Showing posts from category *Blog Columns.
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Weekly Reading
›“African and global leaders must promote better integration of environment and health sectors and sustain more effective coordination across the continent,” argues an op-ed in The Lancet addressing the recent meeting of African health and environment ministers.Strengthening Land Tenure and Property Rights in Angola evaluates a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded project to bolster the land tenure and property rights of Angolans living in peri-urban and rural areas.
According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor, rebel groups in the
The Sierra Leone Integrated Diamond Management Program, which “was designed to improve local incentives for clean diamond management, enable local communities to benefit from the diamond resource, and to assist the Government of Sierra Leone (GOSL) in its effort to manage this critical resource,” has achieved considerable success over a short time period, according to a final report on the program.
The 2007 Liberia Demographic and Health Survey, available in full online, covers population; family planning; fertility; child health, mortality, and nutrition; maternal health, mortality, and nutrition; malaria, HIV/AIDS, and other diseases; gender-based violence; and a variety of other topics.
The
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Climate Change and Security
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Presidential administrations usually end with sepia retrospectives and long, adulatory lists of accomplishments. The present administration is unlikely to end this way, but it will certainly go out with many “what if” epitaphs. Near the top of my “what if” list is, “What if this administration had taken the threat of global climate change seriously and acted as though our future depended on cutting emissions and cooperating on adaptation?”
From July 27-30, 2008, my organization, the Center for a New American Security, led a consortium of 10 scientific, private, and public policy organizations in an experiment to answer this particular “what if.” The experiment, a climate change “war game,” tested what a change in U.S. position might mean in 2015, when the effects of climate change will likely be more apparent and the global need to act will be more urgent. The participants were scientists, national security strategists, scholars, and members of the business community from China, Europe, India, and the Americas. The variety was intentional: We hoped to leverage a range of expertise and see how these different communities would interact to solve problems.
Climate change may seem a strange subject for a war game, but one of our primary goals was to highlight the ways in which global climate change is, in fact, a national security issue. In our view, climate change is highly likely to provoke conflict—within states, along borders as populations move, and, down the line, possibly between states. Also, the way the military calculates risk and engages in long-term planning lends itself to planning for the climate change that is already locked in (and gives strategic urgency to cutting emissions and preventing future climate change).
The players were asked to confront a near-term future in 2015, in which greenhouse gas emissions have continued to grow and the pattern of volatile and severe weather events has continued. The context of the game was an emergency ad-hoc meeting of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters in 2015—China, the European Union, India, and the United States—to consider future projections (unlike most war games, the projections were real; Oak Ridge National Laboratory analyzed regional-level Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data from the A1FI series specifically for the game). The “UN Secretary-General” challenged the top emitters to come up with an agreement to deal with increased migration resulting from climate change; resource scarcity; disaster relief; and drastic emissions cuts.
Although the players did reach an agreement, which is an interesting artifact in itself, that was not really the point. The primary objective was to see how the teams interacted and whether we gained any insight into our current situation. While we’re still processing all of our findings, I certainly came away with an interesting answer to that “what if” question. If the United States had been forward-leaning on climate change these past eight years, taking action at home and proposing change internationally, it would have made a difference, but only to a point. As important as American leadership will be on this issue, it is Chinese leadership—or followership—that will be decisive. And it is going to be very, very difficult—perhaps impossible—for China to lead, at least under current circumstances. The tremendous growth of China’s economy has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, but there are hundreds of millions more still to be lifted. The stark reality is that China will be fueling that economic growth with coal, oil, and natural gas—just as the United States did in the 20th century—unless and until there is a viable alternative.
If the next administration hopes to head off the worst effects of global climate change, it will not only have to find a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions at home, it may well have to make it possible for China to do so, too.
Sharon Burke is a national security expert at the Center for a New American Security, where she focuses on energy, climate change, and the Middle East.
Photo: The U.S., EU, and Chinese simulation teams in negotiations. Courtesy of Sharon Burke. -
Weekly Reading
›A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies argues that the global food crisis poses a moral and humanitarian threat; a developmental threat; and a strategic threat. The authors recommend that the United States: modernize emergency assistance; make rural development and agriculture top U.S. foreign policy priorities; alter the U.S. approach to biofuels; ensure U.S. trade policy promotes developing-country agriculture; and strengthen relevant U.S. organizational capacities.
In an article in Scientific American, Jeffrey Sachs argues that the global food shortages Thomas Malthus predicted in 1798 may still come to pass if we do not slow population growth and begin using natural resources more sustainably.
A report by the Government Accountability Office finds that food insecurity in sub-Saharan African persists, despite U.S. and global efforts to halve it by 2015, due to “low agricultural productivity, limited rural development, government policy disincentives, and the impact of poor health on the agricultural workforce. Additional factors, including rising global commodity prices and climate change, will likely further exacerbate food insecurity in the region.”
In an article in the Belgian journal Les Cahiers du Réseau Multidisciplinaire en Etudes Stratégiques, Thomas Renard argues that climate change is likely to increase the risk of environmental terrorism (attacks that use the environment as a tool or target), eco-terrorism (attacks perpetrated on behalf of the environment), nuclear terrorism, and humanitarian terrorism (attacks targeting humanitarian workers).
