Climate, Weather and the Media

There is an excellent blog post on the Economist's 'Democracy in America' blog about the media's handling of two weather events of the last year: the snowstorms and the Russian fires.  He presents an analogy of coverage of weather as part of climate change to coverage of the WWII on the Eastern Front: a small German victory in 1943 shouldn't have been mistaken as anything other than the exception to the rule of "the Red Army advancing implacably across western Russia in 1943-44." 

I've written two posts in the last two days about Russia's heat, so I don't have much more to say on that.  In the western media, M.S. is right that there has been vanishingly little efforts to link the fires and drought to climate change, but the Russian media has not had such a problem: in fact, one commentator went so far as to blame the drought on the US military's 'climate change weapons'.  I should also note that other countries similarly have no problem calling a single event evidence of climate change: Pakistan's Environment Minister recently said that global climate change is to blame for this year's flooding and heavy rains.  Likewise, Nigeria's Environment Minister said “The effects of climate change have been wide spread in Nigeria."


Perhaps it is because of the tradition of presenting both sides in a news article that our media is reluctant to cover it in this way - but I think that is a false balance.  As M.S. said, if something is part of a larger trend (as these droughts are) then it should be presented in that way.  

In addition, there are new studies showing that abnormally cold weather in the northern hemisphere (as we had last winter) may actually be a factor of an abnormally warm arctic.  If that turns out to be the case, last winter wasn't actually an exception, it was just another example of the trend: global warming is happening at an accelerated rate, and we should not expect the weather of the future to be analogous to the weather of the past.

Russia's Adaptation to Climate Change

Russia's adapting to climate change by taking advantage of the warming of the Arctic. In the past few months, a few reports came out discussing a possible cold war over resources in the arctic which this blog discussed. One of the key factors is the relationship of the Arctic to Russia's national identity. The Times back in March quoted the Russian Envoy to NATO when referring to Russia's presence in the Arctic said,

“This topic will not be included in the agenda of co-operation between Russia and Nato ... there is nothing for them to do there," (hyperlink mine).

So Russia views its Arctic claims as non-NATO related even though it's trying to claim vast amounts of territory that Norway contests. The article then quotes Artur Chilingarov, the Russian government's representative to the Arctic who stated,

"Look at the map. Who is there near by? All our northern regions are in or come out into the Arctic. All that is in our northern, Arctic regions. It is our Russia."

'It's our Russia.' Chilingarov's claim is not based on economic considerations but on a perception of Russian identity. An excellent report released this month from The Arctic Climate Change and Security Policy Conference last December indicates:

Russia’s activities could be disruptive to the region if its recent focus on politics and territorial claims retains priority over increased attention to science and international cooperation. The driving factors may be Russian prestige, identity, and image, which converge on borders and territorial claims. For Russia, sovereignty in the Arctic is a “hard” security issue. Russian military interests center on the Kola Peninsula, home to the Russian nuclear submarine fleet, and on rebuilding the Northern fleet." (italics mine)

A melting arctic would allow easier access to resources but it would also provide an opportunity for Russia to regain its status as a great power. To that end, Russia's already manipulated its control over Europe's energy supplies and seeks to do so for the future.

Ironically, Russia's way of adapting to climate change is not to modernize its economy toward renewables and efficiency but to increase its dominance in fossil fuel exports by expanding its supplies in the Arctic. This 'adaptation' explains Russia's reluctance to seriously cut emissions and explains why it benefiting from climate change could come at a cost to the international community. The World Wildlife Fund's report on the climate change policies of the G8 countries has this to say about Russia:

No comprehensive national plan; ratified Kyoto Protocol very late and only under pressure; not very active in the preparatory negotiations, and often an obstacle at the last minute

On the other hand, rising temperatures would wreck much of Russia's infrastructure built on melting permafrost. Securing the Arctic won't adapt to that consequence.

Geo-engineering: Implications for International Stability

The security and climate community must plan for the prospect of unilateral geo-engineering. As the consensus that climate change is real grows, geo-engineering has recently emerged as a possible policy option. Foreign Affairs last month has an excellent article detailing the projected costs of geo-engineering that states:

“…just one kilogram of sulfur well placed in the stratosphere would roughly offset the warming effect of several hundred thousand kilograms of carbon dioxide…there is general agreement that the strategies are cheap; the total expense of the most cost-effective options would amount to perhaps as little as a few billion dollars, just one percent (or less) of the cost of dramatically cutting emissions.”

From the view of that state, geo-engineering could be the rational and affordable choice if global carbon emissions continue to grow. Countries like the US have the infrastructure to withstand severe storm damage or disease outbreak. Most of Africa does not. Last year, the Council on Foreign Relations published a report discussing this scenario. Key passage:

“A nation that has not done much to prepare, either in reducing its contributions to global emissions or in building adaptive capacity, might conclude that the consequences of climate change had become sufficiently severe that it was going to unilaterally engage in geoengineering – imposing large negative externalities on the rest of the world in order to reduce its own impacts.”

