I made two presentations yesterday at Colorado College where I first talked about climate and security and then spoke about global climate governance. I’ll post about each issue in turn. With the Pentagon this week releasing its new strategy on climate change adaptation, this is a timely moment to revisit how far we have come with climate and security (slides from my presentation here).

In the mid-2000s, climate activists began casting about for new ways to frame climate change as a way to broaden their coalition. One way was to frame climate change as a security threat. Tom Friedman and others were some of the early proponents of this framing, linking fossil fuel dependence on unsavory regimes and also highlighting the connections between climate change and security outcomes at home and abroad.

Climate Security and Policy

Beginning with some think tank studies in 2007 and 2008 by the CNA Corporation, my own paper for the Council on Foreign Relations, and an edited volume from CNAS, the climate-security drumbeat began to accrue a constituency in policy circles in Washington and beyond. Governments began commissioning studies on the effects of climate change and security such as the 2008 National Intelligence Assessment on climate and security by the National Intelligence Council the CIA’s think tank (full disclosure: I was an external reviewer of that report) as well as reports and meetings by the the Defense Science Board, the National Academy of Sciences, the UN Security Council, the European Union, and various other governments. Climate change was soon being incorporated into U.S. Pentagon planning documents like the Quadrennial Defense Review (2010, 2014), and the U.S. issued strategic documents on the implications of climate change for the Navy and the Arctic.

In addition to the long-time work of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program, there is newer policy community in Washington that works on climate change and security nearly full-time, prominent among them are Sherri Goodman at the CNA Corporation, Frank Femia and Caitlin Werrell at the Center for Climate and Security, Andrew Holland at the American Security Project, and Marcus King at George Washington University. There are regular meetings that focus on climate impacts and security. There are similar constituencies in other countries.

For the complete article, please see The Duck of Minerva.