More Security Agencies Calling Climate Change a Threat

Earlier this week, I discussed the US Department of Defense's writing about climate security in its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), where it said "climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked."

I've seen two more examples of major security agencies give in-depth analyses of how climate change will affect security.  Yesterday and today, the US Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair (and former IISS-US Council Member), has given Congress the annual threat assessment of the US Intelligence Community.  In the testimony, he says: "Climate change will have wide ranging implications for US national security interests over the next 20 years." Here is a link to his statement for the record. Although news articles about this testimony focused almost exclusively on al Qaeda, DNI Blair's statement for the record gave significant analysis to how climate change will affect national security, going out to 2030.  Last year, he made a similar statement, which I blogged about, but this year's included significantly more regional analysis, including expected impacts on Russia, China, India, Southeast Asia, and Central America.  I'll give a more detailed explanation of the climate section tomorrow. 

Also new today, is the UK Ministry of Defense's (MoD) report, "Global Strategic Trends – Out to 2040".  This is a comprehensive report that goes through a litany of real threats to the UK over the next 30 years.  The report devotes significant space to the impacts of climate change, as well as other issues of environmental degradation.  Like I was discussing in yesterday's post about Bin Laden, the report calls grievances about global inequality a significant threat.

Again: Be careful when saying climate causes conflict

The Flash Point Blog has a recent post asking: Is conflict declining, even as global warming occurs? This is yet another example of oversimplifying the question. They cite James Carafano (a scholar from the Heritage Institute) as saying that conflict is going down while climate change is occuring.

I think Carafano and the American Security Project are is looking at this is in a way that is just too simple. No political scientist would ever claim that there is a direct 1-to-1 causational relationship with something that is as complicated as the causes of conflict. Clearly there are many things that lead to conflict, like economic dislocation, religious differences, class conflicts, or others. In science terms, there is more than one independent variable in this equation. However, climate change and environmental security is part of the equation. In fact, it is rightly called a ‘multiplier’ that can exacerbate all the other parts of the equation.

So, to say that climate change won’t cause conflict isn’t true, just like like saying that climate change will cause conflicts is also too simplistic. I’ve written about this before.

Also, its interesting to note that Carafano apparantly is conceeding that climate change is happening, by saying that ‘things have been getting better’ even as climate change happens.

What I'm listening to: Climate Wars

The Canadian Radio Network, CBC, has run a radio series, titled "Climate Wars" with IISS friend Gwynne Dyer as the host. I've only stumbled across this today, and am only through the first episode of the series. So far, I can attest that its a very strong and interesting program. He was able to get very strong interviews that read as a 'who's who' of imporant players in the climate security argument, including John Holdren and others.

I can't link directly to the radio program, but you can listen to it through the CBC's website, here.

A Little Humor

It always helps to be able to laugh about things like rising sea levels flooding New York:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Formidable Opponent - Global Warming With Al Gore
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

When did Al Gore get funny?

Reports about the Himalayas

The Financial Times reports today from Kathmandu about the dwindling amount of snow and ice on the glaciers of the Himalayas. Sometimes called 'the Third Pole', these mountains are the sourse for at least 10 of Asia's major rivers. Changes in the flow of these rivers caused by glacier and snow melt could affect the livliehoods of around 2 billion people.

This article makes the claim that what's important is not actually the retreat of the glaciers, but the decline in the snowpack. Melting snow, they claim, is what feeds the seasonal rivers.  This is the first time that I've seen that enunciated. With credit to the FT, I reproduce their chart showing the rapid loss in water (snow, ice, or rain) from the Himilayas since 1960. What is most striking about this graph is that this decline has been constant since 1960, and the 1998-2008 decade -- the warmest in the human record -- is not even acounted for on this graph. We desperately need more and better information about what is happening in this region.

With better information, government ministers can determine how best to divide the dwindling water resources coming from the Himalayas. In September, environment ministers from across East and South Asia met in Nepal in the first example of intergovernmental meetings to discuss this topic.

