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The U.S. Asia-Pacific Rebalance, National Security and Climate Change: Report Launch & Discussion
Please RSVP to join us on November 17, 2015 for the launch of our new report, The U.S. Asia-Pacific Rebalance, National Security and Climate Change, and a conversation between leaders from the defense, diplomacy and intelligence worlds.
The United States is in the early stages of what it characterizes as an “Asia-Pacific rebalance”. Essentially, this means that on a very broad strategic scale, the United States intends to reorient its foreign policy and national security posture to the Asia-Pacific region, which is host to burgeoning populations, growing economies, strategic choke-points like the South China Sea, and a number of rising powers. But the region is also one of the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, with a growing coastal population, rising seas, numerous critical waterways fed by glaciers, threatened island states, increased drying, and projections of severe water insecurity in the near future.
In this context, the effects of climate change are likely to both shape, and be shaped by, the U.S. role in the Asia-Pacific. (more…)
On Syrian Refugees and Climate Change: The Risks of Oversimplifying and Underestimating the Connection
Syrian refugee camp on the Turkish border, 2012. Photo by Henry Ridgwell.
It unfortunately took the heart-wrenching image of a dead Syrian child on a Turkish seashore to fully alert the international community to an unfolding disaster: the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. As the crisis ensues, many in the public eye have been asking the question: What is behind this extraordinary exodus? Essentially, what is the proximate cause? The answer to that question is straightforward. A brutal civil war in Syria has left many people with little choice but to flee. Some commentators are asking another question, however, that seeks to illuminate “ultimate” causes of an unstable Syria, and the current crisis. Namely: What were the conditions that led Syria to collapse, and how can we prevent these crises in the future? And in that context, does climate change have anything to do with it? The answer to that is complex, of course. (more…)
Review: IOM Outlook on Migration, Environment and Climate Change
“Horn of Africa famine refugee” Photo by Oxfam
By Sandra Fatorić, Center for Climate and Security Research Fellow
The new International Organization for Migration (IOM) Outlook on Migration, Environment and Climate Change report is intended to be a reference publication on environmental and climate change migration, which targets policymakers, practitioners, researchers, international agencies, the private sector, donors, students, and think tanks. Environmental migration intersects a range of policy areas, including migration, climate change and environment, security, development, and humanitarian assistance. (more…)
Migration As A Climate Adaptation Strategy In Developed Nations
The following is Briefer No. 24 from the Center for Climate and Security
By Sandra Fatorić, Ph.D., Research Fellow
The U.S. Department of Defense’s recently-released Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap states: “As climate change affects the availability of food and water, human migration, and competition for natural resources, the Department’s unique capability to provide logistical, material, and security assistance on a massive scale or in rapid fashion may be called upon with increasing frequency.”[i] Within this document, “human migration” is not a throwaway line. There are real concerns across governments, including those institutions normally focused on more traditional security risks, that climate change is, and will have, a marked effect on human migration. This article posits that the developed – not just the developing – world may need to seriously consider migration as a potentially viable adaptation option to climate change. (more…)