This 21 page report assesses how youth bulges and climate change can interact and multiply the risk of violence in regions already vulnerable to poor governance and social and political instability. Violence is defined here as civil conflicts, anti-state political violence and civil unrest. The report identifies sub-Saharan Africa as the region most at risk, with several other sub-regions facing concurrent demographic and climate dynamics that could negatively impact the security environment. The report recommends prioritizing equitable, climate-resilient economic growth, and strengthening democratic institutions to improve livelihoods and political inclusion for young people, in order to promote peace and stability. The research was commissioned by UNICEF-UK for the start of their five-year campaign on long-term threats to youth, and was co-authored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and International Alert. It is the first research report on youth, climate and violence linkages. It uses case studies on Egypt, Guatemala, Indonesia and Kenya, all of which have youth bulges and limited resilience to climate impacts.
The African conference participants do not generally see climate change as a security issue, but as a development issue that can impact food and water security, agricultural production and economic development. It is seen as a secondary issue to the important ones such as jobs, basic needs and opportunities for growth. There is, however, openness for engagement with international partners on climate change, with a welcoming approach to expertise and funding from abroad and an interest in climate finance mechanisms. This openness differs from the more closed attitude toward engagement on security issues, raising the question as to whether security is a good entry point to engage on climate change with African leaders.
In the 20 year period 1994 through 2013, over 500,000 people died in over 15,000 natural disasters. On the occasion of COP20 in Lima, the Bonn-based NGO Germanwatch published its Global Climate Risk Index (CRI) 2015 to register these data and track patterns. The report presents statistics from the two-decade period and from 2013.
This is the CRI’s 10th edition. A team of five authors focuses on economic losses and fatalities and analyses the extent countries have been affected by weather-related loss events like storms, floods or heat waves. In 2013, the Philippines, Cambodia and India were the most affected countries. From 1994 to 2013, Honduras, Myanmar and Haiti rank highest.
Jordan remains one of the few stable countries in the Middle-East. Yet, the underlying economic issues that led to protests associated with the Arab Spring and the subsequent toppling of governments and autocratic regimes across the Middle-East and North Africa remain in place. However, Jordanians look north to Syria, southwest to Egypt and west to Iraq, and their experiences of brutal civil wars have tempered the desire for similar rapid change. In this sense, ‘Jordan is stable but in no way should be.’
A series of executive orders signed by President Obama since his first year in office requires all federal agencies to begin planning for climate change and produce an updated adaptation plan by May of this year. On October 13, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel released the Pentagon’s second-ever climate roadmap.
“Climate change will affect the Department of Defense’s ability to defend the Nation and poses immediate risks to U.S. national security,” the new roadmap says. And accordingly it focuses on adaptation to that impact.
This 29-page report by the Military Advisory Board of CNA Corporation, addresses the national security implications of climate change for the United States. It is an update of a 2007 CNA report, “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” that was key in generating policy attention in the Washington policy context at that time. CNA reports receive particular attention in the U.S. context given their direct involvement of senior retired flag officers from the U.S. military. The report describes how increased scientific certainty about climate change and its impacts dictate that the US government and its military need to take action today to prepare for the risks that climate change poses. The authors discuss both the domestic and international aspects of climate change and argue that climate change impacts are already serving as catalysts for conflict in vulnerable regions. The report provides six recommendations for protecting the military, economic and infrastructure aspects of America’s “National Power” and ensuring readiness and resilience for the country’s military forces.
This 19-page report published by Carnegie Europe assesses the role that climate change plays in EU security policy. Summarizing developments at the level of the Union and its member states, it argues that agenda-setting regarding ‘climate security’ is well advanced, but the translation of concept papers into tangible policy outputs is trailing behind. The report analyses the state of European policy on four challenges – climate-induced fragility, changing migration patterns, military engagement, and the geo-economics of climate change – and concludes that policy instruments need to be further developed to match the scale of the likely challenges ahead. Youngs argues that the EU needs to pursue deeper international cooperation to tackle the fundamental challenges ahead, and makes six broad recommendations (see below).