A Plausible (and Scary) Scenario

IISS friend, Gwynne Dyer has written an article, "Losing Control of the Heat" for The Japan Times about last week's conference in Oxford "4 Degrees and Beyond" that looked at scenarios for out-of-control global warming.

This is an eye-opening article about the potential implications of what could happen with status-quo emissions. It is an extreme scenario, but preparing for the extremes is very important, both for society and for security. However, the implications of such a rise go far beyond 'security'. Dyer notes:

"At an average of 4 C warmer, 15 percent of the world's farmland would become useless due to heat and drought, and crop yields would fall sharply on half of the rest: an overall 30 to 40 percent fall in global food production. Since the world's population will have grown by 2 billion by then, there will be only half the food per person that we have now. Many people will starve.
In western and southern Africa, average temperatures will be up to 10 C higher than now. There will be severe drying in Central America, on both sides of the Mediterranean, and in a broad band across the Middle East, northern India, and Southeast Asia. With the glaciers gone, Asia's great rivers will be mostly dry in the summer. Even one meter of sea-level rise will take out half the world's food-rich river deltas, from the Nile to the Mekong."

However, Dyer makes clear that this is not written in stone. We have the opportunity to avoid this worst-case scenario. We can either continue with the status-quo, and hope we get lucky, or we can begin the difficult process of rolling back emissions. Europe has shown us how to begin. In December, negotiators from governments around the world will see if they can continue Europe's work.

NATO: The alliance must focus on climate challenge

This morning, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Secretary-General of NATO said that the alliance must focus on the climate challenge: "NATO should do more to prepare for the challenges of climate change."

Rasmussen said that "rising sea levels, drought and competition for land and resources all have implications for security." This statement is broadly in line with what the IISS and others in the security community have been saying about climate change.

However, Rasmussen went further than many in the security community have gone, by offering a prescription for how to aleviate the security threats posed by climate change. First, he promoted fuel efficiency for military vehicles. This is not revolutionary, and was promoted by the CNA's most recent report. Frankly, the military can only have a limited role in mitigating climate change. More important, was his statement that NATO should help to build global military capacity for reacting to climate-induced disasters. He said:

"Right now, NATO engages in military training and capacity building with
countries around the world. We focus on things like peacekeeping, language
training and countering terrorism. What about also including cooperation
that helps build capacity in the armed forces of our partners to better manage
big storms, or floods, or sudden movements of populations?"

This is an important statement. As an organization, NATO is very good at projecting long-term strategy. A move to including training for how militaries, both within NATO, and developing country partners should deal with natural disasters caused by climate change would be an important way for the alliance to build a long-term capacity to deal with natural disasters.

(credit for photo: AFP)

American Security Project: The Climate Security Index

This morning the American Security Project (ASP) held a conference at GW University entitled “The Day Before: A Conference on the National Security Implications of Climate Change”. You can see the full line-up through that link, but I will just mention a couple of important presentations. Senator Kerry gave the keynote address, and I'll put a post on the blog on his speech alone. The ASP used this conference to launch their new Climate Security Index report.

The program led-off with a speech from former CIA chief Jim Woolsey, who has made a name for himself on energy and environmental security. He spoke mostly about energy security and vulnerability. He said that there are two types of threats to security: Malignent or Malevolent. A Malignent threat (like a tumor) grows in unpredictable and dangerous ways, but is nobody's fault; while a Malevolent threat is one that is directly attributable to a person or group that seeks to do harm. Woolsey said that climate change poses a clear malignent threat -- because we don't know how it will play out -- and that it can feed malevolent threats, like extremism or terrorism.

The other worthwhile speech was from Dr. Adil Najam, the Director of the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. Najam is skeptical about the securitization of climate change policy. In his presentation he said that climate change is a security problem, but it doesn't have a security solution. He said: "you can't shoot carbon". Unlike other security problem,s you can't independantly create what he called 'secure islands' in a world beset by climate change. This is a problem that operates at the global level and at the human level, but we only have national institutions to prevent the problems of climate change.

