is high, stakes are significant, and institutional trust is increasingly contested.

Foresight as a Translation Tool: Turning Climate Evidence into Actionable Narratives

Climate risks are inherently complex. Policymakers generally dislike uncertainty, while scientists work with it every day. Foresight helps overcome this by turning scientific projections into tangible storylines.

In Montreal, I used the example of coastal military infrastructure. Telling policymakers that “sea-level rise will challenge defence installations by 2035” is rarely enough to trigger planning. But when we translate this into a foresight scenario imagining a future – where one-third of NATO’s critical infrastructure is within five metres of current sea level – it becomes easier to grasp the operational implications. It allows defence planners and scientists to rehearse together: What does readiness look like if 30% of critical bases face periodic flooding? Which capabilities fail first? What adaptation timelines are realistic?

This example illustrates why foresight is particularly well suited to climate security: it takes complexity seriously and can guide decision-makers through thought provoking scenarios. It allows scientific evidence to be operationalised into a language compatible with strategic planning.

Foresight as a Meeting Space: Building Trust in an Era of Contestation

Climate science is increasingly contested for reasons that go beyond complexity: misinformation, polarisation, and declining institutional trust all create barriers to evidence uptake. In this environment, building understanding is as important as generating knowledge.

I argue that here participatory foresight methodologies can offer a way forward. When scientists, planners, local actors, and civil society explore scenarios together – whether on climate-driven migration, regional instability, or infrastructure stress – they are able to develop a shared understanding of risks and responsibilities. This joint exploration strengthens legitimacy because it reflects the values, concerns, and expertise of diverse participants.

While in Montreal, I stressed that foresight exercises can thereby function as a neutral meeting space. They bring people to the same table to unpack risks together and to understand the cascading consequences of climate impacts and the uncertainties involved. This is particularly valuable for climate security, where decisions often require broad ownership and long-term commitment.

From Montreal to Brussels: A Growing EU Foresight Ecosystem

The growing international recognition of climate-related security risks has increased the demand for tools that help governments anticipate long-term trends and design resilient policies. Strategic foresight plays a central role in this process, not by predicting future events, but by enabling institutions to discuss the pros and cons of various strategies against a range of plausible developments.

Over the past years, the EU has substantially expanded its foresight infrastructure that supports cross-institutional collaboration and long-term thinking. Key elements of this foresight infrastructure include:

1. Annual Strategic Foresight Reports that highlight emerging global trends, risks, and strategic choices.
2. The JRC Competence Center on Foresight, active since 2018, which develops scenarios and tools for evaluating policy robustness under uncertain futures.
3. The European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS) network, a cross-institutional collaboration active since 2012, supporting shared anticipatory analysis.
4. The Foresight Community Platform (Futures4Europe), established in 2024, which connects scientists, policymakers, and civil society to co-develop insights.
5. Comparable international initiatives, such as the OECD Strategic Foresight Unit and its methodological guidance.

The integration of foresight into foreign and security policy is still at an early stage but is advancing steadily. One concrete example is the Climate, Security and Defence Training Platform at the European Security and Defence College (ESDC). This platform was developed also in response to foresight analyses identifying climate security as a rising challenge. It enables civil, military, and policy actors to train jointly through scenario-based exercises on climate-related disruptions such as heatwaves, flooding, or resource shocks. By doing so, it strengthens institutional preparedness and creates channels for translating long-term strategic insights into operational capabilities.

My past involvement in the JRC’s TSI project on evidence-informed policymaking has shown how essential it is to strengthen the interface between knowledge and policy. Many of the challenges discussed in Montreal – translation gaps, competing languages, legitimacy issues – are the same challenges addressed within the evidence-informed policymaking community. 

Foresight complements this work by offering structured processes for understanding complex evidence, stress-testing policy options, and facilitating cross-sectoral dialogue. It reinforces the idea that evidence uptake requires both analytical tools and institutional cultures that value learning, collaboration, and long-term thinking.

Conclusion: From Insight to Practice

The Montreal Climate Security Summit highlighted the growing importance of strategic foresight for military planning to better navigate climate-related risks. Foresight methodologies bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and policymaking by making sense of complexity, enabling joint analysis, and fostering legitimacy through inclusive participation. The European Union’s expanding foresight infrastructure demonstrates how anticipatory governance can enhance institutional readiness and contribute to more coherent responses to emerging climate-security challenges. Nevertheless, to remain effective under ever widening uncertainty, foresight methodologies must continue to evolve. Key areas of development include expanding participation to non-traditional actors, integrating diverse knowledge systems, treating foresight as a continuous process rather than a one-off exercise, and responsibly exploring complementarities between AI tools and foresight methods. The collective objective is to ensure that institutions remain adaptable, inclusive, and capable of making informed decisions about future conditions that are often layered in complexity.

As climate impacts deepen, the evolvement of foresight methodologies and integration of such into policy processes will remain critical for navigating uncertainty and ensuring that institutions are equipped to respond to evolving risks in our complex global environment. Continued collaboration across scientific, policy, and societal communities is essential to ensure that climate-security strategies remain resilient and responsive in a rapidly changing world.