As we recently highlighted, a new issue of the academic journal Climatic Change titled “Climate and security: evidence, emerging risks, and a new agenda” has just been released. The lead editor of the report has also published an excellent summary on the New Security Beat, which includes a discussion of the four research challenges in this area of inquiry: understanding both conflict and peace potential, further developing explanatory models, re-embedding the issue of power into the discourse, and understanding the limitations of historical examples. This special issue helps to set the stage for the release of the IPCC’s new “human security” chapter on March 31. Together, these reports will play an important role in highlighting where the current state of inquiry is on the topic today, and in providing a clarion call for more research. But this is not your father’s research agenda. There is a unique urgency associated with climate change risks, and major outstanding uncertainties regarding those risks that give such a research agenda a particular importance. That same urgency also underscores the need to immediately advance policies that manage those uncertainties, rather than waiting for certainty before acting.
Why both more research and more robust policy action is necessary
While conflict studies have been around for a long time (see Thucydides), the current climate change phenomenon is a new beast to wrestle with – a unique and potentially existential risk to human security. An improved understanding of the nature and scale of climate-related risks to security, and a deeper exploration of how it is different than more traditional peace and security threats, will be of nearly immeasurable importance as the climate continues to change. Given the rapid rate and at times unprecedented nature of these changes, decision-makers in government will have to focus on simultaneously decreasing uncertainties through research while also preparing for multiple contingencies through robust and far-reaching policies.
Climate change has three particularly worrying characteristics that elevate the urgency of research on climate, security and conflict, and strengthen the case for comprehensive policies to manage these risks.
Unprecedented rate of change: The climatic changes that we are starting to see, and are highly likely to continue to experience, are potentially unprecedented in the context of human civilization. For example, the melting of the ice in the Arctic is happening at a rate and scale largely unseen in human history, and it is not entirely clear what the repercussions of this melting will mean for either our climate, or our security. This is a significant and potentially highly dangerous unknown to live with. For example, a recent study by the National Academy of Sciences looked at what abrupt change, as opposed to an often-assumed gradual change, could mean for governance institutions – concluding that we are significantly unprepared and in need of an “Abrupt Change Early Warning System.” Today, our so-called “ships of state” are entering uncharted waters, both literally and figuratively. In such a situation, increasing certainty through research, and managing uncertainty through sound policy are both necessary and critical to human welfare.
For the complete article, please see The Center for Climate and Security.