NYT: Climate Change is a Threat to US Security

Saturday's front page NYT story on climate security marks the first time this issue has been linked in the media so prominently. Joe Romm from Climate Progress says,

"BUT as serious as this argument is, it’s equally important not to leave people with the impression that one is arguing global warming is mainly going to impact other countries, and not us. The United States will be directly devastated by climate change if we don’t rapidly reverse emissions trends"

Matt Yglesias from the Center for American Progress misses the point when he argues that "I don’t think it makes a ton of sense to look at every possible instance of drought, famine, mass migration, civil conflict, and human tragedy abroad as a “threat” to the United States per se."

The reason why military planners in many countries look at climate change as a security measure is because the international security environment is interconnected. US efforts to fight terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan involve economic development rather than just predator drone attacks. Ensuring security from climate change underscores the need to cut emissions and the need for greater adaptation funding. As countries move closer to Copenhagen this December, adaptation financing will be pivotal to ensure nations do not face existential threats to their stability. As evidenced by the NYT, climate change must be looked at not just environmentally but from a security standpoint.

Refugees Risk Sovereignty

At the Pacific Island Forum, Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was asked if Australia would be prepared to accept climate refugees from neighboring island nation states if climate change raises sea levels to render low lying islands inhospitable. His answer was telling:

‘Let’s be blunt about the order of priorities here. One is a set of actions agreed to by the international community which minimise the impact of coastal inundation as we minimise the impact of climate change but taking the mitigation measures that are outlined in the possible contents of a new framework agreement and the various national actions to be undertaken here in Australia.’'

Rudd sidestepped the question. Refugees represent a threat to a nation's sovereignty because they undermine the control states have over their borders. Territorial integrity is one of the hallmarks of a sovereign nation. For Australia, controlling its borders are easier. It's an island; refugees from neighboring states such as Kiribati would have to arrive by boat with plenty of warning. However, in the Middle East, refugees created by environmental devastation could create security problems. The recently released Arab Development Report 2009 states:

Spreading drought, reduced water levels in rivers, stunted agricultural production and incursion by sea water will force large numbers of people to emigrate, turning millions of people, particularly in the Nile River Delta and coastal areas in the Arab Gulf, into “environmental refugees.” These developments could affect not only human security among communities, but national and regional security as well. Such severe changes may also affect political stability and increase domestic tension.

Already, Syria and Iraq face devastating water shortages. The region contains refugee camps in Palestine, disputed political sovereignty by the Kurds, and a war in Iraq. Refugees fleeing from drought ridden farm land would heighten these border disputes in an area beset with border integrity issues.

Pre-empting climate conflicts

One of the most often cited areas where climate induced conflict could occur is the Pakistan/India border where the Himalayan glaciers are melting. At today's Senate Commitee on Environment and Public Works hearing, Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, outlined Egypt as a new scenario where climate change and conflict intersect. Today, talks on creating a framework to govern water sharing on the Nile River collapsed. The UPI directly links the strategic situation of the Nile to climate change stating:

Climate change in recent years has reduced rainfall, leading to lower water flows in the Nile and jeopardizing hydraulic projects in several states.

Egypt and neighboring Sudan are the Nile's largest consumers. Egypt, which lies at the end of the river as it flows into the Mediterranean, does not contribute any water to the Nile system.

But it has the largest population -- 80.24 million -- and the greatest military power among the riparian states and thus the highest demand for water. For Cairo, safeguarding the Nile water is a strategic objective.

While India and Pakistan at least have the Indus Water Treaty that's survived multiple wars, the collapse in talks over any legal agreement among all ten countries in the Nile basin underscores how difficult water negotiating agreements already are. Climate change will make it even more difficult to negotiate water treaties that prevent conflict when river flow decreases.