If climate change continues largely unabated, what’s to stop a country facing monsoon after monsoon from unilaterally trying to cool the Earth? For “$25 billion and $50 billion a year” a country could repeatedly emit sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to keep reflecting solar radiation despite the acid rain and unpredictable effects on plant growth for the rest of the world

The disparity between which states have the highest emissions and are the most able to adapt to climate change and the states who have low emissions but are the most vulnerable raises the prospect of rogue geo-engineering or attempts by states vulnerable to climate change to persuade more developed states who can afford it.

China or Russia are better equipped to develop geo-engineering technology and could do it with less fear of international sanction. Coincidentally, these countries have been resistant to cut back their emissions. Russia’s vulnerable economy benefits from high demand for natural gas and oil; China’s government has experimented with geo-engineering for decades. Cooling the planet is also much cheaper than cutting carbon emissions, which require large scale changes in transportation, energy and manufacturing. Regardless of which country is geo-engineering, there is no way for geo-engineering’s effects to be restricted. There are inevitable externalities that may cause global conflict and tension.

Hence, large scale research and development of geo-engineering technologies must coincide with effective international governance to prevent the possibility of “rogue” geo-engineering. Even better, making necessary cuts in carbon emissions would preclude the need to riskily geo-engineer.

Energy Security and Climate Security

The first plenary session, chaired by Inkster, was titled “Energy Security and Climate Security: Are long-term security from climate change and short-term energy security compatible?” The three panelists were: Lieutenant General Larry Farrell, retired from the U.S. Air Force, of the CNA Corporation’s Military Advisory Board; Christophe Sammartano, Principal Counselor for Energy Security at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and David Buchan, a Senior Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

General Farrell underscored that dependence on imported oil is a clear national security threat to the United States, and has been since 1970. He stated that moving away from oil will be a major technological undertaking, taking decades. Citing his experience as the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff responsible for planning, he said that it was critically important for long-term planning purposes that oil and gasoline prices are predictable, and that fluctuations from $50 per barrel to $147 and back over a nine month span makes long-term budgeting impossible for large institutions like the military. The Department of Defense – as the United States’ largest consumer of fossil fuels – should be a leader in this fight. He highlighted that the goal of U.S. policy should be to “Change oil from a ‘strategic commodity’ to a regular commodity, just like wheat.”

Christophe Sammartano, a specialist on Europe’s energy relationship with Central Asia and Russia, spoke about the need for Europe to achieve energy security by diversifying its energy supply away from dirty sources like coal and from politically risky areas like Russia. Like General Farrell, he emphasized that there needs to be significant technological advances, including in battery storage, new nuclear power, and carbon-capture and sequestration, before true long-term energy and climate security can be achieved.

David Buchan, author of the recently released book Energy and Climate Change, Europe at the Crossroads, spoke about how climate change policy has helped to unify a European energy policy that has traditionally been dealt with at the national level. Policies of climate-mitigating carbon reduction, however, can not be considered in isolation from the two more traditional strands of EU energy policy: market liberalization and security of supply. He stated that the US can learn from European policies, especially stating that prices in the US are too low, and suggested that a significant increase in the gas tax will be necessary.

Questions from the audience were varied and insightful. All participants agreed that prices for fossil fuels will need to rise in order to provide economic incentives for renewable energy. Over the long term, panelists expressed concerns about the ability of Russia to meet its role as an energy supplier: citing a lack of investment, problems of transparency, and a politicization of energy supplies. Sammartano explained the January 2009 Russia-Ukraine gas crisis as a combination of political and economic disagreements that led to an impasse. Finally, there was a sense that energy security has two different definitions: for Europeans, it means a diversity of suppliers and sources; while for Americans it means a reduction in imports.

Russian Bombers Near the Canadian Arctic

Earlier this week, we'd commented about the implied Russian threat to 'monitor' militarization in the Arctic. Today, there is a report from the Canadian Ministry of Defense that a Russian 'Bear' bomber approached Canada's Arctic airspace during last week's visit to Ottowa by President Obama.

Its interesting that Russian General Makarov commented that they were "Looking at how far the region will be militarized." What he didn't note is that, to a large extent, it is Russian actions that are driving the militarization of the Arctic. Flights of "Bear" bombers testing NATO defenses is a recollection of the Cold War, and is a way for the Russian military to project power.

Russian armed forces are monitoring ‘Arctic militarisation’

The chief of Russia’s General Staff has said that Russia will offer an adequate response to military developments in the Arctic region, in the latest sign that the rapid melting of Arctic sea ice is opening the region for potential territorial disputes.

General Nikolai Makarov commented: ‘Overall, we are looking at how far the region will be militarised. Depending on that, we’ll then decide what to do.'

Earlier, in a conference in Iceland, NATO’s Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called attention to the rising strategic importance of the Arctic region. The United States also launched a policy directive in the last days of the Bush administration that called for the US to assert its interests in the region.

The Arctic seabed is widely expected to hold large untapped energy resources; the US Geological Survey recently estimated that the Arctic may hold 30 % of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13 % of undiscovered oil. The melting of sea ice is opening these previously inaccessible resources for commercial exploitation.