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Tag Archives: conflict
Air Force Chief of Staff: Military Often Has to Respond to the Effects of Climate Change
Secretary Wilson and General Goldfein discuss climate change before the Senate Armed Services Committee, April 4, 2019
Yesterday, on the heels of a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on climate change and national security, the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, General David L. Goldfein, and the outgoing Secretary of the Air Force, the Honorable Heather A. Wilson, spoke about the security implications of climate change during a posture hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. In response to a question about the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s previous comments on the subject, General Goldfein highlighted the connection between climate change, extreme drought and the start of the Syrian civil war (an issue we first wrote about in 2012), and stated: “what Chairman Dunford was talking about was that we have to respond militarily very often to the effects, globally, of climate change.” Secretary Wilson also spoke about the importance of climate resilience at Air Force bases, as articulated in the Air Force’s recent infrastructure investment strategy, noting “We don’t leave our bases to fight. We fight from our bases. And so their resilience is very important.” (more…)
The Climate and Security Podcast: Episode 11 with Dr. Marcus King
Welcome back to The Climate and Security Podcast!
In this episode, host Dr. Sweta Chakraborty talks to Dr. Marcus King, Senior Fellow and Member of the Advisory Board at the Center for Climate and Security, and Director of the Master of Arts in International Affairs Program at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Sweta asks Marcus to define environmental security, which he describes as the study of conflicts related to a lack or abundance of natural resources, particularly as it relates to impacts associated with climate change. Droughts and water scarcity impacts are especially salient on the world stage, and Marcus highlights his case studies in increasingly vulnerable places in the Middle East and North Africa (e.g., Syria, Nigeria, Yemen) which are experiencing and are ripe for future humanitarian crises, interstate conflicts, and mass migrations. Listen to Marcus describe the nuances between environmental migrants versus climate refugees and how these already vulnerable populations are prime recruitment targets for terrorist groups such as Boko Haram. This is an eye-opening episode! (more…)
Strauss Center Launches Complex Emergencies Dashboard
This is a cross-post from the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law
The Strauss Center’s Complex Emergencies and Political Stability in Asia (CEPSA) program released the new Complex Emergencies Dashboard today. In partnership with Development Gateway, CEPSA developed the online mapping platform to enable policymakers and researchers to visualize CEPSA datasets on climate vulnerability, conflict, national disaster preparation, and international climate and disaster aid, along with related external datasets on other security concerns like food access and forced migration. (more…)
The State of the Field in Climate and Conflict
By Joshua Busby, Senior Research Fellow
This is a cross-post from the Duck of Minerva
After nearly fifteen years of study, what do we know about the relationship between climate change and conflict? I recently attended a Woodrow Wilson Center event organized by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) on the state of the field. Along with Geoff Dabelko, Halvard Buhaug, and Sherri Goodman, I offered my take on the field (the video is embedded below). (more…)