Showing posts by Geoffrey D. Dabelko.
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Nobel Pursuits: Linking Climate Efforts With Development, Natural Resources, and Stability
›December 11, 2009 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoThe only mention of climate change in President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech falls squarely in the climate and security context. He introduces the climate imperative by highlighting natural resources and development connections to stability and human well-being.
In these two paragraphs, the President identifies the key communities that must come together, first in dialogue and then in cooperation, but who so commonly don’t: development, natural resources, health, climate, peacebuilding, and security.It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine and shelter they need to survive. It does not exist where children can’t aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.
Photo: President Barack Obama looks at the Nobel Peace Prize medal at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2009 (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza).
And that’s why helping farmers feed their own people — or nations educate their children and care for the sick — is not mere charity. It’s also why the world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, more famine, more mass displacement — all of which will fuel more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists and environmental activists who call for swift and forceful action — it’s military leaders in my own country and others who understand our common security hangs in the balance. -
Climate and Security Comes to Copenhagen
›December 10, 2009 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoThe Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is bringing climate and security links to the Copenhagen confab in Week Two of COP15. The foreign and security policy implications of climate change are appealing both analytically and politically for many players, albeit from very different points of reference (think Tuvalu versus Bangladesh versus the United States, for example). Others, of course, think it is rubbish.
Danish Foreign Minister Peter Stig Møller laid out his thinking back in September at a one-day conference at the ministry. MFA’s December 15th side event will feature former Danish PM and current NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, African Union Commission Chair Jean Ping, and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. Some other big names are possible as well. You can RSVP for one of the 400 seats at MEK@UM.DK although registration may close today!
On December 17th, you can get another dose of climate and security talk at “Delivering Climate Security,” where the expert-level players will make their pitches. New Security Beat has video interviews with half of the panel’s speakers: Nick Mabey of E3G, Carol Dumaine of U.S. Department of Energy, and Cleo Paskal of Chatham House. Joining them will be Brigadier General Wendell Chris King (Ret.), dean of academics for the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College; Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, the UK’s climate and energy security envoy, Major General Muniruzzaman (Ret.), who is president of the Bangladesh Institute for Peace and Security Studies.
So while the climate and security angle is not front-and-center in the negotiations on emissions targets or financing, it will have a hearing at this year’s ultimate climate forum. Let’s hope this attention extends beyond this month’s political crescendo, demonstrating an interest in the analytical links and their varied implications, rather than merely in the political expediency of climate security as slogan. -
UK Leads With a Military Voice on Climate Security
›December 1, 2009 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoThe recent appointment of Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti as climate security envoy for the UK Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO) and Ministry of Defence (MOD) represents a new level of seriousness for militaries considering climate change and security links. Morisetti made a number of appearances in
I particularly respect the broader approach the Rear Admiral’s appointment represents–a “joined-up government” framework for complex challenges like climate change that bridge traditional bureaucratic silos.
While there are plenty of examples where joined-up government efforts fall short, the MOD and FCO are finding a good balance in the climate-security case. In the United States, the CNA’s Military Advisory Board demonstrates that military leaders can serve as effective non-traditional spokespeople for climate mitigation and adaptation.
But this more political role for military leaders must spring from systematic assessments of the direct and knock-on effects of climate change on both broad human security and narrow traditional security concerns, as well as the institutions used to provide that security. A thorough and evidenced-based understanding of the direct effects of climate change on traditional security concerns is required to make an effective case and stay grounded in reality. Merely deploying military leaders as advocates because climate-security “polls well” with the American public would, in the long run, be damaging to supporters of both enhanced security and aggressive climate mitigation efforts.
The UK climate-security team is building that evidence base by funding practical analytical studies on the security impacts of climate change in key countries and regions (e.g., Colombia, China, Central America). Their use of Hadley Centre products ground the work in the latest scientific understanding, such as the new map of the world with 4C (7F) degrees of warming.
Back in the United States, the U.S. Defense Department’s Quadrennial Review (QDR) is due to Congress in February 2010. The report is required by law to include assessments of the impacts of climate change for U.S. security and of the military’s capacities to respond to those impacts. Work on that section of the report has been underway for months with in-depth consultations inside and outside government.
