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|a In August 2007, a Russian adventurer
descended 4,300 meters under the
thinning ice of the North Pole to plant a
titanium flag, claiming some 1.2 million
square kilometers of the Arctic for mother
Russia. Not to be outdone, the Prime
Minister of Canada stated his intention
to boost his nation’s military presence in
the Arctic, with the stakes raised by the
recent discovery that the icy Northwest
Passage has become navigable for the
first time in recorded history. Across the
globe, the spreading desertification in the
Darfur region has been compounding
the tensions between nomadic herders
and agrarian farmers, providing the
environmental backdrop for genocide.
In Bangladesh, one of the most densely
populated countries in the world, the risk
of coastal flooding is growing and could
leave some 30 million people searching for
higher ground in a nation already plagued
by political violence and a growing trend
toward Islamist extremism. Neighboring
India is already building a wall along its
border with Bangladesh. More hopefully,
the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace
Prize to Vice President Al Gore and the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change is a clear recognition that global
warming poses not only environmental
hazards but profound risks to planetary
peace and stability as well.
Although the consequences of global climate
change may seem to be the stuff of Hollywood—
some imagined, dystopian future—the melting ice
of the Arctic, the spreading deserts of Africa, and
the swamping of low lying lands are all too real.
We already live in an “age of consequences,”1 one
that will increasingly be defined by the intersection
of climate change and the security of nations.
For the past year a diverse group of experts, under
the direction and leadership of the Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the
Center for a New American Security (CNAS), met
regularly to start a new conversation to consider
the potential future foreign policy and national
security implications of climate change. The group
consisted of nationally recognized leaders in the
fields of climate science, foreign policy, political
science, oceanography, history, and national security,
including Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling,
Pew Center Senior Scientist Jay Gulledge, National
Academy of Sciences President Ralph Cicerone,
American Meteorological Society Fellow Bob
Correll, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
Senior Scientist Terrence Joyce and former Vice
President Richard Pittenger, Climate Institute
Chief Scientist Mike MacCracken, Georgetown
University Professor John McNeill, former CIA
Director James Woolsey, former Chief of Staff to
the President John Podesta, and former National
Security Advisor to the Vice President Leon
Fuerth. Our eclectic group occasionally struggled
to “speak the same language,” but a shared sense of
purpose helped us develop a common vocabulary
and mutual respect.
The mandate of the exercise was, on its face, very
straightforward: employ the best available evidence
and climate models, and imagine three future
worlds that fall within the range of scientific plausibility.
As climate scientist Jay Gulledge explains in
Chapter II, projections about the effects of climate
change have tended to focus on the most probable
outcome based on mathematical modeling of what we know about the global climate. With climate
science, however, the level of uncertainty has
always been very high. Indeed, the scientific community
has been shocked at how fast some effects
of global warming are unfolding,2 which suggests
that many of the estimates considered most probable
have been too conservative. When building
climate scenarios in order to anticipate the future,
therefore, there is a very strong case for looking at
the full range of what is plausible.
Such scenario planning is more than a creative
writing exercise; it is a tool used successfully by
businesses and governments all over the world to
anticipate future events and plan more wisely in
the present. These particular scenarios aim not
to speculate centuries into the future, as some
scientific models do, but to consider possible
developments using a reasonable timeframe for
making acquisition decisions or judgments about
larger geopolitical trends. In national security
planning, it generally can take about 30 years to
design a weapons system and bring it to the battlefield,
so it is important to anticipate future threat
environments. It is no less important to anticipate
and prepare for the challenges we may face in the
future as a result of climate change.
The three scenarios we develop in this study are
based on expected, severe, and catastrophic climate
cases. The first scenario projects the effects in the
next 30 years with the expected level of climate
change. The severe scenario, which posits that the
climate responds much more strongly to continued
carbon loading over the next few decades than
predicted by current scientific models, foresees
profound and potentially destabilizing global
effects over the course of the next generation or
more. Finally, the catastrophic scenario is characterized
by a devastating “tipping point” in the
climate system, perhaps 50 or 100 years hence. In
this future world, global climate conditions have
changed radically, including the rapid loss of the
land-based polar ice sheets, an associated dramatic
rise in global sea levels, and the destruction beyond
repair of the existing natural order.
