An Analysis of Copenhagen

Just to start: I'm back to blogging on climate change and security issues, after an extended hiatus over the holidays. 

The IISS recently published an analysis, which I wrote, in our Strategic Comments web-based magazine called: "Copenhagen Accord faces first test".  Overall, my assessment from a few weeks after the conference is decidedly more upbeat than my 'first assessment' written the day after the event concluded in a cloud of acrimony. 

As I write in the article:

"The Copenhagen Accord should not be judged by the events in two weeks in December. Its success will be judged by national responses over the next decade."

The first test for whether countries are serious about addressing this issue will come on January 31, when national commitments are due to the UN.

Though some bemoan that Copenhagen did not produce a binding treaty, I think that's a good thing.  US Senators, much like Chinese Communist Party Officials and members of India's parliament, do not like international bodies telling them what they can or cannot do. I would contend that the only countries where you may have members of legislative assemblies asking to be bound by a supranational treaty are Europeans, because they've gotten used to it.  I contend that the Copenhagen Accord, because it is non-binding and calls for voluntary commitments will be more effective than a binding treaty with mandatory commitments (a-la Kyoto) could be.  James Bacchus, writing in Forbes notes that this was how the GATT began in 1948, and it succeeded in its goals of dramatically increasing international trade. 

Instead of a long-term binding treaty, negotiations can continue to adjust to changing scientific, climactic, and political realities under the Copenhagen Accord.  These can be negotiated through processes like the G-20 and the Major Economies Forum.  Ronald Bailey at Reason magazine contends that this closely resembles the program that the Bush administration followed, and I would contend that by 2007, the Bush Administration actually had a pretty good climate policy in place.  The trouble was, nobody stopped to notice by then: the narrative had already been written. 

Aid to Bangladesh: Part of US Strategy for Copenhagen?

The United States' strategy for achieving an international agreement on climate change at Copenhagen this December is becoming clear. Bilateral deals and negotiations efforts will complement the efforts under the UNFCC for a more comprehensive consensus. In an effort to convince China and India, the US has assured aid to Bangladesh, one of the most vulnerable states to climate change, for adapting to climate impacts and food security.

These efforts could bolster US credibility at the negotiations even when it's unclear if the Senate will vote on climate change legislation before the year's end. By assuring Bangladesh that the US will provide aid to mitigate food insecurity and climate change, the US has strengthened its bargaining position ahead of the Copenhagen negotiations.

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.

The Strategic Importance of Water: India-China

India and China have begun discussions to jointly monitor the Himalayan glaciers that supply water to both the Ganges, Indus and Yangtze rivers. This is a promising sign of cooperation and mutual recognition of the importance of water in a region of the world with heightened risk of climate induced conflict. This will be one of the topics bound to come up at the conference in Nepal in a mouth on climate change. On August 28 China and India are both emerging powers who have fought over border disputes, and China, a key ally of Pakistan, supplies Pakistan with advanced military equipment and weaponry.

The terms of proposed cooperation between the two countries extend only to scientific monitoring of glacial melting in the Himalayas. Hopefully, this can broaden into a more comprehensive dialogue between the two countries over water management instead of mere monitoring because many of India's major rivers originate from the Tibetan plateau controlled by China. Brahma Chellaney, one of India's leading strategic thinkers on arms control and climate security, believes:

...China is now pursuing major inter-basin and inter-river water transfer projects on the Tibetan plateau, which threatens to diminish international-river flows into India and other co-riparian states. Before such hydro-engineering projects sow the seeds of water conflict, China ought to build institutionalized, cooperative river-basin arrangements with downstream states.

India's government recognizes its strategic situation and Indian minister Jairam Ramesh's recent trip to Beijing reflects that. Ramesh called China a "countervailing power" in efforts to resist pressure from Western nations for hard emission caps in this December's Copenhagen negotiations. Ramesh also said "India considers China to be its most important ally in the Copenhagen negotiation process." By stressing commonalities between India and China have on climate and trade, India can begin to engage China on a broader set of environmental issues, such as water management because climate change could lead to drought in India.

