Energy, Climate, Security, and Optics in Obama's Speech

Today, President Obama gave a speech (which you could have watched live here on this blog) that was billed by the White House as a speech on "Energy Security and Independence".  I'm not sure that the actual announcement today that the US will open more of its Outer Continental Shelf to offshore drilling was that important, and I'll leave it to others to argue about how the policy change will do much good or bad for climate legislation.

However, the optics of today's speech are probably the most important part of it. By holding the event at Andrew's Air Force Base, in front of a (clean, green) F/A-18 'Green Hornet' fighter jet the administration is signaling that they are going to treat energy security and climate change policy as the security threat that it is.  The President was speaking directly to a group of servicemen who probably will all spend at least one tour of duty in the oil-rich Middle East as a direct result of our energy dependence.  Hopefully, this is only the beginning of a series of Presidential events that will show how climate change and energy dependence create threats to our national security.    

It is important that this 'securitization' of energy and climate policy is not done cynically.  If the Administration has decided that the only way to pass a comprehensive climate bill is by wrapping it in the flag, then it is not worth doing.  However, we know, through the good work that the CNA corporation has done in preparing it's “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” and "Powering America’s Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security"  reports that this is an issue that is critically important to our national security.  Since the first report, released in 2007, other important reports from the National Intelligence Council, the DoD, and others have comprehensively linked American national security to our dependence on foreign energy, and the looming instability of climate change.  However, the CNA's reports also show a good way forward.  They suggest that the achieving energy security is possible but it requires strong leadership. The Green Hornet on display behind the President today shows how DoD can be a leader by becoming an early adopter and a test bed for new technologies, especially low-carbon fuels.

President Obama today showed that he gets this linkage:

"For decades we’ve talked about how our dependence on foreign oil threatens our economy -– yet our will to act rises and falls with the price of a barrel of oil. When gas gets expensive at the pump, suddenly everybody is an energy expert. And when it goes back down, everybody is back to their old habits.

For decades we’ve talked about the threat to future generations posed by our current system of energy –- even as we can see the mounting evidence of climate change from the Arctic Circle to the Gulf Coast. And this is particularly relevant to all of you who are serving in uniform: For decades, we’ve talked about the risks to our security created by dependence on foreign oil, but that dependence has actually grown year after year after year after year."

The question now is whether he can sell it to the American people. 

President Obama's Energy Security Speech

Below is a live stream of President Obama's speech on energy security.  Notice how we've gone fully in the securitization of energy policy.  The President is announcing the new energy plan in front of a fighter jet.  I think it looks like a Navy F-18, but this is an Air Force Base, so that can't be right.  Post in the comments, if you think I'm wrong. 


From the preliminary reporting I've read about the speech, I'd say that offshore drilling must be a very important part of our national energy policy.  However, it is just a part, that must include renewable energy, natural gas, and new technology.  We can't solve our energy security problems by simply drilling offshore, but politically I would say that breaking the taboo on offshore drilling is an important signal that the US government is willing to take the difficult steps to really address energy security.

I'll write more after the speech.

UPDATE: it appears that the White House's stream is only audio.  If you want video, CNN has it here:
http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream1

UPDATE #2: it was a Navy F/A-18.  However, it was a 'Green Hornet' that had been modified to fly on a 50/50 mix of jet fuel with biofuel.

UPDATE #3: Now I've got the White House's Video successfully embedded. 

Gordon Brown on Climate Risks

Gordon Brown gave an excellent speech earlier today at Lancaster House in London to the Major Economies Forum (MEF) on climate change and energy about the impacts of climate change.



He invokes the threats of the melting of Himilayan glaciers, in 25 years. He talks about the threats to water supplies, food supplies, and the threats of unprecedented 'climate migration'. Other climate impacts that he invokes include the loss of the rainforests, fisheries, and biodiversity.

He claims that we face a future of two paths: one of 'business as usual' that will deliver growth for some time, but will eventually collapse under these burdens of a warming world. We cannot stand around while the world boils. He contrasts that with the path of 'low-carbon, high growth' that will cause some economic dislocations now, but will avoid the worst catastrophes of climate change. Brown says it will not be easy, and this path will challenge long-held assumptions about politics and economics. However, it must be worth it.

This speech underlines that leadership in the UK 'gets it' on climate change better than almost any other nation. Brown understands that talk about climate change must be forward looking. We cannot talk about the costs of mitigation, without talking about the costs of inaction. Too often, polticians in the US only talk about the short-term. With regards to climate change, we're only just begining a generational project to address this challenge.

Making the Climate Security Argument

Politico had an article yesterday talking about the groups of veterans, named Operation Free, who are taking a bus tour around the country and making a case for action on climate change. Here is an article about the bus tour coming to Lincoln, Nebraska (at 6:15 am? will that really bring out the crowds?).

In some ways, I'm strongly in favor of this. Climate action is necessary, and whatever argument you need to make in order to pass it through the Senate should be made. However, nuance doesn't come through in political debates. By groups and politicians saying that climate change will cause wars, we risk overstating the argument.

It is demonstrable that climate change is a national security threat. Both the CNA and the National Intelligence Council have convincingly made that case. However, I am also slightly afraid that you could make that argument about any number of intractable global problems: poverty as a threat to national security, disease as a threat, inequality as a danger, even just general unhappiness. I've talked about the need to be prudent before.

That's why the IISS is working hard to more closely quantify the global security threats of cliamte change. The problem is that nothing is perfectly linear in this world. Climate change may cause water shortages, which may cause food shortages, which may cause famine, which may cause resource wars. This is a plausible and convincing chain of events, and there are other possible linkages. However, its very difficult to say that prudent action couldn't stop that chain at some point along the way.

I'm convinced, however, that addressing climate change is one of the most important challenges of our generation. Unmitigated, its effects over the long-term could be genuinely catastrophic. That should be reason enough to address this threat. If, politically, you have to invoke the military and call it a threat to 'national security', then I guess that's a stronger argument to make to Americans than calling it a threat to Polar Bears.

The Danger of Overstating the Climate Security Argument

There is a well-informed opinion piece in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists by Geoff Dabelko of the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Wilson Center.

He makes a good argument against hyperventilating about climate security. However, I think we need to be careful that we look at who the target audience of this opinion piece is. The danger here is not that the planners (both in and out of government) in the security community are going to overstate the links between climate change and security – by and large they don’t want to court controversy. The US security community attempts to plan for every contingency. We should be encouraging them to explore all contingencies, including abrupt, dangerous climate change, even if such low-likelihood events can be politically controversial.

However, we must be careful about using the security argument for political purposes. The danger of overstating the security threats of climate change comes from the politicians and the interest groups who are pushing an agenda. In many ways, they’re just responding to market incentives: the CNA’s 2007 report was well received by the US political community, and brought a lot of publicity and political action, so other groups are trying to emulate that. The most dangerous, however, are the reports with big headline numbers, clear political overtones, but simplistic reasoning (the one I can think of recently is Kofi Annan’s estimate of 300,000 current deaths per year http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6387208.ece). By putting these out in the media, it feeds skepticism among journalists about real, authoritative reports.

When I was working for Senator Hagel, he genuinely was pushing for the NIE on climate change’s security effects in 2007 because he wanted the Pentagon and the intelligence community to seriously look at the threats; however, most other Senators are only looking for another talking point. They wanted to be able to say: “the CIA believes that climate change will harm US security, so that means you must vote for my bill.” I’m not sure how to balance these competing priorities: we want to encourage action in Copenhagen and the Senate, and arguments about national security can be persuasive, but we have to guard against junk science from groups that we might normally think of as allies in this fight.