Showing posts from category climate change.
-
Weekly Reading
›In a speech last week, National Intelligence Council Chairman Thomas Fingar hinted at the contents of Global Trends 2025, the intelligence report being prepared for the next U.S. president on future global threats. It predicts that U.S. global dominance will decline over the next several decades, as the world is buffeted by climate change and shortages of energy, water, and food. The intermediate draft of the report was reviewed this summer at a Wilson Center meeting hosted by ECSP.
U.S. Population, Energy and Climate Change, a new report by the Center for Environment & Population, explores how various aspects of U.S. population—including size and growth rate, density, per capita resource use, and composition—affect greenhouse gas emissions.
An extensive Congressional Research Service report compares U.S. and Chinese approaches to diplomacy, foreign aid, trade, and investment in developing countries. “China’s influence and image have been bolstered through its increasingly open and sophisticated diplomatic corps as well as through prominent PRC-funded infrastructure, public works, and economic investment projects in many developing countries,” write the authors.
ICLEI-Europe has released a set of reports designed to help local governments reap the benefits of integrated water resources management. Available in English, Portuguese, and French, the reports are geared toward southern African countries.
“The potential is there with undetermined boundaries and great wealth for conflict, or competition” in the Arctic, says Rear Admiral Gene Brooks, who is in charge of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Alaska region.
Negussie Teffera, former head of Ethiopia’s Office of Population, and Bill Ryerson of the Population Media Center (PMC) discussed PMC’s extraordinarily successful radio soap operas last week on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s program “The Current.” -
“Code Green”: Friedman Calls for an American-Led Revolution in Energy, Environment
›September 12, 2008 // By Will Rogers
America has a problem and the world has a problem,” argues Thomas Friedman in his new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—and How It Can Renew America, set to launch at the Woodrow Wilson Center on September 29 (RSVP). Plagued by inaction, the United States and the rest of the world have watched as “global warming, the stunning rise of middle classes all over the world, and rapid population growth have converged in a way that could make our planet dangerously unstable.”
Yet undergirding Friedman’s book is his sense of optimism that renewed American leadership on energy conservation, population, and multilateral cooperation could not only stave off the worst climate change scenarios but also bolster the U.S. economy and improve America’s flagging global reputation. Whether you defend or challenge Friedman’s perspective, Hot, Flat, and Crowded is certain to become a lightning rod in the debates over climate change, energy, and environmental security. Stay tuned to the New Security Beat for a more thorough review of Friedman’s book from ECSP staff.
Photo: Thomas Friedman, three-time Pulitzer Prize winning columnist of the New York Times. Courtesy of flickr user Charles Haynes. -
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
-
Climate Change and Security
›
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. -
“Adapt we must”: Joshua Busby on the Climate-Security Connection
›August 29, 2008 // By Sonia Schmanski
In “The Climate Security Connection: What it Means for the Poor,” Joshua Busby (listen to ECSP podcast with Busby) discusses the security implications of climate change for the developing world. In this paper, written for “Development in the Balance: How Will the World’s Poor Cope With Climate Change?,” the fifth annual Brookings Blum Round Table, held earlier this month, Busby explains that “[d]eveloping countries are most vulnerable, partly as an accident of geography, but also because vulnerability is made worse by poverty, bad governance, and past conflict.”
Busby compares the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, which pounded Burma in May 2008, to that of an armed attack, describing both as causing “widespread suffering, destruction of infrastructure, mobilization of the military, and the movement of refugees.” In fact, between 1991 and 2005, natural disasters led to as many deaths as armed conflict, as Busby notes. The subsequent political battles around outside efforts to deliver aid “gave people around the world a visual image of the potential future,” says Busby, and offered a glimpse of “the security risks when affected countries lack the capacity or will to respond.”
The economic consequences of natural disasters can also be crippling. In absolute terms, the developed world suffers larger financial losses, but as a share of GDP, the damage to developing countries is far greater. Additionally, though the death toll of natural disasters continues to fall, the total number of affected people is on the rise, which means that many more people are relying on government services to regain their footing in the wake of natural disasters.
These consequences have long-term security implications for a world in which natural disasters are becoming more frequent and severe. “Post-disaster environments are going to be dangerous moments,” Busby predicts, “when mishandled or inadequate disaster response can give way to the kinds of lingering grievances that can motivate people to take up arms.” To prevent this, he advocates an international focus on adaptation and risk-reduction strategies, and cautions against narrowly focusing on the causal relationship linking climate change to violent conflict. By doing so, policymakers and practitioners overlook what Busby says is the more likely outcome, in which large-scale disasters sap government resources by creating humanitarian emergencies that require military mobilization in response. In “Gathering Storm – the humanitarian impact of climate change,” the UN’s Integrated Regional News Networks (IRIN) explores how climate change has altered the face of global humanitarian crises.
