June 13, 2018

Breakout Briefer: Stability at Stake: Addressing Critical Regions Facing Complex Climate, Security, and Nuclear Risks

By: ​Neil Bhatiya

When the Working Group on Climate, Nuclear, and Security Affairs met in May 2017, it affirmed that there are no linear, predictable pathways for catastrophic events in either the . climate change or nuclear risk spheres. Climate change and nuclear security are acted upon by a variety of actors in the international system. The contributing factors to a crisis can be a combination of both long-term trends in technology and governance and shorter-termfactors like resource scarcity, ethno-nationalism, and rising populism.

The Working Group’s starting point for discussing these issues is that they are critically important to the preservation of international peace and security, but there are glaring deficiencies in how the world currently understands the risks around them.

Specifically, the Working Group recommended further work to understand crisis regions --areas where the confluence of nuclear trends, climate change effects, and other security challenges may create the greatest risks. The regions of highest concern were South Asia, the Middle East, the South China Sea, and Central and North Africa. According to the Working Group, it is imperative that the security community “Focus on potential crisis regions and game out ways in which applying specific policies, technologies, normative structures, and other measures can be stabilizing or destabilizing.”

Read the Full Article at The Center for Climate and Security

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