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.

How Climate Change Can Amplify Social, Economic, and Political Stresses

Janani Vivekananda | Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars | June 2011

Issue:Climate change

International Alert's Janani Vivekananda discusses how climate change will will interact with other social, economic and political stressors to drive instability.

"Rather than climate change being this single, direct causal factor which will spark conflict at the national level," Vivekananda said, these stressors "will shift the tipping point at which conflict might ignite." In places that are already weakened by instability and conflict, climate change will simply be an additional challenge.

Source: youtube 

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Connections Between Climate and Stability: Lessons From Asia and Africa

The New Security Beat | The New Security Beat | May 2011

Issue:Climate change

“We, alongside this growing consensus of research institutes, analysts, and security agencies on both sides of the Atlantic, think of climate change as a risk multiplier; as something that will amplify existing social, political, and resource stressors,” said Janani Vivekananda of International Alert, speaking at the Wilson Center on May 10.

Image source: aheavens

Article source: The New Security Beat

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Wikileaks reveals Arctic could be the new cold war

Greenpeace UK | Greenpeace UK | May 2011

Issues:Climate change, Competition over resources, Global militarisation

New Wikileaks releases today have shown the Arctic oil rush is not just a threat to the environment and our climate, but also to peace. The documents show how deadly serious the scramble for Arctic resources has become. And the terrible irony of it is that instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, the leaders of the Arctic nations are instead investing in military hardware to fight for the oil beneath it. They’re preparing to fight to extract the very fossil fuels that caused the melting in the first place.

Article source: Greenpeace UK

Image source: U.S. Geological Survey

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Assessing the Security Challenges of Climate Change

Obayedul Hoque Patwary | Exclusively written for sustainablesecurity.org | May 2011

Issue:Climate change

At the outset of the twenty first century, climate change has become one of the greatest challenges to international peace and security. It is seriously affecting hundreds of millions of people today and in the coming decades those affected will likely more than double, making it the greatest emerging humanitarian and security challenge of our time. Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world. Projected climate change will seriously aggravate already marginal living standards in many Asian, African, and Middle Eastern nations, causing widespread political instability and conflict.

Image source: Olando 7

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A New Strategy for the US: From the Control Paradigm to Sustainable Security

Schuyler Null | The New Security Beat | May 2011

Issues:Climate change, Competition over resources, Global militarisation, Marginalisation

Writing for the New Security Beat, Schuyler Null discusses a recent event on creating a new national security narrative for the US held at the Woodrow Wilson Center. The event was based on a white paper by two active military officers writing under the pseudonym “Mr. Y” (echoing George Kennan’s famous “X” article). In “A National Strategic Narrative,” Captain Wayne Porter (USN) and Colonel Mark Mykleby (USMC) argue that the United States needs to move away from an outmoded 20th century model of containment, deterrence, and control towards a “strategy of sustainability.”

Image source: LizaP.

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Sustainable Security and Environmental Limits

Rachel Tansey | Quaker Council for European Affairs | May 2011

Issues:Climate change, Competition over resources, Global militarisation, Marginalisation

The Quaker Council for European Affairs publicises a briefing on the topic of Sustainable Security, specifically highlighting environmental concerns:

"The treatment of the natural world by humankind has contributed towards the two related major trends that are likely to drive insecurity in the coming decades: climate change and competition over natural resources."

Article source: Quaker Council for European Affairs

Image source: kretyen

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