The Center for Climate & Security

Three Climate Issues to Watch in Defense Bills this Fall

by John Conger

For many years, a bipartisan consensus has been built in Washington around the risks that climate change poses to U.S. national security priorities. Congress has passed pragmatic legislation to assess the vulnerability of military infrastructure and forces; to expand U.S. military authorities and capabilities for resilience; and to increase emphasis on the melting Arctic and new tensions between the United States and both Russia and China.  

This year, however, climate issues have been drawn into tense and partisan political debates, which at the time of this publication, look like they will lead to a government shutdown. As the overarching government funding issues take center stage, here are three climate issues to keep an eye on as Congress moves defense legislation this Fall.

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CCS Welcomes 2023-2024 Class of the Climate and Security Fellowship

By Brigitte Hugh

The Center for Climate and Security (CCS) is pleased to announce the 2023-2024 class of the Climate and Security Fellowship. 

Extreme weather, food and energy crises, and global competition over clean energy are increasingly underscoring the security implications of climate change, prompting a recognition among U.S. policymakers that climate change must be at the center of U.S. national security and foreign policy. To meet this goal, there is a need for increased integration and capacity in  the U.S. security and climate workforces. The Climate Security Fellowship creates a space for mid-career professionals to explore the impact of climate on security and security on climate while building a network of professionals working at this nexus. 

The 2023-2024 class of 12 fellows comes from a diverse set of backgrounds and expertise critical to advancing a whole of society response to climate security risks. During their term, they will have opportunities to engage with expert speakers, discuss a syllabus of key climate security topics, and build relationships with the CCS network and one another. The CCS team looks forward to collaborating with them over the next nine months. 

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August 2023 Update: Military Responses to Climate Hazards (MiRCH) Tracker 

By Tom Ellison, Erin Sikorsky, and Michael Zarfos

In August 2023, the Military Responses to Climate Hazards (MiRCH) tracker identified 19 countries in which militaries were deployed in response to climate hazards, often multiple times to different regions and types of hazard. The tracker identified 35 incidents total. 

In the United States, the devastating wildfire in Maui resulted in one of the largest military deployments in response to a single hazard in recent years, which the military has sustained for more than a month. The disaster was the most lethal U.S. wildfire in a century, exceeding the annual deaths from terrorism in the United States in any year since 9/11. The fires prompted the creation of a U.S. Department of Defense task force to coordinate contributions from all U.S. armed forces branches and the National Guard, which have totaled nearly 600 personnel. In support of FEMA, the task force has provided relief services including water and fuel distribution, search and recovery, air and sea transportation, mortuary and forensic services, and facility usage. 

The crisis has attracted disinformation as well, such as a false claim that the military had arrested the head of FEMA in the wake of the disaster, Chinese government disinformation that the fires were caused by a U.S. “weather weapon,” and Russian claims that U.S. aid to Ukraine had undermined wildfire response.

The Maui wildfire underscored the fact that militaries are responding to hazards that reflect not only climate change, but broader ecological disruption as well. The fires were likely more destructive because of invasive species (an example of a biotic eruption) and insufficient environmental management. Grasses intentionally introduced in the late 1700s likely contributed to the fires through the buildup of flammable biomass in abandoned post-agricultural lands, which also spread into populated communities. There were many warnings about the risks posed by these invasive grasses prior to the fire, but lack of regulation, resources and urgency confounded efforts to reduce the grasses’ density and to exclude them from populated areas. Further, on Maui, decades of water diversion from streams supporting agriculture and development contributed to a drying of the land, increasing fire risk.

Meanwhile, responses to severe climate hazards prompted thorny political questions. In Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) continued to assist firefighting and evacuations in British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. The summer’s extreme weather prompted one retired Canadian military leader to call for a new national emergency response agency to minimize the burden on the CAF. In China in early August, thousands of People’s Liberation Army and People’s Armed Police personnel conducted evacuations during flooding from the landfall of Typhoon Doksuri, and a decision to divert flood waters to parts of Hebei Province to protect Beijing prompted anger at the government. (For more on the dynamics in China, see our analysis here).

Elsewhere, climate-driven hazards led neighbors to help neighbors, both in the United States and internationally. A wildfire in Louisiana drew in National Guard troops from as far away as Minnesota, while the EU Civil Protection Mechanism was activated for the second time this summer in Greece in response to wildfires. Many countries that deploy in support of the mechanism do so via their militaries, especially smaller countries like Croatia. According to the European Commission, the August fires in Greece were the largest fires ever seen in the EU.

New Analysis of Climate Security Risks in Iran and Türkiye

By Elsa Barron, Tom Ellison, Brigitte Hugh

This week, the Center for Climate and Security (CCS) and the Woodwell Climate Research Center released two interactive story maps on climate security risks in Iran and Türkiye.

As extreme weather this summer shows, no place is immune from climate change’s impact on the interconnected natural and human systems that underpin stability and security. Iran and Türkiye are two geopolitically critical countries that, despite not being among the very most vulnerable states, face serious climate risks that are likely to fuel insecurity and shape foreign policy. Just this summer, Iran experienced worsening water scarcity and an extreme heatwave that forced a two-day nationwide shutdown for fear of blackouts and protests. Türkiye faced dwindling reservoirs and severe flooding in Istanbul amid lethal wildfires that prompted the closing of the Dardanelles Strait, which connects the Aegean Sea to the Black Sea.

In these reports, CCS and Woodwell combine projections of climate trends, security analysis, and country expertise to convey how climate change is likely to fuel security challenges in both countries and what it means for the United States. The Iran analysis explores how climate change, poor governance, and international isolation are decimating agricultural livelihoods and exacerbating water insecurity–fueling repression and generating tensions with Türkiye, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Gulf States. Meanwhile, Türkiye faces worsening water shortages and wildfires that are likely to amplify domestic political tensions, exacerbate mistreatment of refugees, and fuel disputes with downstream countries over the shared Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

These publications continue a partnership between CCS and Woodwell to jointly create analysis on the nexus of climate change and security in key locations. This partnership combines sophisticated science, policy-relevant security analysis, and compelling presentation to identify and communicate climate-related security risks. Previous case studies examined climate security challenges involving nuclear-armed states, and focused on the Arctic, China-India border region, and North Korea

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