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Building Climate Security at the State and Local Level
By Tom Ellison and Noah Fritzhand
Introduction: Is All Climate Security Local?
Climate change and security discussions often focus on national and global challenges, but climate security risks are relevant for US states and cities as well. Recently, Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the Los Angeles wildfires have cost lives and livelihoods, strained infrastructure and insurance markets, enabled extremists, and triggered damaging disinformation, underscoring the local and national security impacts of such hazards. Since 2022, the National Guard and other US military forces have deployed on average more than weekly for climate-related hazards in the United States. State and city authorities play key roles in building resilience to these strains, ranging from public safety and emergency services, governance of climate-vulnerable infrastructure, or planning adaptation efforts for wildfires and coastal hazards. These challenges are growing increasingly urgent as the US federal government cuts support for climate and weather data and forecasting and disaster relief, even as climate change intensifies and the United States approaches wildfire and hurricane season.
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The Interdependence of Climate Security and Good Governance: A Case Study from Pakistan
By Ameera Adil and Faraz Haider
Last year, Pakistan faced the most devastating floods in the history of the country, which is notable because the country lies on a geographical floodplain. The Indus is an ancient and powerful river. The floodplain of the river covers nearly half of Pakistan, where most of the country’s population resides. When the Indus breathes, as rivers do, the lives and livelihoods on the floodplains are quietly absorbed by the water.
Climate change had a significant role to play in the 2022 floods. The affected areas received 900mm of rainfall between June to August, which is nearly 350 percent more than the long-term average. Nevertheless, the disaster that happened should not have been a surprise since climate-induced disaster projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been repeatedly stating the increase in frequency and severity of floods. Climate change alone was not the only cause of the devastation, however. Poor governance also played a role increating a cascade of security impacts that can still be witnessed at the moment of writing and have now been conjoined with other dynamics of political instability, resulting in a chasm of insecurities. To unpack this, it is crucial to consider the dynamics of inequalities and discrepancies of governance in Pakistan, and the chain of events from before, during and after the 2022 floods.
Anyone wishing to understand climate injustice needs only to look at Pakistan.The homes that housed the poor were washed away while those that housed the wealthy stood their ground. As a result of these floods, an additional 8.4 to 9.1 million people will now be pushed into poverty, on top of the existing 47 million. As the worsening socioeconomic situation intersects with political instability and recent protests, that have now decreased due to a strict clampdown by the Pakistani government, the conditions are ripe for further social unrest.
Though climate change caused the extreme rains, the subsequent inequality of the impact of these rains is evidence of the deep underlying socioeconomic disparity and complex issues of governance that are revealed with every climate-induced calamity that Pakistanis endure. Climate change hazards interact with the fault lines in Pakistan’s governance system and practices to multiply threats. Therefore, to attribute all of this only to climate change would be inappropriate and lacking a comprehensive view.
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A First Look at Typhoon Doksuri: China’s Climate Security Vulnerabilities
Last year, the Center for Climate and Security released China’s Climate Security Vulnerabilities, a report that outlined the ways in which climate hazards may shape the country’s stability and security going forward. The extreme weather events in China during the past few months provide a case study of the key dynamics identified in the paper, including risks to Chinese food security and domestic stability, as well as the role of the military in responding to such hazards. One event in particular, Typhoon Doksuri’s landfall in Fujian Province and the subsequent flooding it caused as it traveled north, illustrated such vulnerabilities with immediate and heavy impact. But the crisis caused by Doksuri provides an opening for the United States to engage with the Chinese government on climate and food security issues, as well.
Beginning in late July, Typhoon Doksuri and its remnants brought torrential rains which flooded the Chinese capital Beijing and other areas in the northeast. By one measure, the amount of rain that fell in a 5 day period in the Beijing region–29.3 inches–was the “most ever recorded since recordkeeping began during the Qing dynasty in 1883.” The water displaced millions and destroyed thousands of homes and hectares of farmland. Thousands of troops from the Chinese People’s Armed Police (PAP) and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have deployed in response, providing rescue and evacuation assistance, distributing emergency supplies, and conducting a range of other activities.
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July 2023 Update: Military Responses to Climate Hazards (MiRCH) Tracker
By Tom Ellison and Erin Sikorsky
In July 2023, the Military Responses to Climate Hazards (MiRCH) tracker identified 16 countries in which militaries were deployed in response to climate hazards, often multiple times to different regions and types of hazard. The tracker identified 31 deployments total. Additionally, extreme weather events interrupted military activities and destroyed military infrastructure this month, underscoring the multiple ways in which these hazards strain defense and security capabilities.
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