Must Listen: DOD’s Daniel Chiu on Climate Change and Energy Security

The Woodrow Wilson Center’s New Security Beat just posted a very interesting podcast featuring Daniel Chiu, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for Strategy, taking about resilience, and the security implications of climate change and energy choices. DASD Chiu, a key figure in the development of the department’s strategic outlook, emphasized the importance of addressing such non-traditional threats to U.S. and international security, calling them “…emblematic of the types of security challenges we will be facing in the future.” As quoted by the New Security Beat:

In particular, I’m looking at the impacts on geopolitical relationships based on changes in energy markets, energy reliance, energy sources, and the types of energy we use,” Chiu says. “I’m also thinking about…what the impact [of climate change] would be on food and water scarcity, what the impact would be on mass migration, what the impact could be on stability in various parts of the world.

The DoD will release its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) report next year (the last one having been released in 2010), and it is an excellent sign that its strategy office is looking at how DoD can expand upon its review of climate impacts, and energy use, from four years ago.

For more interesting audio and video on the military and climate change from the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program, check out their video channel. Conversations with Dr. Tobias Feakin about the climate change and military dialogue in Europe, and a podcast with British Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti on transatlantic cooperation on climate change and energy, are particularly relevant.