Institutional Adaptation

Adaptation measures for climate change should focus not only on infrastructure and renewable energy but also on developing institutions capable of dealing with climate induced stresses such as mass migration. Pacific island nations are among the most vulnerable to rising sea levels and some nations have considered relocating. Oxfam Australia's new report on climate induced migration in the Pacific predicts:

By the year 2050, about 75 million people could be forced to leave their homes in the Asia-Pacific region due to climate change. Pacific island governments are already tackling climate change-related relocation and resettlement. Given the significant implications of these population movements for our region, it is vital that Australia and New Zealand governments hold discussions with Pacific island governments about this issue now. Planning for climate displacement will require looking at the most effective ways to support Pacific islanders who are forced to move from their homes, including through appropriate immigration policies.

In the event of sudden climate change, such as floods and storms, a mass influx of refugees could destabilize neighboring countries. Conflict over climate stresses can occur if neighboring communities don't understand the causes of migration and if existing institutions aren't prepared for climate induced migration. Oxfam's report has good recommendations for policy makers to begin laying the groundwork for dramatic changes in future migrations due to climate change.

Governments must also work with local community leaders to educate citizens about climate refugees in areas where mass migrations are likely to occur. Conflict may not originate from states in these situations but from native citizens responding to an influx of migrants especially if neighboring states are already divided by ethnic or religious divides. International human rights law, while insufficient by itself to prevent conflict, must begin to recognize climate induced migrants as a separate category of people where their claims to migrate can be judged by international law. Otherwise, without any sort of legal recognition, people fleeing from environmental catastrophe have very limited legal claims under international law.

Infrastructure at Risk

Climate change is clearly impacting the security of military and industrial infrastructure. Yesterday, at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on climate change and security, Vice Admiral Lee Gunn described how rising sea levels could permanently damage low lying US naval bases at Norfolk, Virginia and on the island of Diego Garcia, strategically located in the India Ocean near Pakistan, and Iraq.

Scientific American also has an article outlining how melting permafrost could weaken the foundation of the 4$ billion dollar China-Tibet railway. Glaciers on the Tibetan plateau are among the fastest melting. Similarly, gas pipelines and other types of infrastructure built over permafrost could face severe design challenges as the ground beneath melts.

At the hearing, all of the testifiers emphasized that climate change's complex and interconnected impacts make it more paramount to examining its security implications. Even the outgoing head of NATO, Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said yesterday "You cannot deny that the melting of the polar cap, the ice cap on the North Pole is having a lot of security consequences".

Climate Security in the News

There are two articles worth commenting on.

Yesterday’s New York Times published an op-ed by Paul Hohnen and Jeremy Leggett arguing for framing climate change as a security issue, stating:

“It [Copenhagen] must be seen as a global security conference about the survival
of life on earth as we know it. It would help negotiators get a sense of the
stakes if they likened the challenge to that of stopping the impact of an
incoming asteroid or deterring an alien invasion.”

Also, The Independent previewed a soon to be released report from the Millennium Project on climate changing, warning that:

“The scale of political, financial, humanitarian, and security implications of
the effects of climate change are unprecedented, the causes are generally known,
and the consequences can largely be forecast. Nevertheless, coordination for
effective and adequate action is yet incipient, and environmental problems
worsen faster than response or preventive policies are being adopted.”

Media coverage of climate change is part of the problem. There is a danger that an agreement coming out of Copenhagen may not be enough to prevent catastrophic consequences. The international community made progress after the recent G8 and MEF summits but developed and developing nations remain far apart on emission targets, baseline years, and adaptation financing.

So long as climate change is treated as merely an economic or environmental concern, policy makers will think about climate change in zero-sum terms, which stalls serious action. By recognizing climate change’s security dimensions, these begin to make the case for action from policymakers.

Foreign Policy: Climate Change Causes Failed States

As part of their "Failed States Index", Foreign Policy has listed the sixty most vulnerable states in the world. These states are stressed by conflict, economic recession, political unrest, migration, resource scarcity, or any other ailments. For the second year in a row, Somalia ranks as the world's most critical state.

The IISS, through our dialogue on Climate Change and Security, has argued that climate change is unlikely to directly cause conflicts, or states to fail. Instead, it will serve to undermine already vulnerable states. When you look at this list, its clear that Somalia, Iraq, the Congo, or Sudan aren't near the top because of just one factor. Instead, they're there because of conflict, human rights violations, refugees, and many other factors. Climate change is a new factor. Foreign Policy calls it "The Last Straw" in their article about how climate change can lead to failed states.