For each of the three plausible climate scenarios,
we asked a national security expert to consider the
projected environmental effects of global warming
and map out the possible consequences for peace
and stability. Further, we enlisted a historian of
science to consider whether there was anything
to learn from the experience of earlier civilizations
confronted with rampant disease, flooding,
or other forms of natural disaster. Each climate
scenario was carefully constructed and the three
corresponding national security futures were thoroughly
debated and discussed by the group.
Below is a synthesis and summary of some of the
key findings from the various chapters, discussions,
and presentations that have emerged over
the course of the last several months. This is by no
means an exhaustive list but is meant to provide a
clear distillation of our key findings:
• The expected climate change scenario considered
in this report, with an average global
temperature increase of 1.3°C by 2040, can be
reasonably taken as a basis for national planning.
As Podesta and Ogden write in Chapter
III, the environmental effects in this scenario
are “the least we ought to prepare for.” National
security implications include: heightened internal
and cross-border tensions caused by large-scale
migrations; conflict sparked by resource scarcity,
particularly in the weak and failing states
of Africa; increased disease proliferation, which
will have economic consequences; and some
geopolitical reordering as nations adjust to shifts
in resources and prevalence of disease. Across the
board, the ways in which societies react to climate
change will refract through underlying social,
political, and economic factors.
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• In the case of severe climate change, corresponding
to an average increase in global
temperature of 2.6°C by 2040, massive nonlinear
events in the global environment give
rise to massive nonlinear societal events. In
this scenario, addressed in Chapter IV, nations
around the world will be overwhelmed by the
scale of change and pernicious challenges, such
as pandemic disease. The internal cohesion of
nations will be under great stress, including in the
United States, both as a result of a dramatic rise
in migration and changes in agricultural patterns
and water availability. The flooding of coastal
communities around the world, especially in the
Netherlands, the United States, South Asia, and
China, has the potential to challenge regional and
even national identities. Armed conflict between
nations over resources, such as the Nile and its
tributaries, is likely and nuclear war is possible.
The social consequences range from increased
religious fervor to outright chaos. In this scenario,
climate change provokes a permanent shift
in the relationship of humankind to nature.
• The catastrophic scenario, with average global
temperatures increasing by 5.6°C by 2100, finds
strong and surprising intersections between the
two great security threats of the day— global
climate change and international terrorism
waged by Islamist extremists. This catastrophic
scenario would pose almost inconceivable challenges
as human society struggled to adapt. It
is by far the most difficult future to visualize
without straining credulity. The scenario notes
that understanding climate change in light of the
other great threat of our age, terrorism, can be
illuminating. Although distinct in nature, both
threats are linked to energy use in the industrialized
world, and, indeed, the solutions to both
depend on transforming the world’s energy
economy—America’s energy economy in particular.
The security community must come to
grips with these linkages, because dealing with
only one of these threats in isolation is likely to
exacerbate the other, while dealing with them
together can provide important synergies.
• Historical comparisons from previous civilizations
and national experiences of such natural
phenomena as floods, earthquakes, and disease
may be of help in understanding how societies
will deal with unchecked climate change.
In the past, natural disasters generally have been
either localized, abrupt, or both, making it difficult
to directly compare the worldwide effects
of prolonged climate change to historical case
studies. No precedent exists for a disaster of this
magnitude—one that affects entire civilizations
in multiple ways simultaneously. Nonetheless,
the historical record can be instructive; human
beings have reacted to crisis in fairly consistent
ways. Natural disasters have tended to be divisive
and sometimes unifying, provoke social and even
international conflict, inflame religious turbulence,
focus anger against migrants or minorities,
and direct wrath toward governments for their
actions or inaction. People have reacted with
strategies of resistance and resilience—from
flood control to simply moving away. Droughts
and epidemic disease have generally exacted the
heaviest toll—both in demographic and economic
terms—and both are expected effects
of future climate change. Indeed, even though
global warming is unprecedented, many of its
effects will be experienced as local and regional
phenomena, suggesting that past human behavior
may well be predictive of the future.