India and China face enormous population pressures and the demand for water in both countries will grow for the foreseeable future as each develops especially since India's population growth rate is higher than China's. Climate change is altering the balance of power between the two countries by increasing the importance of water, a variable that China controls.

Gordon Brown's Adaptation Fund Proposal

Last week, Gordon Brown, in a speech, said that the UK, and other developed countries should contribute to a 60 billion pounds annually to help poor nations mitigate and adapt to climate change. Key highlights:

"Today there can be no support for agriculture or water management in developing countries, for example, which is not also adaptation expenditure. Giving the rural poor access to renewable energy is both climate mitigation and poverty reduction...

So all official development assistance will now have to be climate-proofed to ensure that it properly takes into account the impacts of climate change...

So today I propose we take a working figure for this purpose of around $100 billion per annum by 2020."

Brown framed this fund as part of global efforts to combat poverty and reach millennium development goals. Not surprisingly, Rwanda, a nation with a history of ethnic conflict, quickly endorsed the speech.

While mitigating carbon emissions is critical, making sure vulnerable and developing countries - often the same - can adapt to the climate scenarios that will already happen and could get worse is just as important. Brown's speech represents a major proposal by a developed nation towards adaptation measures in the developing world, that will pre-empt climate change's destabilizing effects. The draft proposal by the Major Economies Forum suggested an initial $400 million fast start towards an adaptation fund.

More Details from US-China Meeting

Lisa Friedman at ClimateWire has a story today about this 'secret meeting' last year.

The most interesting part to me is when Chinese Minister Xie Zhenhua said that its time to move 'beyond the rhetoric.' It is interesting to hear such a candid statement fro a Chinese Government official: in my experience, a Chinese government official is not given that much latitude to say what they want. In this case, his candor may have helped move China and the US away from their 'suicide pact.'

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.

What Role for the Military?

The second plenary session, chaired by Andrew Parasiliti, IISS-US Executive Director and IISS-Middle East Corresponding Director, was titled: “Managing Climate-Induced State-Threatening Crises: What is the role of the military in climate-induced crises?” The three panelists were: Major General (ret) Muniruzzaman, of the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies; Brigadier General (ret) Nigel Hall, a Senior Associate Fellow at the Defence Academy of the UK; and Kent Butts, the Director of the National Security Issues Group at the US Army War College.

General Muniruzzaman began the panel by stating that Bangladesh is a “Front line state in the fight against climate change” because of its dependence on large international rivers, its low elevation, and its poverty. He underlined that climate change is not just a future threat to his country, but something that is happening now, citing increased salinity of drinking water and a reduction in land available for farming. He stated that of its 155 million people, 30-40 million could become refugees due to climate-induced crises. The Bangladeshi military is beginning to plan for the inevitable disruptions this will cause, but more needs to be done.

General Hall made the important point the climate change is too important to be dealt with solely by militaries. In Europe, militaries must remain focused on short-term kinetic security threats, like the war in Afghanistan. In the long-term, Western militaries will inevitably be called on to deal with the crises caused by climate change, but now we have an opportunity to limit and mitigate the potential future damages of climate change. Hall strongly argued that this should be a “whole of government” focus, which will require “Visionary leadership” for a “21st Century Mobilization” of government, science, and society in order to successfully deal with this problem.

In contrast, Kent Butts stated that the American military can and should be involved in the fight against the effects of climate change. The most important way for the US Military to be involved is through engagement with militaries most likely to be harmed in climate-related disasters. He quoted the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, which stated that the Department of Defense’s policy should be to take “preventative actions so problems do not become crises.” He argued that environmental stability is a prerequisite for state stability, and therefore climate change can undermine the legitimacy of states, so the US Military should engage in action to prevent these outcomes.