This article uses Pakistan, and the conflict with India over Kashmir as a case study for how climate change could undermine an already weak state. Currently, Pakistan and India have the ongoing Indus Waters Treaty that shares the water rights to the Indus river between these rival nations. However, if water flow fails to meet expected levels, it is easy to forsee scenarios in which conflict over water could arise.

New Report on the Effects of Climate Change on the US

Today, the Obama Administration released a new report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program on the effects of climate change on the United States. This report was released at 1:30 this afternoon with a news conference featuring John Holdren of the White House Office of Science and Jane Lubchenco, the Administrator of NOAA at the White House.

I watched part of this event, and I thought it was well presented and thorough. Too often, these events get too deep into the issues -- which is great for us wonks, but can undercut their use to the general public. The Obama team, however, knows PR and they rolled this out with a strong presentation. Here is a link to the report, and the PowerPoint can be found here.

Both Joe Romm at ClimateProgress and Bradford Plummer at The Vine have excellent summaries of the finding of the report. I won't try to replicate their analysis, but I would say the most compelling sections of the report lay out the direct consequences of climate change on the US. Too often, when talking about the security effects of climate change, we focus only on unstable regions in the developing world. This report makes clear in direct language that major portions of the United States' infrastructure is at risk from climate-induced sea change rises, including downtown New York, pictured at left.

This report doesn't contain any new science, but if it is handled and promoted correctly, it could become as important to US policymakers as the IPCC reports have become. This report should be given directly to every Member of Congress by Dr. Holdren. It is a strong report, with important language, but it must communicated correctly, or it will be lost among the many other reports.

Is a Tropical Storm a Climate-Change related event?

Below, Sophia recounts the damage of Tropical Storm Alia in Bangladesh and Eastern India. Thankfully, it looks to be a low (relatively) death toll.

In the intersecting worlds of climate-change and security policy, we spend a large chunk of time talking about how climate change will increase the likelihood of large, fatal, highly damaging storms. We focus on regions that -- because of geography, population, or poverty -- are particularly vulnerable to these storms. We say that a warming climate will cause more damage to coastal regions. However, we will never be able to say that climate change caused this storm. Weather is not climate, and climate is not weather. There are simply too many factors that affects storms like this. What we can say is that tragedies and disruptions like this are likely to become more dangerous as well as more common.

Joe Romm at Climate Progress has a good post that marks the beginning of the North American Hurricane season. He says that its scheduled for June 1, but he makes a strong case that climate change means that it has already arrived. What that means for policymakers is that more attention and resources should be given to climate adaptation, like Oxfam's flood disaster project in Bangladesh, and national governments should give consideration to intense planning to reduce the damage from these sorts of disasters.

Antarctic Ice will only raise seas by 10 feet

Andy Revkin at the NYTimes' DotEarth blog has posted the lead story on the New York Times' website this afternoon, saying that the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet would raise sea levels by 10 feet, not 20. For most scientific disciplines, these arguments over magnitude and implications of change take place quietly. However, climate change is a major topic of public policy, so the scientists get front-page coverage. This is not he best place for these arguments to happen, because it muddies the water, and promotes paralysis.

There seems to be a continuing litany of studies -- some extrememly worrying, and some that are vaguely reassuring (i.e. Downtown Manhattan will only be partially, not completely flooded). It is unfortunate, however, for leaders and policymakers that there seems to be so much 'noise' but little consensus.

In 2007, the IPCC created a strong international consensus that climate change was a threat that must be addressed. The result was the Bali roadmap.

Two years later, the studies and observations are almost uniformly worse than IPCC predictions. Unfortunately, these studies often disagree and there is no coordination. The result is this 'noise' that only serves to undermine political will and cause paralysis among leaders. I'm afraid the result will be the collapse of Copenhagen.

The IPCC must move faster in preparing their next report.

