Showing posts from category climate change.
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A New Cold War in the Arctic?
›August 23, 2007 // By Rachel WeisshaarAn environmental security threat is heating up in one of the world’s coldest places: the North Pole. Climate change is causing the polar ice caps to melt, making the Arctic’s vast oil and natural gas reserves more easily accessible. But because this area was previously nearly impossible to access, the rights to the territory are in dispute, with the United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, and Denmark all laying claim to it.
Russia recently initiated a flood of diplomatic posturing when it sent two mini-submarines to plant a rust-proof, titanium Russian flag on the Arctic seabed, four kilometers beneath the polar ice cap. Leaders of the other four countries with claims to the area responded with skepticism and dismay. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper also reiterated Canada’s claim to the fabled Northwest Passage (it previously claimed ownership in 1973)—which the U.S. officially views as an international strait. Ownership of the Arctic was also on the agenda at a previously-scheduled meeting of Bush, Harper, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon earlier this week in Quebec.
One reason why this controversy is so fascinating—and has been getting so much attention in the media—is that it is of interest to so many different communities. There are industry players and observers who want to know how these new fuel reserves will affect businesses; students of national security and politics who are intrigued by the delicate symbolic and rhetorical dance that is unfolding; scientists who are curious as to what the five countries’ new geological exploratory missions will discover; and environmentalists who are concerned about the increased climate change (and localized environmental degradation) that extracting and burning the fossil fuels under the Arctic would likely produce.
Technically, the Arctic ownership debate will be resolved by the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a group of lawyers and geologists who will rely on the 1994 Law of the Sea Treaty to help determine the validity of ownership claims. But because the stakes are so high—in terms of natural resources as well as political prestige—it seems unlikely that compromise and caution will prevail unless the commission sends a strong message that it will not tolerate Cold War-style intimidation or theatrics. -
Too Big or Too Small? Population Growth and Climate Change
›August 7, 2007 // By Gib ClarkeThe Economist’s recent story “How to deal with a falling population” rightly states that a growing global population does not inevitably exhaust the earth’s resources, and that a shrinking population poses several serious threats to nations.
But the article downplays the impact of a large population. The total number of people on the planet has both global and local consequences. On the global level, each additional resident contributes to climate change, and this contribution is growing for citizens of developing countries making the transition to more western, carbon-consuming lifestyles. While 6.6 billion people have not yet run the oil derricks dry, large local populations have already had significant effects on local resources. In many parts of the world, women and children walk for hours to obtain water, firewood, and other basic needs.
The story seems to suggest that we should wait for governments to solve the problem of climate change. Yet many, including the author of one of the articles in The Economist’s September 2006 survey of climate change, are skeptical that politics can single-handedly and responsibly address this issue.
While governments work on large-scale policies, everyday people can influence natural resource consumption and climate change by focusing on population issues. One of the most effective ways to do this is by expanding access to family planning programs. Concerns about the possibility of coercion accompany all family planning efforts, but regulated, well-managed family planning programs tend to produce positive side effects, increasing women’s empowerment and education and expanding employment opportunities for both men and women.
It is important for governments and international institutions to craft prudent, long-term policies to address climate change. Yet we must also remember that the choices that ordinary individuals make can have significant positive impacts on health, economic development, and the environment. -
Warming Up to Migration: Labor Mobility and Climate Change
›August 1, 2007 // By Karima TawfikTraveling across national borders to find work should be treated as a legitimate response to climate change, says the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Oli Brown in a new policy paper on climate change and labor mobility.
Both Brown and ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko, who recently weighed in on climate change and migration on The New Security Beat, believe that climate change is an increasingly important driver of migration. However, it is difficult to isolate a causal relationship between climate change and migration because other factors—such as population growth, economics, and politics—are inextricably intertwined with climate’s impact on migration patterns. Brown and Dabelko both stress that the difficulties of measuring climate change’s effect on migration should not prevent policymakers from addressing the relationship between the two, however.Brown explains that labor migration has become an important coping strategy in drought-stricken Africa. During dry periods, young adults leave their rural homes and head for the cities, hoping to earn money for their families. Brown recommends increasing the flexibility of international migration laws to make it easier for people to travel across national borders to earn a living, but he also urges developing nations to curb the “brain drain” phenomenon by adopting incentives for workers to remain in their home countries. Moreover, he argues that wealthy developed countries, which tend to see migration as a failure of adaptation and often oppose relaxing immigration or refugee policies, should accept environmental stress as a legitimate reason for migration.
