Green Warriors? How the Military is Taking Leadership on Climate Change Policy

If falling rice yields in Asia, water crises in Sudan and hurricanes in the Caribbean were framed not as regional disasters, but as nontraditional security threats to the United States, would policymakers view climate change any differently? A growing literature does just that – it moves climate change from the abstract world of degrees Celsius and melting glaciers in Antarctica, to the jarring arena of national security. The U.S. military in particular is growing steadily more aware that global climate change poses, “a series of global environmental, social, political and possibly military crises loom that the nation will urgently have to address.” While politicians dither and wrangle over specifics it may take the Army’s clout to to show leadership on this area of emerging concern.

Several recently published studies have emphasized how U.S. security is imperiled by a changing climate. A Council on Foreign Relations report highlighted three primary threats: violence and armed conflict, natural disasters and humanitarian crises, and destabilizing forces such as disease or economic collapse. From coca in Colombia to water rights in Yemen and Sudan to oil in Nigeria, natural resource-fueled insurgencies directly affect the U.S. Humanitarian crises can create waves of climate refugees and destabilize already weak states, necessitating intervention. Other forces, such as spreading drought and disease vectors, have similar repercussions on domestic policy. As a recent CNA report on national security and climate change put it, “Climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world.”

At a recent conference in Washington, Brigadier General W. King (Ret.) adroitly linked the issues by pointing out the strong statistical correlations between the failed state index and the major environmental degradation indices. As the latter rises, the former insidiously follows.

These reports may have a disproportionately large impact: in the United States and beyond, the military is widely viewed as being above partisan politics. If a panel of senior officers makes the case that immediate action is needed to allay these threats it may go further than a score of panels by our leading scientists. In the long run, the irony of climate change action being brought to the fore by an organization not known for its tree-hugging ways is a negligible price to pay.

Corporate Environmental Responsibility in the Era of Climate Change

The recent flurry of withdrawals from the United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC) by the likes of big-name corporations such as APPLE and NIKE suggests that business may not go on “as usual” in the US.  The USCC, an influential business lobby, disputes the reality of anthropogenic warming and stridently opposes any government-mandated emissions reductions.

 

The USCC position is exacting a toll. It’s not just corporate behemoths that have withdrawn from the Chamber of Commerce, energy and utility giants such as PNM Resources, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and Exelon have also stepped down.  These corporations made it clear that they strongly disapprove of the Chamber of Commerce’s position and may be bellwethers’ for a changing corporate environment in the US: an Apple vice president said she “strongly objects” to efforts to hinder the EPA.

Nike was even more forthright: – “As we’ve stated, we fundamentally disagree with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the issue of climate change and their recent action challenging the EPA is inconsistent with our view that climate change is an issue in need of urgent action.”

 

At the core of this debate, are questions as to the role of industry and the private sector in climate change mitigation and adaptation and the extent to which government should regulate industry. Too frequently the debate is reduced to caricatures: vulnerable citizens helplessly suffering because of the greed of polluting companies. As with citizens or governments, industry falls along a continuum. Some indeed spew carbon into the atmosphere and attempt to distort the facts behind climate change. But others have shown they have a key advantage over their counterparts in government: they are efficient.  Swiss Re, the reinsurance giant, has been calculating the risks and hazards posed by climate change for a decade. Deutsche Bank has positioned itself as a leader in the field and has committed to going carbon neutral by 2013.  If business and industry function on the basis of enlightened self-interest, it is clear that the once fuzzy line between “greening” industry and profit has become a clear, well-defined path.

The Payoffs of Disaster Preparedness

Last week’s cluster of disasters – typhoons Ketsana, Parma and Ondoy and the 7.6 temblor that rocked Padang, Indonesia – reinforced the need for robust disaster preparedness and mitigation programs for the world’s densest locations. The focus of disaster preparedness has largely been on Asia.

74% of natural disaster deaths in 2006 occurred in Asia

While this region may be at the forefront of the issue, a boost to funding and bolstering of readiness – starting in Copenhagen – will have positive effects from Sydney to Mexico City.

As with urban resilience, most plans for disaster preparedness follow the model of the UN’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the 2005 Hyogo Framework: identify risks, design appropriate measures, and implement.

The Asian Development Bank, among other groups, has a sophisticated model (at right) that pairs a risk assessment specialist, a geoscientist and a GIS expert. Importantly, the UN, ADB and other groups in this field acknowledge the importance of continuing education and addressing ongoing environmental degradation.

A Child is Rescued from Flooding in Central Vietnam

Governments should recognize that the importance of emergency readiness lies in its cost-to-reward ratio. Convincing evidence shows that comparatively simple measures, affordable by developing nations, can have a huge payoff. The UNISDR notes that Gulf Coast residents who collectively spent $2.5 million on hurricane protection avoided nearly $500 million in damages. It further found that a comparatively inexpensive cyclone warning system in Bangladesh that utilizes volunteers with megaphones has reduced storm deaths by a hundredfold since 1970.

