Iceland Sounds the Alarm: The AMOC Threat Becomes a Global Security Crisis
In an unprecedented declaration that has already begun to reshape global climate policy debates, Iceland has officially classified the potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) as a national security threat . No country in modern history has ever elevated a climate tipping point to this level. Governments have long treated climate change as primarily an environmental or developmental challenge, but Iceland has broken that convention. Its decision acknowledges something scientists and governments have been reluctant to say explicitly: A destabilizing AMOC is not only an environmental problem. It is a geopolitical, economic, humanitarian, and security crisis in the making. The statement coming from Reykjavík (the Capital and largest city of iceland) is profound not only because Iceland sits at the frontline of the AMOC system, but because the AMOC itself, Earth’s great ocean circulation engine, is one of the most important and vulnerable components ...