Here’s hoping the U.S. appoints its own flag officer to run point on the climate-security challenges outlined in the QDR. -
The Kids Aren’t Alright: Surveying Pakistan’s Youth
›November 24, 2009 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoA new survey of Pakistani youth shows why the country is Exhibit A for taking seriously the potent combination of demography and lack of education and employment. Funded by the British Council, the survey shows how Pakistan’s “youth bulge” can be both threat and opportunity.
If it is coupled with investment in education and employment, the large youthful population can be a dynamic force: the much-heralded “demographic dividend”.
But without effective investment, a “demographic disaster” is more likely. The survey found that 1 in 4 young people are illiterate and only 1 in 5 have full-time jobs. Only 15 percent believe their country is headed in the right direction. Their faith is placed in their religion, not their government.
I might add Pakistan’s poor resource base to the perils of illiteracy, unemployment, and age structure. And let’s not ignore the other big problems of water, economics, and agriculture.
But one thing is certain: the population will continue to grow. The current and projected median projections are 180 million today, 246 million projected in 2025, and 335 million in 2050.
Those making big decisions in U.S. policy toward Pakistan and the region should consider all these underlying factors–and more.
Photo: Brave children of Bakalot, courtesy Flickr user amir taj. -
The Campus Beat: Using Blogs, Facebook, to Teach Environmental Security at West Point
›November 17, 2009 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoThe lecture was only a few hours away. In desperation, I turned to Facebook. “I’ve got just 50 minutes with the cadets at West Point today to talk water, conflict, and cooperation. What are the most compelling examples you would use to make both hard security and human security points, both threat and opportunity points? I ask in part because it is proving harder to decide what to leave out than what to put in!”
Within seconds, experts from the Departments of State and Energy, USAID, and National Geographic responded with examples, including the Tibetan plateau and glacial melt, the lower Jordan River, and more. I used these cases and others to break through to an audience that included both those skeptical of “treehugger” issues and those eager to learn. The map of Chinese current and planned hydro projects produced audible gasps and wide eyes among the class of future officers.
While at West Point, colleague Meaghan Parker and I met with geography faculty to better understand how and what they are teaching on environmental security and demographic security. The professors on the banks of the Hudson face similar challenges to their non-military brethren; today’s students have shorter attention spans and lack experience conducting in-depth research (or getting beyond Google).
But some challenges are unique to the service academies: isolation from academic peers; the need to make sure the material is relevant to future military leaders; and most of all, the physical and mental demands on cadets’ time placed by army training. I saw it as a sign of success that I only had three stand up during my lecture, the military’s sanctioned way to keep yourself awake in class. (LTC Lou Rios USAF, one of the faculty members we met with, wrote about teaching environmental security at West Point previously on New Security Beat.)
Video, blogs, and other new media seem like a way to bridge some of these gaps. We’re especially excited that the cadets in at least three courses will be using the New Security Beat as part of their classes by reading posts, commenting, and proposing a post on a topic of their choosing. We’re looking forward to a cadet joining us next summer for internship with ECSP.
All of these outreach efforts are part of our strategy to both understand how all types of actors—including future army officers—come to understand environment and security links while providing insights and analysis to that same diverse group.
Photos by Geoff Dabelko and Meaghan Parker -
Bringing the Climate Fight to New Battlefields
›October 23, 2009 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoThis picture brings the 350 ppm carbon dioxide message to another kind of battlefield. It illustrates the increasing role of the military in bringing non-traditional voices to the political debates over action against climate change. There are plenty of ties, if one scratches the surface and gets into the climate-security field.
The CNA Military Advisory Board, a group of distinguished retired flag officers, has been the most prominent manifestation, but this picture suggests it isn’t just the senior officers with an opinion on climate. President Barack Obama gave a shout out in his MIT speech to Operation Free, a group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans currently on a bus tour campaigning for energy independence.
Equally important, if not as prominent in this political season, are the present or anticipated impacts of climate on the availability of certain resources (sometimes too much, sometimes too little) and how they might affect economic and political stability. And there are a wide range of reasons for the military to adopt the precautionary principle approach to climate change.
Right now, there is a strong focus on climate-security links in both the research and policy arenas. The challenge is to raise attention, perhaps most productively in a risk framework, without resorting to hyperbole that ultimately produces a backlash.
