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BRIEFER – Taking Stock: Integrating Climate Change into U.S. National Security Practices in 2022
By Erin Sikorsky and Brigitte Hugh
In late 2021, the Biden Administration released a suite of national security and foreign policy documents[1] that according to the administration, would “serve as a foundation for [its] critical work on climate and security moving forward.”[2] This briefer synthesizes four key takeaways of these reports: 1) Climate change is forcing the U.S. national security community to reexamine its assumptions about how the world works; 2) Climate security is a current problem and a future problem; 3) Climate security risks are wide-ranging and not confined to particular geographies or sectors; 4) Climate security cannot be separated from other major security concerns—in fact, it shapes and exacerbates those concerns.
If 2021 was about analyzing the problem and making the case that climate change is a national security concern, then 2022 should be about making concrete changes to how US agencies do business so they are equipped to address climate security challenges going forward. To that end, we recommend that the U.S. government pursue five priorities: 1) Mainstream climate security in regional strategies; 2) Link climate adaptation programs with conflict prevention; 3) Maximize whole-of-government approaches to linking climate science and national security; 4) Increase climate security support for allies and partners; 5) Leverage strategic foresight tools to prepare for climate security risks – including worst case scenarios.
Read the full briefer here.
[1] These documents included: (1) National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Climate Change from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI); (2) Department of Defense (DoD) Climate Risk Analysis (DCRA); (3) Strategic Framework to Address Climate Change for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ; (4) Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration, the first such report released by the United States Government; (5) The Department of Defense Climate Adaptation Plan.
[2] “Fact Sheet: Prioritizing Climate in Foreign Policy and National Security,” The White House, October 21, 2021.
Balancing on a Knife’s Edge: Climate Security Implications of the IPCC Findings
By Akash Ramnath and Kate Guy
New scientific consensus released today details the potential future course of climate change, with serious repercussions for international security and stability. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the first product of its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), summarizing the latest scientific understanding on the state of global climate change. This report, completed by the IPCC Working Group I (WGI), offers the best collective picture of how human caused climate change is impacting the physical systems of the planet now and in the future.
The report makes clear that our planet’s climatic systems are changing rapidly in response to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. By 2100, global average temperatures are expected to rise between 2.1-3.5°C in an intermediate scenario, or 3.3-5.7°C in a high emissions scenario, if humans do not curb and continue expanding greenhouse gas emitting activities. The path to keeping global temperatures to just 1.5°C of warming, the report states, looks increasingly narrow; while every additional fraction of a degree in planetary warming will have worsening impacts on climate stability.
The findings of the WGI report have two important implications for security audiences: First, cutting emissions and adapting to climate impacts are equally important for security in the coming years; second, that the increasing risk of crossing climate tipping points suggests security services must prepare for managing multiple climate-induced crises at once.
(more…)New Online Course on Climate Change & National Security
The Center for Climate and Security is pleased to partner with The Conservation Coalition‘s Market Environmentalism Academy on the launch of a new online course on climate change and national security, featuring a video (below) with our advisory board member, General Ronald Keys, US Air Force (Ret).
The short 14 lesson course provides an overview of the climate change-national security nexus, and has modules on clean energy competition as well as extreme weather impacts.
You can sign up for the course and watch the entire video with Gen. Keys here.
Climate Change in U.S. National Security Strategies under Obama, Trump and Biden
As the Biden administration’s national security team ramps up efforts to incorporate climate change and its effects into their agencies and policies, work will begin on crafting a new National Security Strategy (NSS). To guide national security decision-making while the full strategy is drafted, President Biden has released interim national security strategic guidance (here). With the availability of this guidance we can compare and contrast how President Biden plans to address climate change and national security with how these issues were tackled in Obama and Trump National Security Strategies published in 2015 and 2017, respectively. In short, the Obama and Biden strategic guidance is strong on climate security (with Biden’s being especially robust), while the Trump NSS was almost entirely silent on the subject. Below is a detailed review.
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