• Poor and underdeveloped areas are likely to
have fewer resources and less stamina to deal
with climate change —in even its very modest
and early manifestations. The impact on rainfall,
desertification, pestilence, and storm intensity
has already been felt in much of Africa, parts
of Central Asia, and throughout Central and
South America. Some of the nations and people
of these regions lack the resilience to deal with modest—let alone profound—disturbances to
local conditions. In contrast, wealthier societies
have more resources, incentives, and capabilities
to deploy, to offset, or to mitigate at least some of
the more modest consequences of climate change.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that
climate change will not be a problem for affluent
countries, including the United States. Such
nations may also face dire conditions such as
permanent agricultural disruptions, endemic disease,
ferocious storm patterns, deep droughts, the
disappearance of vast tracks of coastal land, and
the collapse of ocean fisheries, which could well
trigger a profound loss of confidence in the most
advanced and richest states.
• Perhaps the most worrisome problems associated
with rising temperatures and sea levels are
from large-scale migrations of people — both
inside nations and across existing national borders.
In all three scenarios it was projected that
rising sea levels in Central America, South Asia,
and Southeast Asia and the associated disappearance
of low lying coastal lands could conceivably
lead to massive migrations—potentially involving
hundreds of millions of people. These
dramatic movements of people and the possible
disruptions involved could easily trigger major
security concerns and spike regional tensions. In
some scenarios, the number of people forced to
move in the coming decades could dwarf previous
historical migrations. The more severe scenarios
suggest the prospect of perhaps billions of people
over the medium or longer term being forced to
relocate. The possibility of such a significant portion
of humanity on the move, forced to relocate,
poses an enormous challenge even if played out
over the course of decades.
• The term “global climate change” is misleading
in that many of the effects will vary dramatically
from region to region. Changes in ocean
currents, atmospheric conditions, and cumulative
rainfall will vary across different geographies,
making it difficult to predict truly global outcomes.
Most localities will likely experience rising
temperatures, but some places might see temperature
declines due to the complexities of local
climate processes. Changes across the board are
unlikely to be gradual and predictable and more
likely to be uneven and abrupt. Certain ecosystems—
such as polar ice regions and tropical
rainforests—are much more susceptible to even
modest changes in local temperatures. And these
regions are particularly important when it comes
to both regulating and triggering conditions associated
with climate change. Global climate change
involves the entire planet but it will play out very
differently with varying levels of intensity and
significance in different regions—a key observation
of the group.
• A few countries may benefit from climate
change in the short term, but there will be no
“winners.” Any location on Earth is potentially
vulnerable to the cascading and reinforcing
negative effects of global climate change. While
growing seasons might lengthen in some areas,
or frozen seaways might open to new maritime
traffic in others, the negative offsetting consequences—
such as a collapse of ocean systems
and their fisheries—could easily negate any perceived
local or national advantages. Unchecked
global climate change will disrupt a dynamic
ecological equilibrium in ways that are difficult to
predict. The new ecosystem is likely to be unstable
and in continual flux for decades or longer.
Today’s “winner” could be tomorrow’s big-time
loser.
• Climate change effects will aggravate existing
international crises and problems. Although a
shared sense of threat can in some cases promote
national innovation and reform as well as induce
cooperation among governments, the scenario
authors found that climate change is likely to
worsen existing tensions, especially over natural
resources, and possibly lead to conflict. Indeed,
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this magnifying of existing problems by climate
change is already taking place, from desertification
in Darfur, to water shortages in the Middle
East, to disruptions of monsoons in South Asia
and attendant struggles over land and water use.
These and other effects are likely to increase and
intensify in the years ahead.
• We lack rigorously tested data or reliable modeling
to determine with any sense of certainty the
ultimate path and pace of temperature increase
or sea level rise associated with climate change
in the decades ahead. Our group found that, generally
speaking, most scientific predictions in the
overall arena of climate change over the last two
decades, when compared with ultimate outcomes,
have been consistently below what has actually
transpired. There are perhaps many reasons for
this tendency—an innate scientific caution, an
incomplete data set, a tendency for scientists to
steer away from controversy, persistent efforts by
some to discredit climate “alarmists,” to name
but a few—but the result has been a relatively
consistent underestimation of the increase in
global climate and ice melting. This tendency
should provide some context when examining
current predictions of future climate parameters.
