Sparks Fly at Joint Hearing on National Intelligence Assessment of Climate Change’s National Security Implications

Sparks Fly at Joint Hearing on National Intelligence Assessment of Climate Change’s National Security Implications

June 26, 2008 By Rachel Weisshaar

“Climate change alone is unlikely to trigger state failure in any state out to 2030, but the impacts will worsen existing problems—such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions,” said National Intelligence Council Chairman Thomas Fingar at yesterday’s joint hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the House Subcommittee on Intelligence Community Management.

The hearing allowed Democrats and Republicans alike to question Fingar and other witnesses on the newly completed, classified National Intelligence Assessment (NIA) on the national security implications of global climate change through 2030. The NIA relies on the mid-range projections in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report, as well as the expert opinions of scientists from the U.S. government and U.S. universities.

“Climate change could threaten domestic stability in some states, potentially contributing to intra- or, less likely, interstate conflict, particularly over access to increasingly scarce water resources. We judge that economic migrants will perceive additional reasons to migrate because of harsh climates, both within nations and from disadvantaged to richer countries,” said Fingar, adding that the United States should be prepared to assist people fleeing flooded coastal areas in the Caribbean.

Domestically, Fingar warned the representatives to expect severe water scarcity in the Southwest, increasingly frequent wildfires, and powerful storms on the East and Gulf Coasts, which could threaten nuclear power plants, oil refineries, and U.S. military installations. The military could also find its capacity overstretched abroad: AFRICOM will be tasked with responding to more frequent disease outbreaks, food scarcity, and land clashes in sub-Saharan Africa, and the U.S. military in general will be called upon to alleviate increasingly common humanitarian emergencies around the world.

According to Fingar, the NIC plans to analyze three subtopics in greater detail: climate change’s security implications for individual countries; its implications for cooperation and competition among the world’s great powers, including the United States, Russia, China, and India; and the security implications of possible climate change mitigation strategies.

Democrats and Republicans butted heads over whether the NIA was a commendable achievement or a distraction from more important security issues, such as terrorism. At one point, Representative Edward Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, asked Fingar whether he thought climate change could worsen the drivers of terrorism, and Fingar responded that yes, he thought climate change would probably increase the pool of recruits for terrorist activity, which was cause for concern.

Virtually the only issue on which Democrats and Republicans could agree—although for differing reasons—was that the NIA should be declassified. Democrats believed declassification was important so that government agencies and private businesses could begin to prepare for climate change’s impacts, while Republicans argued the NIA should be declassified because they believed the NIC’s analysts, having based their analysis entirely on open-source information, hadn’t contributed anything new to the existing body of knowledge on climate change. Fingar disagreed that secret intelligence is more valuable than open-source information: “Information is information; knowledge is knowledge.”

For her part, Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA), chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Intelligence Community Management, seemed content to ignore the misgivings of some of her colleagues regarding the NIA. “From this day forward, the words ‘climate change’ and ‘international security’ will be forever linked,” she proclaimed.

Selected news coverage:

Wall Street Journal: Global Warming as Security Issue: Intelligence Report Sees Threat
Reuters: Climate change may strain U.S. forces
MSNBC: Climate change could threaten U.S. security
CNN: Global warming could increase terrorism, official says

Topics: climate change, Congress, foreign policy, migration, security
- Anonymous
  
  One sentence jumped out at me in the report about the new NIA: “The military could also find its capacity overstretched abroad: AFRICOM will be tasked with responding to more frequent disease outbreaks, food scarcity, and land clashes in sub-Saharan Africa, and the U.S. military in general will be called upon to alleviate increasingly common humanitarian emergencies around the world.”
  
  Just how is the military going to be “responding” to land clashes? Where were they in the recent violence in Kenya?
  
  The meeting seemed to be missing an important point here – that most of the solutions to solving environmentally-aggravated conflicts must happen before violent clashes break out. There are few solutions around land conflicts that can be solved by a boots-on-the ground presence from the US military, and their lack of a response to numerous African land conflicts that have already occurred illustrates that poverty of such a suggestion.
  
  Perhaps there’s a role for UN peace-keepers to separate combatants, but the US doesn’t take part in UN peace-keeping missions.
  
  Recognizing that the impacts of climate change are a security issue does not mean that the traditional security services are best placed to respond to these challenges. Most of these environmental security concerns are best dealt with by traditional development organizations, NGOs, national and international governments committed to equitable land distribution, and sustainable agricultural development.
  
  Tom Deligiannis
- http://www.blogger.com/profile/18337694112852162181 Geoff Dabelko
  
  Thanks for your points Tom. The means of responding may be key. If it is the military responding with its traditional means ie force, then limited. If it is military responding with capacities to quickly organize relief and supplies to more frequent and or intense natural disasters/humanitarian missions, then it is something they are doing but could do more (and could internalize such missions more rather than viewing them as unfunded mandates). And finally responding may be supporting development (hopefully sustainable) as part of a prevention strategy even if prevention is reducing traditional conflict/instability concerns. In this way one of the most constructive steps would be advocating for strengthened capacities and greater resources for the development and diplomacy (the other 2 Ds along with defense) which some have done (to wit General Anthony Zinni during and after he was the 4 star in charge of Central Command). In other cases it is playing a supportive roles (again where necessary because never sufficient) as part of a team in humanitarian response, conflict prevention, broader development response. It is rare to find uniformed military actively seek to be development purveyors. Some see it as key to achieving their larger security mission (through development and/or through using environment as a way to do mil to mil interactions). Some say they will be asked to do it anyway so might as well be prepared, funded, and integrated into larger efforts so gets out of being ad hoc. I’m now rambling but I think “responding” is (or at least should be) more than about the war-fighting capabilities. For I think we can all agree these tools are mismatched to use Dan’s term from 18 years ago.
- http://www.blogger.com/profile/08186033047213683502 Global Zeitgeist
  
  Another issue that concerns me is that quite a few of the media reports on the hearing made prominent connections to illegal immigration, even though the testimony itself only twice refers to immigration, generally. There is a real danger that dislocations and upheavals related to climate change are seen too much through the lens of “threat” perceptions and narrowly-conceived national security concepts. And that may lead to a focus on overly antagonistic, or militarized, responses.
  