As Copenhagen approaches, countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines should go in prepared to argue for the proven effectiveness and financial viability of disaster preparedness analysis and implementation.

Urban Resilience

Flooding in Quezon City

This week’s horrifying news of the flooding that has inundated the Quezon City area of Manila brings to the fore the increasingly relevant discussion of how best to prepare urban areas for changing climates. By the year 2050, 70% of the Earth’s inhabitants will live in cities, up from 50% today. Much of this growth will occur in Asian cities that already struggle with overpopulation, poor sanitation and access to clean water. If the unique hazards of climate change are to be successfully mitigated, a frank conversation is needed about how to make urban areas adaptable and resilient.

A constellation of studies has shown that urban centers in low and middle income nations are particularly vulnerable to the sort of periodic, high-intensity disasters commonly associated with climate change. The effects of flooding, sea level rise, cyclonic storms, landslide and heat waves are concentrated: “a large and growing proportion of these deaths are in these nations’ urban areas,” a UN Secretariat report notes. Indeed, a 2009 primer from the World Bank’s Climate Resilient Cities program highlighted the specific danger of “widespread flooding” to Makati City, another low-lying area of Manila.

GIS maps, such as this one of the Mekong Delta, can facilitate urban disaster preparedness

That climate change will potentiate the growing health, economic and social crises of urbanization is well established. Less so is how to tackle the problem of resilience; as the UN report notes, local governments are often ill-equipped to prepare for events such as cataclysmic flooding. One promising approach, introduced by The Rockefeller Foundation’s Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network, involves a multi-phased approach. Utilizing partner groups at the city, regional and national level, ACCCRN calls first for city selection based on risk and capacity, followed by urban-level vulnerability assessments and a resilience action plan. The final step – implementation – is monitored and adapted on an ongoing basis and successes tagged for replication.

Building on the knowledge that each city faces unique challenges and has unique capabilities, the goal, in the World Bank’s words, of building, “compact, efficient, and walkable cities” that minimize risk must be a top priority for climate change policymakers and planners alike.

India, the Nano and Development

The auto world was abuzz this week as Indian carmaker Tata Motors unveiled the Nano, a four-door, pint-sized sedan that will soon go on sale in India. Beyond its diminutive stature and no-frills interior, the Nano is turning heads because of its price: 100,000 rupees or a mere $2,500 USD. Sales projections still vary wildly, but many analysts agree that the hyper-affordable Nano could bring car ownership – and its social prestige – to a vast swath of rapidly developing India.

The Tata Nano

There is, naturally, a downside to this otherwise feel-good story. Despite weighing only 600 kilograms and sporting a tiny 624cc engine, the Nano is still a conventionally fueled car. And although Tata Motors has outfitted it with a catalytic converter and boasts 50 mpg efficiency, this eco-friendly profile may be vastly outweighed by the millions of new drivers it may put on the roads. Environmentalists are still struggling to calculate the effect this development will have on greenhouse gas emissions (and global energy supplies), but the picture doesn’t look good so far: “This car promises to be an environmental disaster of substantial proportions,” said Yale’s Daniel Esty.

The Nano debate is only a tiny facet of a much larger and fairly acrimonious controversy over the tension between emissions reductions and environmental stewardship on one hand and the right to develop and attain first-world standards of living on the other. In the environmental community, some scientists and public intellectuals advocate strict planet-wide reductions, including regulations that mandate significant cuts on the part of developing nations and punitive measures such as carbon taxes and other sectoral norms. International development and human rights workers oppose this view, arguing that inflexible emissions cuts risk keeping nations perpetually in “developing” mode.

How can we resolve this impasse? Is it even resolvable? Environmental advocates make a point that is difficult to refute: if we are truly worried about climate change and its impacts, then we should take any action necessary to reduce our emissions – even if it means economic burden on already burdened states. Nor is it fair that some nations’ hard work can be undone by the developing world: one estimate says that the reductions made by every Kyoto country will be nullified by China by year 2010.

If the environmentalists’ arguments are hard to reject, so too are those of the development advocates. After all, who wants to be the person to tell an upwardly mobile family in India, or China, or Cambodia that they cannot enjoy the same benefits of their income that a Western family can? Vishal Bhatia, an Indian commenter on the Nano dispute, summed up why he wants one: “I’m buying it because it gives a sense of freedom.”

Today, this dispute leans somewhat in favor of the UN’s George Kell, who said, “You can’t deny emerging markets the right to the same living standards as OECD countries.” This definition of the “good life” and upward mobility is based in the experience and priorities of Western economies. Is there a bridge that offers synergy between individual desires and public needs or corporate desires and environmental consequences?