• Any future international agreement to limit
carbon emissions will have considerable geopolitical
as well as economic consequences.
For instance, China’s role in such an arrangement
could significantly affect the international
community’s perception of its willingness and
capacity to serve as a “responsible stakeholder.”
The added strategic significance of low-carbon
fuels in a carbon-constrained world, meanwhile,
could bolster the position of a natural gas-rich
country such as Russia. Such a new correlation
of energy related power might conceivably
lead to a diminished role and significance of
the Middle East in global politics. In addition,
major proliferation challenges would ensue from
a vast expansion in the use of nuclear power.
The emergence of alternative energy sources,
especially biofuels, could also create new regions
of strategic significance.
• The scale of the potential consequences associated
with climate change —particularly in more
dire and distant scenarios —made it difficult
to grasp the extent and magnitude of the possible
changes ahead. Even among our creative
and determined group of seasoned observers, it
was extraordinarily challenging to contemplate
revolutionary global change of this magnitude.
Global temperature increases of more than 3°C
and sea level rises measured in meters (a potential
future examined in scenario three) pose
such a dramatically new global paradigm that
it is virtually impossible to contemplate all the
aspects of national and international life that
would be inevitably affected. As one participant
noted, “unchecked climate change equals the
world depicted by Mad Max, only hotter, with
no beaches, and perhaps with even more chaos.”
While such a characterization may seem extreme,
a careful and thorough examination of all the
many potential consequences associated with
global climate change is profoundly disquieting.
The collapse and chaos associated with extreme
climate change futures would destabilize virtually
every aspect of modern life. The only comparable
experience for many in the group was considering
what the aftermath of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear
exchange might have entailed during the height
of the Cold War.
• At a definitional level, a narrow interpretation
of the term “national security” may be woefully
inadequate to convey the ways in which state
authorities might break down in a worst case
climate change scenario. It is clearly the case that
dramatic migrations and movements of people
(among other worrisome effects) will trigger deep
insecurity in some communities, but it is far from
clear whether these anxieties will trigger a traditional
national security response. It is conceivable that under certain scenarios a well-armed nation
experiencing the ravages of environmental
effects brought on by climate change might covet
the more mild and fertile territory of another
country and contemplate seizing that land by
force. While this kind of scenario should not be
ignored, there is a broader and more likely range
of potential problems, including disease, uncontrolled
migration, and crop failure, that are more
likely to overwhelm the traditional instruments
of national security (the military in particular)
and other elements of state power and authority
rather than cause them to be used in the manner
described above.
In the course of writing this study we found
inescapable, overriding conclusions. In the coming
decade the United States faces an ominous set
of challenges for this and the next generation of
foreign policy and national security practitioners.
These include reversing the decline in America’s
global standing, rebuilding the nation’s armed
forces, finding a responsible way out from Iraq
while maintaining American influence in the
wider region, persevering in Afghanistan, working
toward greater energy security, re-conceptualizing
the struggle against violent extremists, restoring
public trust in all manner of government functions,
preparing to cope with either naturally
occurring or manmade pathogens, and quelling
the fear that threatens to cripple our foreign
policy—just to name a few. Regrettably, to this
already daunting list we absolutely must add dealing
responsibly with global climate change. Our
group found that, left unaddressed, climate change
may come to represent as great or a greater foreign
policy and national security challenge than
any problem from the preceding list. And, almost
certainly, overarching global climate change will
complicate many of these other issues.
This report makes clear that we are already living
in an age of consequences when it comes to climate
change and its impact on national security, both
broadly and narrowly defined. The overall experience
of these working groups helped underscore
how much needs to be done on a sustained basis
in this emerging field of exploration. While more
work clearly needs to be done on the overall science
of carbon loading and its impact on climate
change, we already know enough to appreciate that
the cascading consequences of unchecked climate
change are to include a range of security problems
that will have dire global consequences. This study
aims to illuminate how some of these security
concerns might manifest themselves in a future
warming—and worrisome—world. |
