Barack Obama has spent considerable time in recent months publicly
explaining his positions on both climate change and violent extremism.
But in a Coast Guard commencement address last week, the U.S.
president deliberately combined the two, saying that climate change
"constitutes a serious threat to global security."
Security analysts say the idea has been percolating in Western
military circles for the past few years, but there is still skepticism
about a direct link.
Francesca de Châtel, an Amsterdam-based researcher with an expertise
in water issues in the Arab world, says that while issues such as
climate change and terrorism are real, "bundling them all together" is
problematic.
"Climate change implies a lot of unknowns, and then if you add to
that conflict, which also implies unknown outcomes, it just creates an
air of uncertainty and fear," she says.
Stage-setting for climate talks
Still, for Obama, "climate change constitutes a serious threat to
global security, an immediate risk to our national security, and, make
no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country," he
told over 200 graduating Coast Guard cadets in Connecticut.
U.S.
President Barack Obama used a recent commencement address for Coast
Guard graduates to talk about the link between climate change and
regional conflicts. (AP file photo)
The same day as Obama's speech, the White House released a paper
called "The National Security Implications of a Changing Climate."
It concludes that climate change "will change the nature of U.S.
military missions, demand more resources in the Arctic and other coastal
regions vulnerable to rising sea levels and other impacts, and require a
multilateral response to the growing humanitarian crises that climate
change is predicted to bring."
Since the mid-term elections, the president has emphasized
environmental degradation as one of the world's most pressing issues.
The Obama administration is onside with the majority of scientists who
believe that man-made greenhouse gases are largely responsible for
climate change.
Jeffrey Mazo, a consulting senior fellow on environmental issues at
the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, feels the
speech reflects Obama's belief in the importance of tackling the
environment and was a way to "mobilize support" in anticipation of the
Paris climate talks this fall.
Origins in the '80s
Mazo says U.S. research into the connection between climate change
and global conflicts dates back to the early 1980s, and that the
security establishment has been looking at the relationship seriously
for more than a decade.
Last year, the U.K.-based International Institute for Strategic
Studies released a report that said environmental factors, such as water
availability, soil degradation and severe weather events, "have been
implicated in at least 73 conflicts since 1980."
One of the effects of climate change is that it disrupts rain
patterns and can lead to drought, which in turn wreaks havoc on farm
yields and causes famines or raises the price of food for consumers.
With this in mind, there has been significant research into whether a
severe drought in the Levant between 2006 and 2010 laid the foundations
for the Syrian civil war, a conflict that has not only led to
widespread violence and displacement but facilitated the rise of ISIS
and other radical groups.
A water researcher, de Châtel says "a direct link is very hard to make, because there were so many other factors."
She also notes that drought has long been part of the Syrian climate
and that this particular dry spell coincided with a cut in government
farming and fuel subsidies and mismanagement of the water supply, which
were also factors in the popular unrest.
So was the general mood of dissent that swept through North Africa and the Middle East in 2010 and 2011.
"Without the Arab Spring, I don't think anything would have happened in Syria," says de Châtel.
For his part, Mazo says one of the best examples of the influence of
climate change on national security can be found in Darfur, Sudan.
The
UN has acknowledged that a long-running drought in Darfur, Sudan
increased tension between black farmers and Arab nomads over water
supplies, and eventually caused rebel groups to wage war against the
government over the perceived oppression of non-Arab citizens. (Mohamed
Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters)
The UN has acknowledged that the long-running drought there increased
tension between black farmers and Arab nomads over water supplies, and
eventually caused rebel groups to wage war against the government over
the perceived oppression of non-Arab citizens.
"If you want to say, 'What was the main cause of the outbreak of
violence in Darfur?', I couldn't pin it down," says Mazo. "But if you
said, 'Was climate change a factor?' I would say, definitely yes."
'Threat multiplier'
Obama's May 20th speech was pilloried by many Republicans, who were
incredulous that the president would use climate change to explain the
rise of violent movements such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,
which a U.S.-led coalition is currently struggling to contain.
There is some misunderstanding on the issue, says Francesco Femia,
founding director of the Centre for Climate and Security, an independent
Washington think tank.
"I don't think the president is claiming that climate change in any way directly or exclusively causes conflicts," says Femia.
Rather, the government is just acknowledging that "we have to factor
in what climate is doing to certain situations on the ground," he says.
Last fall, then-U.S. defence secretary Chuck Hagel called climate
change "a threat multiplier," saying that it has "the potential to
exacerbate many of the challenges we already confront today."
Climate change is not necessarily a more significant threat
multiplier than population growth or the rise of Islamic fundamentalism,
says Mazo.
What makes it unique, however, "is that it's a global phenomenon, and that it's new."
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