The Changing Security Climate

Climate change poses direct security risks to our planet that need to be acknowledged and accepted so that they can be addressed

Cleo Paskal London

Climate change is now a security issue. Officially. There is a bill in the US Congress asking the security establishment to do a 'national intelligence estimate' on the impact of 'global warming' on international stability and, on April 17, 2007, climate change was addressed by the UN Security Council. This means, that for the first time, some of the most powerful countries in the world are saying loud and clear that this isn't just about drowning polar bears anymore.

The thing is, they know, there is a problem. They just aren't sure what it is. And the discussion has been confused by so many different topics that a lot of the suggested solutions won't solve the most imminent threats. By labelling the security issues as 'global warming' and 'climate change' alone, the Congress and the UN are inadvertently, severely limiting the range of possible responses and ignoring many critical and relatively easy to fix issues.

The confusion starts with the way the issue is framed. It is not enough to just look at 'global warming'. That is just one component of the larger problem of direct, man-made, environmental change.

As a species, we are constantly making direct and major changes to our environment, most recently through massive population increases. At the turn of the 20th century, there were 1.65 billion people on the planet. At the turn of the 21st, there were 6 billion. Meanwhile, they aren't making land anymore. So, more ground water is pumped up, more forests cut, more urban sprawl, more developments in flood-plains. And the environment is changed.

Which is not to say environmental change is always a bad thing. In fact, irrigation (which substantially changed regional environments) made early civilization possible. But now, as we place increasing demands on natural resources like fresh water and arable land, we have less room to manoeuvre. That makes us more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which is essentially a disruption of the status quo. This can worsen existing problems, but if there were no climate change, these problems would still exist.

For example, the social, economic and security crisis in the United States created by Katrina was caused to a large degree by the problems with the US Army Corps of Engineers, poor town planning, a failure of emergency services, and a breakdown in the chain of command.

This naturally dynamic coastal region was also going through a period of man-made environmental change, which incl-uded the draining of wetlands, the sinking of land caused by the extraction of grou-ndwater, and poorly conceived waterways.

Katrina showed how poor regulations, planning and emergency response can aggravate environmental disasters that will almost certainly increase because of climate change. But one can't say the tragedy in New Orleans was caused by climate change alone. Curbing climate change without addressing the way city planning and disaster management are done will not stop other 'Katrinas' (though it may keep the numbers down).

The same holds true for the devastating flood in Surat. Irregular rainfall, possibly caused by climate change, may have been a factor but, as reported in Hardnews, the bigger issue was the direct human impact of dam management.

There are security risks that are more directly linked to climate change and these can only be handled by countering the disruption caused by climate change. Make no mistake, even 'climate sceptics' aren't disputing that the climate is changing, just the cause of the change. But regardless of the cause, and in spite of what we do to mitigate, because of inertia in the climate system, there are some things we know will happen, like sea levels will continue to rise, almost certainly for at least the next century.

As a result of that sea level rise, it is very likely that entire low-lying island nations, like Maldives in the Indian Ocean, will have to be abandoned. The security implications of that one event are far-reaching. Apart from regional instability caused by an outflow of refugees, there are critical legal issues involved. If the Maldives is underwater, does it cease to exist as a country? Does it revert to international waters? Who owns its offshore resources? And, when the islands reappear (and given global climate cycles they may, although it may take millennia), who owns them?

These issues have global security implications, especially as there are many military bases on low-lying coral atolls. They face the same legal questions as the Maldives.

Also, according to current law, exclusive maritime economic zones are often determined by coastlines. As a result, tiny rocks in the middle of the ocean can be used to anchor extensive offshore resources claims. As sea levels change, some of those boundaries will become dangerously confused.

As for critical infrastructure, many nuclear power stations are built along the coast because of the large amount of water needed for cooling. This leaves them vulnerable to storm surges and erratic weather. The 2004 tsunami caused the emergency shut down of an Indian nuclear power station.

And, in many countries, airports, roads, and railways are built along coastlines. A one-meter sea level rise would put the majority of Florida's airports underwater, although they would have to be abandoned long before then due to storm surges. Many of China's most populous and productive cities are on the low-lying coast, including Shanghai. The same rise in India could put 19 per cent of Mumbai underwater and affect about 40 per cent of the population of Chennai. And it's not just land loss. As the seas rise, the salt water can infiltrate the fresh ground water systems, poisoning wells and regional agriculture.

If a national security advisor were told that there was an enemy marshalling that was almost certain to decimate his country's infrastructure and agriculture, and cut off its access to vital resources like fresh water, and he did nothing about it, he would not be doing his job. But that is exactly what is happening, on a global scale.

These are a few examples of how just one aspect of climate change, sea level rise, might threaten security. There are other things we know climate change will do as well, like melt glacial fresh water stores and raise temperatures to the point that vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, can spread beyond their current range.

Yes, climate change is a security threat. Or, to be precise, an arsenal of different security threats. It is worsening existing problems and creating new ones. And it is only one component of the larger problem of environmental change. If we want a more secure world, we need to accept that we are entering a new operating environment and we have to confront these assaults on stability with a range of tactics.

Again, it's not enough simply to focus on stopping climate change because, no matter what we do about emissions, the inertia in the system means we are already heading for major change. The climate system is like a boulder that has started rolling down a hill. And through general environmental change, we have been doing things like build housing in the path of descent. Putting on the emission brakes may slow the boulder, and lessen the ultimate impact, but the momentum is there already. And we need to plan for it.

We have options. Looking at the problems caused by sea level rise alone, we could adjust international law to take into account the malleability of coastal borders. We could plan for movement of internal environmental refugees and the influx of external refugees. We could environmental change-proof civilian and military infrastructure. We could build coastal defences. We could alter planning regulations to take into account changing geography and ensure that fewer people are put at risk. This doesn't take fancy new technologies, just some thought.

There is no question that environmental change, including climate change, is a global, critical, security risk and a broad attack on the political, economic, social and strategic status quo. Protecting against it requires a multifaceted defence. But, once we acknowledge the complex reality of the situation, we can do it. If we try.

Cleo Paskal is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, London