Research for Climate
In this memo, we look at an obvious but seldom discussed implication of climate change for installation managers: rising temperatures and their implications for installation energy use.
In 2006, CNA brought together 11 recently retired three and four-star generals and admirals to form a Military Advisory Board (MAB), with the goal of examining the national security implications of climate change. Over the last five years, the CNA MAB has published three reports on the nexus of energy, climate, and national security. In this report the MAB focuses on the national security implications associated with shifting the U.S. transportation sector to alternative fuels.
How will climate change affect military humanitarian and disaster response operations? Answering this question requires answering a number of other, related, questions. How will climate change affect the frequency, type, and nature of disasters and humanitarian emergencies? How will pressures from climate change affect social and economic factors that determine the security situation at the scene of the response? What types of disasters do US military forces respond to today, and how do they compare with those types of disaster most affected by climate change? Why does the US commit military forces to a disaster response operation? And what unique capabilities do they bring when they arrive?
This report explores the growing challenges presented by the links that tie the nation’s current energy posture to its economy and national security. It looks at the potential opportunities that could result from the transition to a clean energy technology-based economy and the key role that the Department of Defense (DOD) can play to support innovation and commercialization of clean, low carbon energy, thereby directly contributing to America’s future economic competitiveness and bolstering national security.
Climate change poses challenges to societies and governments that go far beyond the alteration of our environment. The physical impacts of climate change, including gradual but steady increases in temperature, changing precipitation patterns, the reduction of glaciers and Arctic ice, rising sea levels and changes in coastlines, and more intense and frequent extreme weather events, will affect human lives in numerous ways. While climate change does not by itself create new security threats, it does act as a threat multiplier. It exacerbates existing political weaknesses and social tensions in countries around the world, and creates demands for state services and assistance—including security—which at times may exceed the capacity of governments to respond. In this sense, the growing likelihood of events such as mass migrations, crop failures, economic shocks, public riots and violence, floods and other natural disasters, widespread epidemics, and competition for resources pose serious challenges for governments and security forces worldwide.
Climate change has the potential, even likelihood, to fundamentally transform our understanding of homeland security, public safety, and especially our capacities and capabilities to adapt to emergencies. In this report, the focus is on how climate change will interact with migration, both as cause of large-scale population displacements and, in turn, as consequence of shifting settlement patterns.
This report focuses on the impact of climate change on comprehensive emergency management and preparedness policy. It seeks to outline key climate change issues for consideration from an emergency management perspective and begin a conversation on potential implications for the near-, medium-, and long-terms. It lays the foundation for future dialogue among emergency management practitioners from all levels of government to explore policy solutions in greater depth.
In 2006 CNA convened a Military Advisory Board (MAB) of eleven retired three-star and four-star admirals and generals to assess the impact of global climate change on key matters of national security, and to lay the groundwork for mounting responses to the threats found. In April 2007, CNA released the MAB's landmark report, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change, that articulates the concept of climate change acting as a “threat multiplier” for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world and identifies key challenges that must be planned for now if they are to be met effectively in the future.
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