UN Conference in Copenhagen

After a brief luncheon, the conference moved into a third plenary session, chaired by Alexander Nicoll, the IISS Director of Editorial. This session, titled: “The UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen: Should we reassess how ‘security’ is defined for a warming world? Can a UN agreement in Copenhagen guarantee long-term climate security?” Panelists included: Ambassador Steffen Smidt, the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Representative for Climate Change Issues; Ambassador Paula Dobriansky, the former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs throughout the Bush Administration; and James Lee, a Professor in the School of International Service at American University.

Ambassador Smidt began the panel by saying that “an ambitious global climate deal” at December’s summit of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a top priority for the Danish Government. He stated that climate change is more than just an environmental issue to be addressed at UNFCCC conferences. Instead, it must be addressed comprehensively throughout the government. He laid out a series of areas in foreign policy that should be addressed, including in multilateral forums, development financing, energy security, and international investment policy.

Ambassador Dobriansky focused on the necessity of negotiating a truly global emissions-reduction treaty that is both environmentally effective and comprehensive. It must not undermine the ability of poor countries to develop, but it cannot simply allow large developing nations to continue their emissions with no limits. Unlike Kyoto, any treaty must include real commitments from developing nations that are “Measurable, reportable, and verifiable.” Beyond the environmental effectiveness of a treaty, a successful Copenhagen summit will include new efforts to develop clean technology, will protect against deforestation, and will help to foster good government policies. Finally, Ambassador Dobriansky concluded that the world will not need a new global institution to protect the environment, as the UN process – though in need of reform – will prove sufficient to handle the task.

As the last presenter of the day, Professor James Lee gave a thought-provoking presentation on the long-term security risks of climate change, based on a new book, entitled Climate Change and Armed Conflict: Hot and Cold Wars. Using a map of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s projections overlaid with a map of the world’s largest security risks, he made a persuasive case that – unless global warming is successfully mitigated – the world faces a range of new and potentially very dangerous security threats. Some specific scenarios that he mentioned included an end to ice caps and glaciers, the creation of an integrated ‘Great World Desert’ that stretches 600 miles from the Kalahari in Namibia to the Gobi in Mongolia, the specter of rising sea levels that could swamp existing islands and low-lying deltas, and the possibility of countries aggressively trying to change local and international weather patterns through cloud seeding or other geoengineering processes. Lee’s presentation underscored the long-term necessity of actively addressing climate change before these dire forecasts come to pass.

Overall, the questions surrounded how to achieve a successful result in Copenhagen. Several questioners asked how to involve China; the consensus was that it must be done in every way possible, including regional, multilateral, and bilateral agreements. All panelists agreed that the issue of how to enforce any agreements would be an important part of an agreement. One questioner asked why nations should continue to negotiate in the UNFCCC, when the Major Economies Forum, involving the 17 largest global emitters (85% of emissions), is moving towards crafting its own agreement. Dobriansky answered that it was most important to build capacity and governance through the UN process. All panelists agreed that, in the short-term, the UN process is sufficient, and there is no need for a new international environmental enforcement body. This panel provided important detail in how the international community could move towards a comprehensive treaty at December’s Copenhagen Conference, and it also talked about the dangers if we fail to act.

Report on Bangladesh's Environmental Security

It has come to my attention that the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies (BIPPS) authored a briefing last August on Environmental Security in their country. The report can be found here.

Among the findings of the briefing is that climate change will "negatively impact food security, health security, and economic security" in Bangladesh. It states that a one meter rise in sea level (above the IPCC's 2007 estimate, but within range of current estimates) would inundate 5,609 million acres of coastal land- about 15% of Bangladesh's total area (see image for detail).

The BIPPS concludes that the Government of Bangladesh has yet to produce an "integrated disaster management approach" to deal with climate change. The report recommends that Bangladesh needs to increase its diplomacy at international events, particularly in the UNFCCC, by seeking out alliances with like-minded countries. Finally, it recommends that the Bangladeshi government implements a new strategy -- coordinated throughout the government and private sector -- to adapt to the security effects of climate change.