Home » 2021
Yearly Archives: 2021
Year in Review: The Top Climate & Security Stories of 2021
By Joon Hwang
2021 was a momentous year for climate security. From President Biden’s Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, to NATO’s Climate and Security Plan of Action, to stacks of climate security reports from US federal agencies, to the increasing number of climate hazards driving security risks around the globe – the Center for Climate and Security (CCS) blog has provided context and clarity every step of the way. As we look towards a more resilient 2022, we wanted to highlight the ten most-read posts from the past year.
As the Biden administration started to pursue its focus on climate change, CCS analysis of Department of Defense climate security products were especially of interest to our readers:
(more…)Is it Time to “Climatize” the UN Security Council?
![By Patrick Gruban (originally posted to Flickr as UN Security Council)[CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/climateandsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/united_nations_security_council.jpg?ssl=1)
By Mark Nevitt
Earlier this week, the UN Security Council failed to pass a draft resolution that would have defined climate change as a “threat to peace” within Article 39 of the UN Charter. Under international law, this critical threat to peace determination acts as a key that opens the door to supplemental legal authorities. But this resolution, co-sponsored by Ireland and Niger, was vetoed by Russia, one of the Council’s five permanent members (“P5”). By defining climate change as a threat to the peace, the Council could have sent an important signal that climate change is squarely within its ambit while setting the stage for follow-on action.
(more…)Looking to 2022: Next Steps for US Climate Security Policy
“We’re really on a good path to mainstreaming climate and security…and that’s a major accomplishment,” said Sherri Goodman, Senior Strategist at the Center for Climate and Security (CCS), during a recent CCS event. The event was about taking stock of the US government’s progress toward implementing President Biden’s Executive Orders on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad and Planning for the Impact of Climate Change on Migration while also looking ahead to the National Defense Strategy (NDS) and National Security Strategy (NSS) which will be released in 2022. “You have to do the thinking and planning ahead of time before we start acting,” said John Conger, Senior Advisor to the Center for Climate and Security.
(more…)Climate Change and Ecological Security Must Be at the Center of Our National Defense Strategy
By Holly Kaufman, Sherri Goodman and John Conger
At a United Nations Security Council meeting in September 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken asserted, “Look at almost every place where you see threats to international peace and security today – and you’ll find that climate change is making things less peaceful, less secure, and rendering our response even more challenging.” Earlier that month, in the U.S. Department of Defense’s Climate Adaptation Plan, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin similarly declared climate change to be a “destabilizing force” that is “demanding new missions” of the Department and “altering the operational environment.” These leaders are exactly right.
In this context it is imperative that the Biden Administration places the destabilizing role of climate change–and ecological security more broadly — at the center of the new National Defense Strategy (NDS). In fact, any NDS that does not consider climate change a central variable — as we have long recommended — will get things wrong when it comes to other core U.S. interests such as China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, terrorism and cybersecurity.
(more…)