Home » risk (Page 2)
Category Archives: risk
Special Issue on Climate and Security: Evidence, Emerging Risks, and a New Agenda
The Journal Climate Change has just released a new special issue titled “Climate and Security: Evidence, Emerging Risks, and a New Agenda.” This issue provides a timely assessment of the current state of peer-reviewed climate and security research. It is critically important to continue research in the space and disentangle the links between climate change, peace and conflict. This body of research suggests that there is ample evidence that climate change can act as a “threat multiplier” – exacerbating other socio-political, economic and environmental conditions, but that there is a need to continue investigating the minutiae of how exactly climate change interacts with these factors, and what it could mean for a future with a greater intensity and frequency of climatic events. (more…)
Secretary Kerry Follows the Military’s Lead on Climate Change
By LtGen John Castellaw, USMC (Ret) and RADM David Titley, USN (Ret)
Secretary of State John Kerry recently gave a speech in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he compared climate change to other transnational security threats such as “terrorism, epidemics, poverty, [and] the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.” But the U.S. military was already there.
Secretary Kerry was following the lead of four-star Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear II, head of U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), who in a speech in Jakarta a year earlier also identified climate change as the biggest security threat facing the region, with the capacity to even “threaten the loss of entire nations.” (more…)
The ABCs of a Risk Management Approach to Climate Change
This is a cross-post by Dr. Jay Gulledge, a senior advisor with the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
Most people at some point develop a “Plan B” – in case their first choice of college doesn’t accept them, or it rains on the day of their planned outdoor party, or the deal for the house they wanted falls apart. The same principle applies for more dire situations, such as a city having plans in hand for an orderly evacuation in case of a large-scale disaster. We hope such an event will never happen, but the mayor had better be prepared in case it does. (more…)
UPDATE: Climate Security 101: Why the U.S. National Security Establishment Takes Climate Change Seriously
This is an update to the Center for Climate and Security’s 2012 briefer. A PDF version of this update can also be found here.
In a 2007 report by the CNA Military Advisory Board, General Gordon R. Sullivan stated:
“People are saying they want to be perfectly convinced about climate science projections…But speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.” (more…)