Overall, the panelists agreed that the role of militaries in dealing with climate change is different around the world, depending on the relative size, importance, legitimacy, and stability of a country’s military and it government. General Hall cited the example that President Zadari of Pakistan was unlikely to be worried about climate change, because he is dealing with major existential threats to the Pakistani central government. The role of European militaries, however, in planning for climate-related disasters may remain small, because of shrinking military budgets, and an understanding that the civilian arm of the government is competent in preparing for environmental change. In the United States, however, a large and well-funded military should use its projection powers to warn of climate threats. It was agreed that civilian governments should lead in the fight to mitigate climate change, so that a military leader “like Marshall or McArthur” does not have to respond to a crisis.

Successful Conference

On Tuesday, May 5 the Transatlantic Dialogue on Climate Change and Security held a successful conference on "The Global Security Implications of Climate Change." The agenda can be found here.

Planning for the conference has regretably kept me from posting to the blog as I should be, but now I'll be back. In coming posts, I'll put up brief summaries of the panel discussions.

Historical Responsibility

While climate change is moving fast to further endanger the lives of many of the world’s poor living in already conflict-prone regions, international leaders and negotiators remain at odds for the intensity of GHG emissions reductions commitments. As the UNFCCC Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) convened in their plenary session to discuss a shared vision for long-term cooperative action, there remained tensions between developing and developed countries over who holds greater responsibility to reduce emissions.

China pointed out that an important item on their negotiating agenda is ‘historical responsibility,’ and emissions reductions targets must reflect this idea. The influence of historical contributions to climate change influence present-day emissions reductions targets calls for an analysis that has not been conducted by the IPCC because the complete separation of scientific and ethical issues nearly impossible. Michael Zammit Cutajar, Chair of the AWG- LCA called for an informal Workshop to provide clarity on ‘historical responsibility’ before the group convenes at the next negotiating session in 29 October to 4 November 2009.

The amount of knowledge gained or breakthroughs in this area is debatable, however, and it seems as though this is a topic that has already been thoroughly analyzed. In 2001, Brazil proposed a study that would analyze these questions of historical responsibility. This formed the ad hoc working group for the modeling and assessment of contributions of climate change (MATCH) in November of the following year. The report released by this group found two kinds of responsibility, namely strict (or unlimited) responsibility, which reflects emissions since 1890, and limited responsibility, which limits the blame to large emitters due to previous ignorance or circumstances beyond control, therefore looking at emissions only since 1990 (the start of the UNFCCC negotiations). The results of their findings:

Although questions remain, such as whether countries should be concerned with emissions within their borders (as is currently the case), or should they also be responsible for emissions due to the production of goods and services they consume, it seems as though the historical responsibility is clearly falling on Annex I (developed) countries, especially the US. It is debatable, however, whether any further in-depth analysis of this topic will facilitate the negotiations and allow the countries to move forward. It seems as though the responsibility is clear, Annex I countries should take lead in combating climate change in order to prevent potentially disastrous threats to the environmental security of the world.

No matter what the historical realities may be, the present reality is that climate change negatively affects the lives of many in the most vulnerable climate-sensitive regions of the world. This means that already unstable, poor and conflict-prone areas of the world will experience more threats to their security as the climate changes. It is the present responsibility for all countries to act quickly in mitigating their CO2 emissions instead of arguing about who is ethically responsible to impose stricter emissions reductions targets.

Scientists are growing increasingly worried about the policy response to climate change

Top climate scientists from around the world are gathering in Copenhagen on 10-12 March to call attention to the growing sense of urgency arising from recent scientific findings. Media coverage of the event has highlighted the scientific community’s increasing fear that currently planned mitigation measures may not be enough to prevent dangerous levels of global warming.

This has led to some scientists advocating a serious look into ‘Plan B’ options, such as geoengineering (that is, the deliberate manipulation of the Earth’s natural processes to reduce the impacts of climate change). For example, an article in the latest Foreign Affairs discusses the opportunities and risks of geoengineering, and concludes that ‘It is time to take geoengineering out of the closet [...] so that the nations of the world can collectively decide whether to raise the shield if they think the planet needs it.’

