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A Livable Climate Needs Help From Youth; the U.S. Can Foster It
By Elsa Barron and Katherine Waters
This piece was originally published at the United States Institute of Peace.
Humanity is at a tipping point. New data confirms 2023 as Earth’s hottest-ever recorded year. Increasing temperatures, rising seas and extreme weather are heightening tension over resources, damaging people’s health and livelihoods, and displacing millions. Young people have one of the largest stakes in climate decisions made today, for they face the lasting environmental consequences of climate change — and the consequent threats to peace and security. Yet youth remain mostly excluded from decision-making on climate. U.S. leadership, via three steps in particular, can bolster genuine youth leadership on climate that prioritizes the welfare of future generations.
Government officials and other decisionmakers will meet next month to set the agenda for the next United Nations climate conference, COP29, in November. As with each global conference in this series, stretching back nearly 30 years, we must once again confront the ways in which international climate negotiations exclude young people from decision-making about their futures.
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New CCS Briefers on Climate Misinformation and Geoengineering
By Tom Ellison and Erin Sikorsky
Today CCS released two new briefers on critical and related topics in climate security: mis- and disinformation, and geoengineering.
The first, “Climate Security and Misinformation: A Baseline” offers a framework and overview on how intensifying climate change and policy responses create openings for bad actors to spread mis- and disinformation. These challenges extend beyond climate denialism and intersect with the breadth of direct and indirect climate security risks, ranging from the scapegoating of climate disasters on adversaries, to incitement against climate migrants and protesters, to misleading obstruction of the energy transition, to state efforts to stoke climate- and energy-related divisions in their adversaries. Amid rapidly evolving digital technology and low trust, addressing these challenges means closing knowledge gaps, designing climate policies with disinformation pitfalls in mind, and more aggressively countering climate mis- and disinformation, akin to election interference or vaccine denial.
Meanwhile, “Geoengineering and Climate Change in an Age of Disinformation and Strategic Competition” dives deep into the debate about the risks and benefits of exploring geoengineering, particularly solar radiation management, a nascent climate intervention technique that would aim to artificially dim the sun and ameliorate global warming. A steady drumbeat of reports from governments and scientific institutions argue for developing research programs to allow for better informed decisions on the risks and benefits of geoengineering. At the same time, the national security community is raising concerns emphasizing the risk of large-scale, successful unilateral deployment by a middle or rogue power. However, the more acute, near-term security risks associated with geoengineering have little to do with the ultimate effect of such interventions, but instead with the perceptions of such interventions or even research and testing of such technologies, particularly in a world shaped by geopolitical competition, growing divides between the Global North and Global South, and dis/misinformation.
The Elephant in the Climate Room: Financing Sustainable Security and Supporting Future-Fit Systems
By Siena Cicarelli, Erin Sikorsky and Michael Werz
Every year, leaders of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank – as well as key stakeholders from civil society, the private sector and regional financial bodies – gather to assess the landscape of international development finance. This year, they will do so against the backdrop of a complex geopolitical landscape, where one of the most consequential election years in human history, continued conflict in Ukraine and Gaza, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events have divided multilateral bodies and strained the funding landscape.
While this year’s agenda will cover everything from water security to streamlining taxation, one key challenge will dominate discussions: the staggering costs of the green transition and how these relatively inflexible financial institutions can evolve to support global climate adaptation, mitigation and resilience building – particularly in fragile, conflict-affected and violent situations (FCV). As seen at 28th UN climate conference (COP28) and the 2024 World Bank Fragility Forum, most stakeholders recognize that existing efforts are falling short and are eager to move from admiring the problem to identifying tangible steps and best practices needed to address this challenge.
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February/March 2024 Update: Military Responses to Climate Hazards (MiRCH) Tracker
By Ethan Wong
In February and March 2024 , the Military Responses to Climate Hazards (MiRCH) documented 21 military deployments in response to floods, extreme precipitation, droughts, and wildfires in 12 countries, including Australia, Honduras, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the United States, and elsewhere.
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