Climate Change as National Security
In a statement released in January 2021, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin released a statement on the national security implications of climate change. It read: “there is little about what the Department [of Defense] does to defend the American people that is not affected by climate change.” In describing the next doomsday, the average American would default to Hollywood-esque depictions of a nuclear wasteland, the cause of which is unclear. The most likely doomsday is a faceless enemy whose attacks we have been wholly unable to outmaneuver because we are predisposed to contributing to them: climate change.
In reviewing the greatest national security concerns which the United States faces today, it is obvious that the anthropogenic climate crisis is the most alarming. The consequences of climate change are unpredictable and insurmountable. Climate change has the potential to trigger destabilization via natural disasters, lowered agricultural yields, and depleted water basins. Further, climate change is a stressor exacerbating the delicate balance of the world. Climate change as a threat magnifier could upset any number of political hotspots, and it is unclear whether we have the resources to put out all the fires.
At the U.N. Climate Summit in Glasgow last year, President Biden promised a renewed commitment to emissions reduction in the United States and allocation programs to aid developing nations in reducing their own greenhouse gas outputs. President Biden faces an uphill battle as he tries to reassure our allies and the world of the priorities and commitments of the United States. His promises appear tenuous after former President Trump’s four-year exit from the Paris Climate Accords. Furthermore, Democrats in Congress have gotten no closer to ratifying a bill aligned with the President’s climate agenda. This leaves the United States with no path to make good on its lofty promises of change.
The execution and maintenance of an international agreement to resolve warming was a pipe dream. The initial talks governing the climate summit in Glasgow failed to bring about action or accountability. The Kyoto protocol established more culpability for developing nations for the plight of climate change, the lack of agreement on penalties rendered the agreement itself optional to most nations. While the Paris Climate Accord represented a turning point in introducing a binding element to these negotiations, no major developed power is on track to meet their goal, save India. The Paris Climate Accords are also weakened by the uncertain membership status of the United States, which has the negative externality of discouraging a future agreement as well. Global climate policy is unlikely as the tradeoffs required to slow global warming would also require states to direct capital towards green technology, potentially switching some nations off of their chosen path of economic development. Such free-loader states resist change through misperceptions of other actors’ intentions towards cooperation, reducing the chance a deal is reached at all. Due to the direct tradeoff between climate policy and cheap economic growth, nations are placed in a security dilemma against one another refusing to compromise any measure of economic competitiveness.
A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated that in the next 20 years, the world is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. The IPCC estimates that nearing 2 degrees Celsius would “reach critical tolerance thresholds” for agriculture and health, as well as upsetting the biochemical balance of freshwater reservoirs and contributing to rising sea levels. A warming of 3 degrees Celsius is projected to produce dire consequences in disrupting ecosystems, food production, and weather patterns. Further, a warming level of 4 degree Celsius would risk limiting hospitable zones on the planet. To veer away from the 2 degrees Celsius threshold, “global emissions of greenhouse gasses need to drop by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030 to stay on a 1.5 degrees path.”
The domestic threat that climate change poses to the American people is as follows: heat waves, wildfires, and droughts will increase around regions that are already experiencing them. Coastal cities in low areas such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, and Seattle will be uniquely susceptible to hurricanes bolstered by warmer oceans. The economic cost to Americans will also be steep, as Georgetown University political scientist Anatol Lieven puts it:
“It is important to remember that long before places disappear permanently under water, repeated flooding will make them uninhabitable. It is estimated that by 2045, some 300,000 U.S. homes with a total value of about $117 billion will be uninhabitable due to flooding, while, by the end of the century, homes and businesses currently worth more than $1 trillion (not including infrastructure) are likely to be at risk. If sea levels rise by more than three meters — a plausible 22nd century scenario — not just Miami and New Orleans, but very extensive coastal areas of the United States will be subject to flooding, and tens of millions of people will be forced to migrate. (Elsewhere in the world, it will be hundreds of millions.) Once again, short of nuclear war, Chinese and Russian strategies do not threaten major U.S. cities with anything like this kind of destruction.”
Lieven argues that trends in water resources in Western parts of the United States are already on a shocking decline. He goes so far as to propose that “chronic drought” will be commonplace on the West coast before the end of this century. The impending material harm from climate change overshadows the power Russia or China hold. It would be absurd to discount the encroachment climate change is exerting on our economic and political system. As Lieven writes eloquently “Rival great powers pose only a limited threat to the international interests of the United States as defined by the Washington establishment — and very little to the wellbeing of American citizens.”
This realization is catastrophic to the longevity of relative peace in the world, as the natural disasters outlined above will increase instability and internal conflict within nations across the globe. The National Intelligence Estimate on Climate Change published weeks ago by the Biden administration outlines exacerbated geopolitical conflict amidst climate instability. The first liability is the proximity of the United States to potential collapsing states in Central America. Climate change has contributed heavily to Central American storms, most recently Hurricanes Eta and Iota. These storms, coupled with extreme drought in the region, have forced subsistence farmers into starvation and triggered immigration– increases up to 540%. None of this begins to analyze the impact a threat multiplier like climate change could begin to have on the tumultuous relationship between the United States and China. Climate change would undoubtedly strain our bilateral economic ties as put pressure on scarce resources, exacerbating geopolitical tensions. From a solely domestic perspective, there is no greater threat to domestic soil than climate change.
"Staring down a hurricane" by Astro_Alex is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