  Michael Renner
- http://www.blogger.com/profile/18337694112852162181 Geoff Dabelko
  
  Thanks Michael for your comment about immigration/illegal immigration or what would preferably be called migration (but please not climate refugees!). The increased push of climate change on people to move is a key part of the security frame for climate. And it is a fascinating set of questions to look at what increased flows to Western Europe from Africa and South Asia would mean for European politics. The Sierra Club debate in the United States showed how quickly the environment and immigration discussion can become ugly. But that was essentially a different discussion – environmental impacts of the migrants here. This discussion is about the political impact of folks who have moved in part for environmental reasons. This topic will be a very hot one and we are still a long way from credibility in terms of numbers which remains elusive at the macro level from my perspective. And it may stay elusive because the decision to move is so complex.
- http://www.blogger.com/profile/05130493903696077379 dan
  
  Good post. I am monitoring this stuff too. Have you heard of my project about POLAR CITIES for survivors of global warming? I figure we might need them around 2500 or so, and I have written to Fingar about this. of course, no reply. But i am sure the USA govt and other govts are already planning their own polar cities for their own VIPs and powerful families, leaving the rest of us out in the cold, well, it won’t be cold, it will be HOT. 500 years.
  
  Wonder if you can take a look at my images, created by Deng Cheng Hong in Taiwan, and Lovelock has seen them and approves of them and told me IT MAY VERY WELL HAPPEN AND SOON.
  
  Maybe you can blog one day on polar cities? Please do. Pro or con. I am curious to know your POV on all this.
  
  As for Fingar’s testimoney, he did not mention POLAR CITIES at all, but you can bet the Homeland Sec dept already has plans in place for polar cities in Alaska — Juneau, Fairbanks, Anchroage, Nome….
  
  Email me offline if want to chat: this is now my life’s work. DANNY BLOOM, Tufts 1971
  
  http://pcillu101.blogspot.com
  Danny Bloom | Homepage | 06.29.08 – 2:32 am | #
- http://www.blogger.com/profile/08186033047213683502 Global Zeitgeist
  
  Totally agree with you, Geoff. Like others, I’m wrestling with the question whether labels like “climate refugees” (or formerly, “environmental refugees” — or perhaps more properly “environmental migrants”) are ultimately helpful or not. I believe their strength is in being catchy, perhaps even a bit provocative, calling attention to a linkage or dimension that previously has not received adequate attention from analysts and policymakers.
  
  Of course, any label is somewhat reductionist, and one has to be careful about terminologies. Life’s realities are inevitably complex and messy–far more than any of our labels and theories could ever accommodate.
  
  I tend to agree with Fabrice Renaud et al. (“Control, Adapt or Flee. How to Face Environmental Migration?,” InterSecTions No. 5/2007, UNU-EHS, p. 29, at http://www.ehs.unu.edu/file.php?id=259) when they argue: “Scientific ‘concerns’ instead of pragmatic application of a precautionary principle paralyse both the scientific and the policy making communities.” Ultimately, we need fairly pragmatic concepts and categories to make some real headway. We have to be careful, however, not to allow labels to be misconstrued or mis-used.
- http://www.blogger.com/profile/05130493903696077379 dan
  
  Dear GZ,
  
  you said above, “Like others, I’m wrestling with the question whether labels like “climate refugees” (or formerly, “environmental refugees” — or perhaps more properly “environmental migrants”) are ultimately helpful or not.”
  
  GOOD QueSTIOn. My pov. I feel that these migrants should be called CLIMATE MIGRANTS at first, from now until the shit hits the fan, around 2300 AD, and then when the shite does hit the fan, they will be called climate refugees, because they will be homeless at that time and looking for safe refuge in Lovelock Retreats, aka POLAR CITIES……so first, let’s call them climate migrants, they are not refugees yet. YET. Later, their descendants will be. Sounds like sci fi. but it’s not.
  
  danny
- http://www.blogger.com/profile/05130493903696077379 dan
  
  how about CLIMIGRANTS as a new word to use?
  
  see here:
  
  http://northwardho.blogspot.com/2008/06/polar-cities-and-climigrants-climate.html
  
  New word: climigrants. climate migrants. get used to it.
  Dr Lovelock has predicted it. Millions, billions, will migrate north from central and middle regions to Alaska, Norway, Canada, Iceland, Greenland, New Zealand, Tasmania. This is the future.
  
  Reference: [PDF] A New Kind of Migrant As a longtime worker with refugees and …- 6:09pmFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
  
  Bronen’s research focus on “climigrants” is an especially strong fit for Alaska EPSCoR, which integrates. social science with hard science in examining the …
  http://www.alaska.edu/epscor/highlights/Bronen-Web-pdf.pdf – Similar pages – Note this

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