“In the post-Cold War period, the challenges of energy, environment, climate change, and water have become very much a part of our fundamental transatlantic relationship,” said CNA General Counsel Sherri Goodman, launching a new report on U.S.-EU security at the Wilson Center. [Video Below]

The Energy and Climate Nexus: Challenges and Opportunities for Transatlantic Security, co-authored by CNA’s Director of Latin American Affairs Ralph Espach with Duncan Depledge and Tobias Feakin of the Royal United Services Institute, defines the emerging climate-related security threats shared by the United States and Europe. Requested by the European Delegation to the United States, the report urges stronger U.S.-EU partnership and improved communication among transatlantic states.

“We are at best distracted. At worst, we are complacent,” said Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, the special representative for climate change in the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. “Perhaps we need a wake-up call. I would suggest that this report does just that.”

Although the recent development of shale gas in the United States may lead to declining domestic energy prices, the economies of the European Union and the United States remain vulnerable to the actions of a small number of energy-exporting countries. Some of these are unstable, and others, including Venezuela, Iran, Libya, and Saudi Arabia, have had ties to terrorist organizations. According to the report, nearly half of the U.S. transportation sector relied on foreign petroleum in 2011. Similarly, the European Union relied on natural gas for a quarter of its electricity production and imported 62 percent of that gas.

“Our report emphasizes that increasing the production and consumption of domestically produced oil and gas does nothing to de-link our economy from the rise and fall of global oil prices,” said Espach. “For decades, it has been the price of oil that has been the direct linkage between crises in the Middle East, destabilizing events around the world, and the U.S. economy.”

“Energy security and climate security are two sides of the same coin,” write the report authors. Heavy reliance on hydrocarbons creates economic vulnerabilities and burning them spurs climate change. “The last time [CO2] concentrations were this high,” the authors write, “the world was several degrees warmer and sea levels were 20-40 meters higher.”

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