New planet-changing geoengineering technology is available to help humanity combat an existential security threat. However, like atomic fission, this technology is not to be jumped at without caution.

This year is the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Baruch Plan. Almost no one knows this, or if they do, they probably don’t remember who Bernard Baruch was, or what his eponymous plan was for. But the Baruch Plan of 1946 was our first and last real attempt at world governance of nuclear weapons. Three-quarters of a century later, the ill-fated effort carries important lessons for addressing the crisis of climate change.

“With climate change, we can make no small plans—we need to go big,” said Lieutenant General Wallace Gregson (ret.), former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, during a recent event co-hosted by the Environmental Peacebuilding Association and Wilson Center on opportunities and challenges facing the new administration relating to the environment, peace, and conflict.

The last decade was the warmest on record, with 2020 tied with 2016 for the all-time high average annual global temperature. This 10-year period also saw armed conflicts at severity levels not seen since the Cold War era. Could there be a causal link between these trends?

To the frustration of policymakers and laymen alike, empirical research has been unable to provide a simple and coherent answer to this question. Instead, studies of climate-conflict connections have for a long time continued to produce diverging findings and – occasionally – inspired heated debates. So, where do we stand?

In a review article introducing a new special issue of the Journal of Peace Research (JPR) on the security implications of climate change, we assess the nature and extent of scientific progress in climate-conflict research over the past decade. As yardsticks for measuring progress, we identify seven key research priorities frequently advocated in earlier reviews of the quantitative literature. 

The ongoing farmers’ movement in India has taken the world’s largest democracy by storm. Hundreds of thousands from all over the country have laid siege to New Delhi for more than two months. As both the protestors and the government dig their heels in, the chances of confrontation and violence are increasing by the day.

When the United States purchased Alaska from Russia, Americans considered the “frozen wasteland” to be a reckless, wasteful acquisition. What could ice possibly offer? 

In fact, polar ice is a critical resource for the Earth. The summer and fall of 2020 marked the lowest sea ice extent ever recorded in the Arctic Ocean, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says contemporary September sea ice extents are so low that they are unprecedented in at least 1,000 years. Moreover, collapses in the ice shelves of West Antarctica, Canada, and Greenland raised concerns in 2020. The immediate effects of climate change in the polar regions are merely the tip of the iceberg—ultimately, they have profound effects on climate and communities around the world.

“One of the most important accomplishments of the MEDEA program was to convince the intelligence community that near-term climate change is important for national security,” said D. James Baker, former Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and member of the MEDEA Program, at a panel at the American Geophysical Union’s virtual 2020 Fall Meeting. Organized by ISciences LLC’s Tom Parris, CASE Consultants International’s Eileen Shea, and Columbia University’ Robert Chen, the panel focused on how to build an effective knowledge-to-action enterprise that helps policymakers and society respond to emerging eco-security challenges. (See below for links to short, pre-recorded videos panelists shared prior to the panel to inform the discussion.)

As the climate crisis continues to worsen, climate finance remains a fraction of what is needed. The Climate Policy Initiative estimates that $579 billion was spent on average on climate finance in 2017/18. This includes domestic and international investment from both the public and private sectors towards climate mitigation and adaptation actions. Of this amount, only $30 billion—five percent—was allocated for climate adaptation. This amount stands in stark contrast to $180 billion, which the Global Commission on Adaptation estimates is needed every year to build resilience to current and future climate impacts. This catastrophic funding gap is intensifying climate security threats and elevating the vulnerability of people across the world, particularly in coastal urban centers.