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CCS at COP25: Time to Get Serious About Climate and Security Risks to Small Islands
CCS Senior Research Fellow LCDR Oliver-Leighton Barrett, US Navy (Ret), speaking at the “Climate and Security- emerging trends and adaptive strategies” event at COP25 in Madrid, Spain (December 11, 2019)
The European Union (EU) is taking decisive action on addressing climate change and making it an integral part of its foreign aid strategy. To advance the climate change focused portion of its foreign policy, in 2007 the EU founded the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) with a charter to develop “climate security” strategies that address the strategic and political impacts of climate change. Most specifically, the GCCA aims to strengthen dialogue and cooperation, on climate change with developing countries most vulnerable to the phenomenon, in particular Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
As part of this “dialogue and cooperation” effort, on the afternoon of December 11, 2019, at the U.N. Conference of the Parties 25 (COP25) in Madrid, Spain, the GCCA hosted a climate security focused side event titled “Climate and Security- emerging trends and adaptive strategies.” The event aspired to expand on understanding of the ways in which climate variability interacts with human security by examining themes that included the security implications of ecological changes on SIDS and LDCs. The Center for Climate and Security’s Senior Research Fellow, Lieutenant Commander Oliver Leighton Barrett, US Navy (retired), a former advisor to U.S. Southern Command, was invited to discuss some of these themes with the COP25 audience. (more…)
Study: Atolls Hosting Critical Military Sites May Be Uninhabitable in 12 Years
Kwajalein Atoll
By John Conger, Director, The Center for Climate and Security
What do you do when your base runs out of water? That’s the question confronting the Department of Defense (DoD) in the wake of a recent analysis that says certain Pacific atolls may not be able to support human habitation as soon as 2030 (i.e. a mere 12 years from now), largely because sea-level rise will likely increase salt water corruption of the atoll’s drinking water supply, and drive routine flooding events that can damage equipment. That’s a problem not only for DoD personnel who live and work on these atolls, but for the local residents as well. (more…)
BRIEFER: Sea Level Rise and Deterritorialized States
Kwajalein Atoll
By Collin Douglas, Research Fellow, The Center for Climate and Security
Excerpt: The definition of a state in modern international law has four requirements: a permanent population, a government, the ability to interact with other states, and most important for this context, a defined territory. The prospect of rising seas making low-lying island states uninhabitable, or completely submerged, puts the territorial requirement in jeopardy. However, there are historical examples of flexibility in state control of territory.
Read the full briefer here.
More Than 70 Countries Tell UN Security Council to Prioritize Climate Security Risks
As part of New Zealand’s July presidency of the UN Security Council, the country hosted a debate around matters of interest to small island developing nations under the heading, “Maintenance of international peace and security: peace and security challenges facing small island developing States.” Not surprisingly, climate risks to these nations were prevalent throughout the discussion. This debate built on an Arria-formula meeting held earlier in the year looking at climate risks to state fragility. (more…)