Linkage of Climate to Security Issues is Poorly Understood
Journalist: Jessica Leber
Original Post: Linkage of climate to security issues is poorly understood -- study
Type: News Article
April 27, 2010 — The Christmas Day bomb plot woke the United States up to the growing al-Qaida threat in Yemen. A new report is now sounding another wake-up call.
Researchers for the Center for a New American Security say that security officials will need far more practical climate data if they are to do anything more than pay lip service to the national security threats posed by rising global temperatures -- from the dry Middle Eastern deserts to the melting Arctic.
Take Yemen. The government now gets about 85 percent of its wealth from oil. Some of that oil helps extract water supplies from deep underground aquifers.
But as Yemen's oil fields run dry, so could cheap water. Rising water prices could destabilize the government, and the effects of climate change could exacerbate the situation.
The problem, said the center's research assistant, Will Rogers, is that the links in this chain are less than concrete.
How and how much climate change will reduce water availability in Yemen -- a nation that has quickly become a top security priority -- is not readily available information, he said, much less how such a situation would potentially alter the fight on terrorism.
"Today a thin thread of climate information links producer and consumer communities," says the report, "Lost in Translation: Closing the Gap Between Climate Science and National Security Policy." White House energy adviser Carol Browner plans to speak at its unveiling tomorrow.
An 'accelerant of instability'
It notes the data gap in Yemen as just one example of a growing information need as the military's engagement in climate threats grows. The Defense Department recently called climate change an "accelerant of instability or conflict" in its strategic review and promised to better plan for those risks.
The new report places responsibility for the current data shortcomings with both climate scientists and national security policymakers, each "stovepiped" in their own domains.
"They are almost quietly literally speaking past each other, talking different languages," said Rogers, a co-author of the report.
Behind that is a culture clash in which scientists aren't providing information in the right form and decisionmakers aren't asking for it.
Scientists look to explore uncertainty and probe the frontier of new knowledge through an organic, curiosity-driven approach, the report notes. Academic institutions and even some government agencies don't train scientists to value direct policy engagement or translate their findings; many fear political operatives will misconstrue their work.
Security experts, in contrast, want concrete numbers that narrow their options. There might be huge strategic differences between a threat that pushes 100 million people to move from the coast and one that displaces 1 billion people, a range that might be acceptable to a scientist.
Bridging gaps between scientists and defense planners
The report outlines recommendations to "build new bridges" as security agencies move from assessing to responding to specific threats.
They include: an interagency coordination work group on national security and climate change, Defense and State department climate science advisory groups, changed incentive structures to encourage researchers to study policy implications, and more funding for such efforts.
Several efforts to coordinate practical climate research have failed in the past, however. The U.S. Global Change Research Program was supposed to produce an assessment every four years. Undermined by a lack of support and funds, the program has produced only two in 20 years, one under a court order. A new environmental satellite system that would orbit Earth once every 100 minutes and provide a wealth of data to the Defense Department is delayed and far behind schedule, the report notes.
Meanwhile, efforts in Congress to create a new National Climate Service are tenuous, and the agency's goals and funding are uncertain, the report notes.
The report calls for a careful "demand signal" from security experts that could create a market supply of user-friendly information without violating the traditional firewall between politicians and scientists that underlies scientific credibility. The biomedical field is a good model, it says.
"It's getting national security decisionmakers to figure out what information they'll need and then articulate that to the climate science community. It's trying to put climate change on the map," Rogers said.
Related:Topic(s): Natural Resources + National Security = Natural Security, U.S. National Security and Defense Policy
Project(s): Energy Security and Climate Change, U.S. Military Forces and Operations
People: Will Rogers