Photo courtesy of 350.org and Agent Slim. Thanks to Andy Revkin for flagging the picture. -
Send in the Scientists: Finnish MP Calls for Assessing Toxic Waste Threats in Somalia
›October 22, 2009 // By Geoffrey D. Dabelko“If there are rumors, we should go check them out!” declared Finnish MP Pekka Haavisto about barrels of toxic waste that supposedly washed ashore in Somalia after the 2004 tsunami. I spoke with Haavisto in Helsinki last month as he took a break from marathon budget meetings.
“I think it is possible to send an international scientific assessment team in to take samples and find out whether there are environmental contamination and health threats. Residents of these communities, including the pirate villages, want to know if they are being poisoned, just like any other community would.”
In April this year, Haavisto flew commercial to Mogadishu to meet with Somalia’s president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed (who narrowly escaped assasination today), and African Union (AU) peacekeepers. In August Haavisto visited Puntland state to speak with President Abdirahman Mohamed Mohamud and other government representatives.
“Parliamentarian” is only one of Haavisto’s jobs. He also works as Finland’s special envoy for the Horn of Africa and, after playing a similar role within the EU as special representative for Sudan. From 1999-2005, he headed the UN Environment Programme’s Disaster and Conflicts Programme (then called the Post-Conflict Assessment Unit), which specializes in objective scientific environmental assessments in war-torn countries.
Haavisto is an enthusiastic advocate for environmental missions that may improve the desperate conditions resulting from violent conflicts. “We should be talking with all the factions,” he told me, to investigate the toxic waste charges. Such a thorough and objective assessment could provide a rare and potentially valuable avenue for addressing underlying suspicions and grievances some Somalis hold against those whom they claim dump waste off shore and overfish their waters.
Using environmental dialogue to build confidence is a top objective of Haavisto’s former colleagues at UNEP—and an idea that is gaining more traction within the wider UN family. For example, UNEP is now working directly with the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) to provide “green advisors” to their blue helmets, lowering their environmental bootprints and establishing green, self-sufficient bases, including one in Somalia for AU troops.
Assessing the tsunami’s possible toxic legacy in Somalia may provide an avenue for dialogue by addressing first-order concerns for local populations. The dialogue could ultimately support action on front-burner problems outside Somalia, such as piracy, poverty, internal conflict, and terrorism.
Photo: IDPs outside Mogadishu, courtesy of Flickr user Abdurrahman Warsameh and ISN Security Watch. -
Steady Drum Beat for Climate and Security Linkages
›October 14, 2009 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoThis week Sweden, the current holder of the European Union Presidency, will convene a conference for EU member states on environment, climate change, and security. The Ministry of Defence and the Swedish Defence Research Agency are serving as organizers, yet they are constructing the conference in broad and inclusive terms. The objective is to highlight and address the links between climate change and security in the “broadest sense of the term.” This framing is perhaps less surprising when one remembers the Swedes have been leaders in both lightening the military’s environmental bootprint and supporting international development through the Swedish International Development Agency’s investments in water, development, and peace. Right now it is the European Union, the UK, the Germans, the Finns, and the Danes joining the Swedes to drive policy action on climate and security links.
The climate security topic remains on the edges of the Copenhagen process, according to Adelphi Research’s Alexander Carius, but there is a constant flow of conferences in Europe and the United States nevertheless.
Committee Two of the UN General Assembly tackles it with a panel October 19th in New York (I’m fortunate enough to be making remarks). And the draft of the Secretary-General’s report on climate and security called for by this summer’s non-binding UNGA resolution is circulating for comment.
The Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs speaks at Chatham House the next day, presumably covering some of the same threat multiplier themes he highlighted September 19th> in Copenhagen.
The Holland-based Institute of Environmental Security brings its international group of military officers to engage Washington audiences October 29th after having had their European meetings in
CNA follows in November, including roll-outs of country-specific work on Colombia and China, made possible with support from the UK Foreign Commonwealth Office.
After that scholars convene at the University of Hamburg, and then on to Trondheim, Norway, next June for a PRIO -organized conference.
And the beat goes on for climate and security. Critically important will be whether the interest in climate and security links extends beyond Copenhagen, demonstrating it is more than just a slogan from a non-traditional climate audience aimed at nudging the negotiations at COP15. No doubt it will, with other milestones including the February 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review from the US Department of Defense and other processes yet to come.
