On October 30, 2025, took place at the Barge Pavilion in the Navy Museum in Lisbon, the VII edition of the Atlantic Centre (AC) Seminar, an annual event to which the National Defence Institute (IDN) has been a partner since its first editions.
This edition focused on the theme: “Climate Change and Security Challenges in the Atlantic" and addressed aspects such as the significant threat that climate change and extreme weather events pose to global maritime security, causing considerable damage to multiple domains, with a serious impact on both wildlife and its ecosystems, as well as affecting the livelihoods of the most vulnerable coastal communities.
The Opening Session included speeches by the Director of the IDN, Professor Isabel Ferreira Nunes, and the Coordinator of the AC, Rear Admiral Nuno de Noronha Bragança, and also featured a keynote address by Professor Dhesigen Naidoo from South Africa.
The AC, together with its partners in the Atlantic community, coordinate and develop the research project "Climate Change and Security Challenges in the Atlantic," in order to study the current multidisciplinary challenges of climate change and explore the multifaceted nature of climate-related threats and their intersection with other critical areas, including international law, maritime security, food security, humanitarian response, and disaster risk management. This research project produced a report whose main conclusions were presented in the two main panels of this VII Seminar.
Also noteworthy was the presentation of the respective research projects of the two winners of the Atlantic Security Award 2025, João Reis, Assistant Professor at Lusófona University, and Caio-Cesar-Ribeiro, Assistant Researcher at CCMAR – Centre of Marine Sciences of the University of Algarve.
The Closing Session was led by the Director of the Diplomatic Institute, Ambassador Ana Paula Zacarias.