A Community Guide to Environmental Health, available for free online in PDF, is a field-tested, hands-on guide to community-based environmental health. Topics include waterborne diseases; sustainable agriculture; mining and health; and using the legal system to fight for environmental rights. -
Weekly Reading
›Eighty-two percent of experts surveyed by Foreign Policy and the Center for American Progress for the 2008 Terrorism Index said that the threat posed by competition for scarce resources is growing, a 13 percent increase over last year.
China Environment Forum Director Jennifer Turner maintains that China is facing “multiple water crises” due to pollution and rising demand in an interview with E&ETV;.
The Population Reference Bureau has two new articles examining the nexus between population and environment. One explores the relationship between forest conservation and the growth of indigenous Amazonian populations, while the other provides an excellent examination of population’s role in the current food crisis, with a special emphasis on East Africa.
Ethiopia’s rapid population growth “has accelerated land degradation, as forests are converted to farms and pastures, and households use unsustainable agricultural methods to eke out a living on marginal land,” writes Ruth Ann Wiesenthal-Gold in “Audubon on the World Stage: International Family Planning and Resource Management.” Wiesenthal-Gold attended a November 2007 study tour of integrated population, health, and environment (PHE) development programs in Ethiopia sponsored by the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club. -
Weekly Reading
›“Over the next twenty years physical pressures – population, resource, energy, climatic, and environmental – could combine with rapid social, cultural, technological, and geopolitical change to create greater uncertainty,” warns the newly released 2008 National Defense Strategy. Demographic trends, resource scarcity, and environmental change all inform the updated strategy, which encourages international cooperation to address these impending challenges.
The “Population Forum” in the September issue of WorldWatch Magazine “reveals that empowering women to make their own family size choices…is the best strategy to tackle population growth” and the environmental and security problems linked to it. A short history of population trends is available online; the website offers free previews of Lori Hunter’s article on PHE and gender, as well as “Population and Security” by Elizabeth Leahy and ECSP’s own Sean Peoples. Bernard Orimbo links population growth and environmental degradation in his native Kenya, and PAI staff discuss urbanization.
Climate change threatens to exaggerate the challenges faced by the billions of people worldwide who depend upon natural resources for their survival. But the competition and, at times, violent conflict that results from increased resource scarcity is not a given; the recently released World Resources Report 2008 finds that “well-designed, community-based enterprises” can ease the environmental burden on natural resources and pave the way for sustainable dependence on the land.
At the 2008 World Expo’s “Water and Conflict Resolution” week, municipal representatives working with Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) presented case studies from its “Good Water Neighbors” programs: cross-border solutions for the Lower Jordan River; the Jordan River Peace Park project; and the town of Auja in the Jordan River Valley. Speaking about these programs the Wilson Center, FOEME’s Gidon Bromberg said that “by working together, not only do we advance the environmental issues…we also advance peace between our peoples.” -
Population, Natural Resource Pressures Could Ignite Human-Wildlife Conflict in Laos
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High population growth, limited arable land, and soaring rice prices in Lao People’s Democratic Republic mean that land access is critical for food security. At the same time, there is immense pressure to convert forests and small-scale agricultural land into commercial plantations for rubber, coffee, and other valuable crops. Together, these factors are significant threats not only to people, but to wildlife and biodiversity as well. They are also resulting in the emergence of new tensions between people and wildlife across the Lao landscape. -
Weekly Reading
›“Some argue that global demographic trends are progressively pushing the world toward greater peace and prosperity. They are wrong. The risks of both chaotic state collapse and neoauthoritarian reaction are rising,” argue Neil Howe and Richard Jackson in “Battle of the (Youth) Bulge,” published in the National Interest.
A recent online discussion with the Population Reference Bureau’s Jason Bremner covered a variety of topics related to environmental change and migration, including climate change migrants, rural-to-rural migration, and disease vectors.
Rising food and fuel prices could trigger turmoil in Guinea-Bissau, says the latest report from the International Monetary Fund. The country already suffers from chronic food insecurity, reports IRIN News. -
Weekly Reading
›“The term ‘climate refugees’ implies a mono-causality rarely found in human reality,” argue the authors of a report on climate change and forced migration released by the Norwegian Refugee Council. The report’s authors urge additional research on the links between climate change, migration, and conflict, and strongly emphasize the importance of helping developing countries adapt to climate change’s impacts.
According to a report released by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre of the Norwegian Refugee Council, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) reached 26 million in 2007, despite an overall decline in the number of violent conflicts around the world.
The Philippine government reached a deal with a Muslim rebel group that will expand an autonomous region in the southern Philippines. “The proposed homeland will be entitled to a large share of the resources in the area,” reports the BBC.
Presidential administrations usually end with sepia retrospectives and long, adulatory lists of accomplishments. The present administration is unlikely to end this way, but it will certainly go out with many “what if” epitaphs. Near the top of my “what if” list is, “What if this administration had taken the threat of global climate change seriously and acted as though our future depended on cutting emissions and cooperating on adaptation?”