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NPR, National Geographic Explore Links Between People and Climate
›July 25, 2007 // By Rachel WeisshaarNational Public Radio (NPR) and National Geographic have teamed up to produce “Climate Connections,” a year-long series that explores, in its own words, “How we are shaping climate” and “How climate is shaping us.” This fascinating, first-rate series should appeal to non-experts as well as those more familiar with these issues.
NPR and National Geographic produce stories for the series independently, but link extensively to one another’s contributions. Both organizations’ websites offer a wealth of compelling—and sometimes sobering—stories on the connections between people and climate. For instance, NPR’s most recent “Climate Connections” story examines how the gas flares that are produced in the Niger Delta when oil companies burn off surplus natural gas are releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the air and likely sickening nearby residents.
Both websites are filled with interactive features: National Geographic has a “Grade Your Climate IQ” quiz and an animated climate change simulation, while NPR’s website allows viewers to find past “Climate Connections” stories by navigating around a map of the world. I encourage you to listen in or log on to this excellent, cross-cutting series. -
A Word of Caution on Climate Change and “Refugees”
›July 18, 2007 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoScholars, policy analysts, and even military officers are breaking down climate change’s impacts into what they hope are more manageable topics for examination. The migration that climate change could cause is one such topic. For instance, the Center for American Progress recently posted a piece entitled “Climate Refugees: Global Warming will Spur Migration.” The International Peace Academy analyzed “Climate Change and Conflict: The Migration Link” in a May 2007 Coping With Crisis working paper. Climate change-induced migration also figured prominently in the security perspective offered by the CNA Corporation’s Military Advisory Board in its “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change.”
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Environment and Security News Roundup
›July 17, 2007 // By Alex FischerInward Searching at the Security Council
After it recently spent a day discussing how trade in natural resources can fuel conflict, the UN Security Council issued a statement detailing ways for the UN to do more to end illegal natural resources trade in conflict zones. The statement contained no specific directives, however, reflecting the continuing split within the council over the extent of its authority to regulate natural resources. The Chinese delegation warned that sanctions, one tool the UN could use to combat illicit exploitation of natural resources, often harm countries that are already highly vulnerable. Along with other countries, China argued that coordinating and strengthening existing UN agencies, rather than creating new initiatives, would be the best way to prevent natural resources from contributing to violent conflict.
AFRICOM Encounters Challenges to Implementation
The U.S. military’s plan to establish AFRICOM, a new military command in Africa, has been stalled as potential host nations voice their concerns. African countries including Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, and Djibouti have declined U.S. officials’ proposals to set up the new base in their respective nations. They are reluctant to collaborate publicly with the U.S. military and are concerned about the increased risk of terrorist attacks against new American facilities and the possibility of future American intervention in Africa. The U.S. has stated that the command center will focus on development, peace, security, education, democracy, and economic growth.
Military Should Prepare for Climate Change Impacts, Says British Official
British Chief of Defense Staff Jock Stirrup said the potential impact of climate change on weak and vulnerable states would be “rather like pouring petrol onto a burning fire.” The military must incorporate climate change impacts into its security calculations, warned Stirrup. New challenges for the security establishment could include increasingly frequent natural disasters, shifting poverty stresses, and social unrest. “Now add in the effects of climate change. Poverty and despair multiply, resentment surges and people look for someone to blame,” he said. -
UN Highlights Climate Change-Security Link in Sudan
›June 26, 2007 // By Rachel WeisshaarUN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently named climate change as one of the primary causes of the current humanitarian crisis in Sudan. Although most commentators focus on the political and ethnic dimensions of the conflict, Ban reminds us that herders (primarily Arabs) and farmers (primarily black Africans) coexisted peacefully until the mid-1980s, when drought struck the region.
