General Tom Middendorp, former Chief of Defence of the Netherlands, is the Chair of the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS). He served as the Netherlands Chief of Defence for five and a half years, after 38 years serving his country. As the Chief of Defence he was the most senior military advisor to the Dutch Minister of Defence, responsible for the readiness, the international cooperation and the modernisation of the Dutch armed forces, as well as the planning and execution of its military deployments. He commanded troops at all levels, led a large multinational taskforce in southern Afghanistan and was involved in over twenty different military missions as the Director of Operations. General Middendorp has extensive operational and strategic experience of building unity of effort with different nations, governments, companies and many other stakeholders to deal with a wide range of security risks. He organised two large Future Forces Conferences where he introduced an ecosystems approach to security and offered “defence” as a testbed for innovation, resulting in many promising new initiatives. His current occupation as an independent senior expert on defence and security allows him to continue his work on the impact of climate change on the security environment and on the role the military can play in addressing climate change.