National Security At Risk From Global Warming

This is a topographic map designed to emphasize portions of Southeast Asia that are near sea level and hence could potentially be vulnerable to sea level rise.

Photo: Robert A. Rohde / Global Warming Art

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Congress is to be briefed today on a new classified National Intelligence Council assessment about how global warming might upset national security.

Studies that contribute to the report are not classified, and at least some of them point to real concerns about the future of U.S. security in a warmer world. It wouldn't be the first time high-level U.S. national security experts have warned that climate change is a real and present danger; some have even suggested it poses a greater threat than radical Islamic terrorism.

Reports such as these look across the globe at volatile regions that might be thrown into turmoil by increasingly scarce natural resources like clean water, new mass migrations of people fleeing unsuitable living conditions or increased frequency or intensity of natural disasters.

Meanwhile, a top United Nations official has said that climate refugees are already fleeing disaster-prone regions because of global warming.

“The topic of climate refugees is no longer a concept – it is a sad fact,” General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim told the first annual meeting of the Global Humanitarian Forum, held in Geneva. “Each nation, each city, each town, each community and individual has a stake.”

A series of studies done by Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network ranked countries by looking at three climate risks: sea-level rise, increased water scarcity, and an aggregate measure of vulnerability based on projected temperature change, compared with nations' ability to adapt.

"We can pinpoint areas of high projected climate change that are also in historically unstable regions. This suggests that climate change is likely to heighten political risks,' said Marc Levy, a coauthor of the Columbia University studies.

The more dangerous nations on the CIESIN list — which may or may not match the NIC list — include South Africa, Nepal, Morocco, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Paraguay, Yemen, Sudan and Ivory Coast.

Here's how the Earth Institute at Columbia University described its research:

The greatest number of people exposed to sea-level rise are in China, the Philippines, Egypt and Indonesia. China and the Philippines alone have 64 million people in the lowest elevation zones (about three feet above sea level). In Egypt, a longtime major recipient of U.S. military aid, and scene of recurring internal strife, 37% of people live in within 33 feet of sea level in the fertile Nile delta. In other nations, disruptions in rainfall or other temperature-driven phenomena could contribute to dangerous instability due to crop failures or other phenomena. These include Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Congo, Ethiopia and Jordan.

Climate-related security impacts could be significant when they cause "a noticeable—even if temporary—degradation in one of the elements of national power (geopoliltical, military, economic, or social cohesion) because it indirectly influences the U.S. homeland, indirectly influences the United States through a major military ally or a major economic partner, or because the global impact is so large, that [it] indirectly consumes U.S. resources," according an NIC briefing document quoted by the newsletter InsideDefense.com, which first reported on the assessment. "The additional stress on resources and infrastructure will exacerbate internal state pressures, and generate interstate friction through competition for resources or disagreement over responses and responsibility for migration."

The assessment, commissioned by NIC last year at the request of the House and Senate intelligence panels, seems to be part of a growing recognition among military officials that climate change must be reckoned with. A 2007 report by the Center for Naval Analysis called for a comprehensive look at the issue. The 2008 National Defense Authorization Act mandates the Pentagon to "examine the capabilities of the U.S. military to respond to consequences of climate change," particularly preparedness for national disasters due to extreme weather. According to InsideDefense.com, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has approved a yet-unreleased National Defense Strategy that includes planning for environmental and climate problems.

Richard Engle, deputy national intelligence officer for science and technology in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, spoke of the classified report in a recent speech. "We wanted to get down to something that might be actionable for the policy community. So we had to be very specific," he said. The assessment was originally supposed to be public, but has been classified as confidential out of fears that it could evoke hostility from red-flagged governments, according to sources close to the process.

Thomas Fingar, chairman of the NIC, will publicly address some portions of the 58-page report, "National Security Implications of Global Climate Change Through 2030," at Wednesday's hearing. The key findings represent the consensus view of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

Along with CIESIN, other sources whose data contributed to the assessment include the U.S. Climate Change Program; Center for Naval Analysis; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; the Rand Corp.; and Arizona State University.

"There is clearly great interest among policy makers in knowing whether climate change will make crises such as the conflict in Darfur more prevalent, and whether other violent scenarios might be likely to unfold," said Levy. "The science of climate impacts does not yet give us a definitive answer to this question, but at least now we're looking at it seriously."

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