Ban believes that peacekeeping is an important first step in alleviating the crisis, and he expressed hope that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir will stand by his recent agreement to allow a joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force into Darfur. However, Ban maintains that a more permanent solution to this conflict must address its underlying environmental factors. As he starkly stated, any lasting solution will have to tackle “the fact that there’s no longer enough good land to go around.” Ban’s piece draws on an Atlantic Monthly article (available to subscribers only) by Stephen Faris. In March, The New Security Beat’s Karin Bencala weighed in on Faris’ article.
Also, a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) states that environmental degradation—particularly desertification, deforestation, and overgrazing—has helped contribute to decades of conflict in Sudan. The report predicts that environmental stresses will precipitate future conflicts—particularly in Africa’s Sahel region and in east Asia, as UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said in an interview. The report also echoes Ban’s long-term environmental perspective on restoring peace to Sudan. “Investment in environmental management, financed by the international community and from the country’s emerging boom in oil and gas exports, will be a vital part of the peace building effort,” says UNEP’s press release.
Economic development is a necessary part of any solution in Darfur, but in order to achieve stability, this development must preserve, not deplete, Sudan’s already-overtaxed natural resources. Sudan cannot solve its environmental and resource problems without the help of those countries that likely helped cause them: unless countries with the highest levels of carbon dioxide emissions—the United States and China, among others—do not reduce their carbon footprint, even the most far-sighted Sudanese development strategy will be hard-pressed to succeed. -
Consequences of Climate Change: Imagining a World Without Tequila and Lattes
›June 25, 2007 // By Alex FischerOver the past months, climate change has been the darling of the news media. Now, reporters are starting to identify ways that climate change may threaten the American way of life. For example, what if the change in weather patterns affected the world’s coffee production? According to the UNEP Global Outlook Report this may not be an abstraction: “Coffee is the first, second, or third largest export crop for 26 mostly poor countries in Africa and Central America. Yet coffee is sensitive to changes in average temperatures.” The average U.S. coffee drinker consumes 3.1 cups of coffee a day. Can we imagine reducing that to one cup? Or paying double or triple for a single shot of espresso?
We are also seeing more stories about the consequences of hasty efforts to limit carbon emissions. Increasing demand for low-emission fuel is already causing shortage of blue agave, the source of tequila. The Christian Science Monitor’s Sara Miller reports on the dramatic shift from the growth of the spiky-blue native Mexican plant to tall corn stalks; and writes that agave is the latest casualty of the corn-based ethanol craze.
The quest for climate-friendly fuel could also have unintended security consequences. Another recent article quotes Andrew Pendleton of Christian Aid: “You could have blood biofuels in the same way as you have blood diamonds.” What if biofuels are the next hub of conflict resources, akin to diamonds in Sierra Leone, timber in Cambodia, or minerals in the Congo?
The news media should be mindful of speculative reporting. Of course, terms like “blood biofuels” are eye-catching, but by using them, news outlets run the risk of overselling potential threats. ECSP’s Geoff Dabelko recently spoke about this phenomena at an event on environment, conflict and cooperation, noting the fallout from Robert Kaplan’s 1994 article “The Coming Anarchy,” which launched a strand of environmental fatalism whose gloom-and-doom predictions never came to pass.
This reminds me of the warnings I was told as a child, related through the classic fable of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Critics of climate change are ready in waiting for the Al Gore’s of the world to be revealed as metaphorical “boys.” It is imperative, then, that concrete evidence and studies are conducted to support the claims connecting climate change and security. And for their part, the news media should be cautious in their coverage of climate change, but also be commended for hitting on a question about the developed world’s priorities: Could the threat of losing luxury items produce more action than predictions of increasing natural disasters and coastal flooding? Is the thought of losing that morning cup of coffee enough to shift public opinion and behavior? And will these global shifts have a greater impact on the already fragile security of poor and post-conflict countries?