While geoengineering may provide hopes for solving the climate change problem, it is unlikely to provide a ‘magic bullet’ solution. Investments into combating climate change should be based on sober cost-effectiveness analysis that ensures most ‘bang for a buck’ for public expenditure. Such a policy would most likely include a mix of mitigation, adaption and possibly geoengineering measures.

New research since the IPCC’s two-year old assessment report has suggested that climate change may be progressing faster than previously thought, casting doubt on the feasibility of the current policy response. This week’s meeting in Copenhagen is a welcome reminder of the magnitude of the challenge.

Launch Event

Wednesday will be the official launch of the TDCCS, at the Willard, as I posted previously.
We've gotten a little write-up on the Climate-L.org blog.

Our press release has been posted at the following sites:

AeA (American Electronics Association)
AlphaTrade Finance
AOL News
Arizona Republic
Atlanta Business Chronicle
Austin Business Journal
Baltimore Business Journal
Birmingham Business Journal
Bizjournals.com, Inc.
Bolsamania (Web Financial Group)
Boston Business Journal
Breitbart.com
Business First of Buffalo
Business Journal of Greater Milwaukee
Business Journal of Phoenix
Business Journal of the Greater Triad Ar
Business Review (Albany)
Charlotte Business Journal
Cincinnati Business Courier
Dallas Business Journal
Dayton Business Journal
Denver Business Journal
E / The Environmental Magazine
Earth Times
East Bay Business Times
Enterprise Open Source Magazine
Examiner.com
Forbes.com
Houston Business Journal
Human Rights Today
Interest!ALERT
IT Industry Today
Jacksonville Business Journal
Kansas City Business Journal
Linux
Los Angeles Business from bizjournals
Los Angeles Times
Memphis Business Journal
Military Industry Today
MilitaryAvenue.com
Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal
MyWire
Nashville Business Journal
New Mexico Business Weekly
News Blaze
Orlando Business Journal
Pacific Business News
Philadelphia Business Journal
Pittsburgh Business Times
Portland Business Journal
PR Newswire
Puget Sound Business Journal
Reuters
Sacramento Business Journal
San Francisco Business Times
San Jose Business Journal
St. Louis Business Journal
State House News Service (Affiliated New
SYS-CON Australia
SYS-CON Belgium
SYS-CON Canada
SYS-CON India
SYS-CON UK
SYS-CON US
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Technology Today
Triangle Business Journal
US Politics Today
Washington Business Journal
WFAA - Dallas/Fort Worth TV8
Wichita Business Journal
WR Hambrecht & Co.

Hopes for an improved international relationship on climate change

Obama has already followed through on his campaign promises for US climate change and energy problems. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reports Obama’s statement of climate change as a domestic and international priority, and assured Washington’s full cooperation to make the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen a success. This comment came a day before Vice- President Joe Biden spoke at the Munich international security conference on 7 February, where he stated ‘our administration's economic stimulus package, for example, includes long term investments in renewable energy and we believe that's merely a down payment.’ Relations with China are also looking for advancement as US Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s ‘ calls for China and the US to act fast and in unison on global warming. This report not only seeks a cap-and-trade system, but calls for a ‘top level strategic partnership’ between these competitors and top emitters.

NATO conference on Security in the Arctic

NATO is set to hold a seminar on January 29-30 on "Security Prospects in the High North." There has been significant talk recently about the shifting strategic priorities in the Arctic, given that more and more of the Arctic is open sea in the summer. If the Arctic is open to shipping lanes and to resource exploitation, then there will inevitibly be an increased military presence.

It seems that most of the attention has focused on disputes over soverignty, with the Canadians saying the Northwest passage is theirs, while America asserts the rights of international navigation through the passage, and the Russians appear to claim sovereignty for as much as they can get their hands (or a flag) on.

NATO, at least, will offer a venue for the Canadian and American dispute to be settled.

Not sure that Rekjavik in January is the optimum time to visit, but this promises to be an interesting discussion for NATO.