Climate change
Climate change is high on both domestic and international political agendas as countries face up to the huge environmental challenges the world now faces. Whilst this attention is welcome, less energy is being focused on the inevitable impact climate change will have on security issues. The well-documented physical effects of climate change will have knock-on socio-economic impacts, such as loss of infrastructure, resource scarcity and the mass displacement of peoples. These in turn could produce serious security consequences that will present new challenges to governments trying to maintain stability.
Governments in Asia and the Pacific need to prepare for a large increase in climate-induced migration in the coming years, says a forthcoming report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
On February 25, 2009, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) launched the “Transatlantic Dialogue on Climate Change and Security”, funded by a grant from the European Commission, with the purpose of analyzing the impact of climate change on global security and stability.
Climate change will do more than just raise the temperature. Around the equator, rising temperatures and declining precipitation will lower agricultural production. People in this area (especially Africa and the Middle East) are particularly reliant on agriculture to support income and livelihoods. This trend (Hot Wars), coupled with rapidly increasing populations, will create conditions for livelihood wars. 
In a three-month investigation, a team of Northwestern University graduate students has found that the US security establishment is not adequately prepared for many of the environmental changes that are coming faster than predicted and that threaten to reshape demands made on the military and intelligence community. The Medill School of Journalism graduate student team has just begun publishing its findings on the national security implications of climate change with a series of print, video and interactive stories at Global-Warning.org. 