Offering a sharp critique of the reactive strategy of many governments, Busby suggests that a modest investment in prevention would be more efficient and more effective. A joint assessment by the World Bank and the U.S. Geological Survey, for example, found that a $40 billion investment in natural-disaster prevention could have prevented $280 billion in damages worldwide during the 1990s. The reactive approach also threatens to politicize the carefully guarded neutrality of aid workers and organizations; engender international friction where inadequate government response leads to international intervention; and sap government resources through costly responses to humanitarian crises.
Busby envisions a system where “the poor bear less of the brunt of half-hearted and partial reactive measures” in response to climate change. Noting Paul Collier’s finding in The Bottom Billion that past conflict is an accurate predictor of future poverty, Busby argues that reducing the potential for violence in post-disaster situations will improve development prospects for countries worldwide. An enlightened approach, emphasizing prevention over reaction, will not only insulate vulnerable regions from the immediate dangers of natural disasters, but will also protect them from more indirect, long-term threats to their prosperity and security.
Photo: Tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers were mobilized in response to the May 12th earthquake. As climate change makes natural disasters more frequent and more severe, this will likely become an increasingly common sight. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Alex and Jerry.
-
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. -
Population Growth, Environmental Degradation Threaten Development in Uganda
›August 28, 2008 // By Sonia Schmanski
Climate change, increasing population, and overuse of land, fisheries, and water supplies threaten to undermine development in Uganda, writes Pius Sawa for the Africa Science News Service. Olive Sentumbwe Mugisa, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) population and health advisor in Uganda, warns that Uganda’s economic growth is not keeping pace with its population growth, which is among the fastest in Africa, due to a fertility rate of 6.7 children per woman.
Native Ugandan Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka spoke about the interconnectedness of population, health, and environment issues in Uganda in two events at the Wilson Center in May of this year. Kalema-Zikusoka is the founder and director of Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), which works to conserve the habitat of the endangered mountain gorilla by strengthening community health services and providing communities with information about the benefits of family planning.
Kalema-Zikusoka is also the author of an upcoming issue of Focus, the Environmental Change and Security Program’s series of occasional papers featuring Wilson Center speakers. Her piece describes CTPH’s work in and around Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, where it has found great success in addressing health, conservation, family planning, and livelihood issues in an integrated fashion.
Photo: Woman and children in southern Uganda. Courtesy of flickr user youngrobv. -
Green Revolution Fallout Plagues India’s Punjab Region
›August 21, 2008 // By Sonia Schmanski
India’s Punjab region faces a host of troubles: In the last 10 years, 100,000 of India’s desperate farmers—many of them Punjabi—have been driven to suicide by their inability to repay loans; half a century of heavy fertilizer use in Punjab has led to soaring cancer rates; water tables in the region sink as much as 100 feet per year, the result of decades of rice production in a naturally dry area; overwatering has brought salts to the soil’s surface, making large tracts of land unusable; and by some accounts, 40 percent of Punjab’s youth and nearly half of its agricultural workforce are addicted to heroin. In a series of reports from Punjab published in Slate magazine, Mira Kamdar argues that the economic, security, and environmental problems facing India can ultimately be traced back some 40 years to the policies of the Green Revolution. The drive to feed India’s rapidly growing population put enormous pressure on Punjab’s land and left consideration for sustainability on the back burner, according to Kamdar, who argues that these issues now threaten to paralyze India’s agricultural sector.
The Green Revolution alleviated the chronic famines that historically plagued India. Hybrid seed varieties, extensive irrigation schemes, and the heavy-handed use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides transformed Punjab into an agricultural powerhouse. It comprises only 1.5 percent of India’s territory, but it produces 60 percent of the country’s wheat and 45 percent of its rice. Yet Kamdar wonders whether India will be able to “feed a growing population in the face of environmental collapse and growing political instability fueled by scarcity.”
With little hope for economic stability, Punjab’s youth are increasingly turning to the drug trade for income, and Punjab’s impoverished citizens, many of whom feel exploited and left behind by the Indian government, are attractive recruits for separatist groups. “Conditions affecting the livelihood of the majority of people in poor countries [or regions] are at the heart of the internal violence” so often found there, according to a report from the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO).
Due to the effects of climate change, the 400 million additional people projected to live in India by 2080 may have to make do with a nearly 40 percent decline in agricultural production during the same period, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Current policies will do little to alleviate the pressures colliding in Punjab. The government—as well as the World Bank, international agriculture corporations, and Indian companies—favors privately funded, large-scale industrial operations. Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s minister of finance, is focused on developing India’s agricultural capacity, and is not terribly concerned with the consequences for the environment, security, or human health. Small-scale farming is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
Many countries face the challenge of feeding a growing population with diminishing output, and find doing so in an ecologically responsible manner difficult. Ultimately, though, the case of India shows that increasing output at such dramatic cost to human and environmental health is unsustainable, as it quickly creates complex and intractable problems of its own.
Photo: Punjabi farmers transport fertilizer from a nearby village. Courtesy of Flickr user Aman Tur.
