Describe the national security risk and threat assessment process. – What national security threats have been attributed to climate cha

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National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change

May 2014

CNA Military Advisory Board

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Recommended citation:

CNA Military Advisory Board, National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change

(Alexandria, VA: CNA Corporation, 2014)

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Foreword

Projected climate change is a complex multi-decade challenge. Without action to build resilience, it will increase security risks over much of the planet. It will not only increase threats to developing nations in resource-challenged parts of the world, but it will also test the security of nations with robust capability, including significant elements of our National Power here at home. Even though we may not have 100 percent certainty as to the cause or even the exact magnitude of the impacts, the risks associated with projected climate change warrant taking action today to plan and prepare for changes in our communities, at home and abroad.

When it comes to thinking through long-term global challenges, none are more qualified than our most senior military leaders. Not only do they have decades of experience managing risk and responding to conflict on the battlefield, but they are also experts in geopolitical analysis and long- range strategic planning.

Military leaders typically look at challenges with imperfect or conflicting information. Despite not having 100 percent certainty, they weigh the consequences of various courses of action—including the consequences of no action—and make informed decisions based on their experience and risk forbearance.

It is through this analytical prism that 11 retired Generals and Admirals came together in 2007, under the moniker of CNA’s Military Advisory Board, to examine the security implications of climate change. Their landmark report, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change, was the first time that such an elite body of military leaders expressed their concern over the security implications of climate change.

Now, seven years later, the Military Advisory Board has gathered again to re-examine the nexus of projected climate change and national security. This update reflects their decades of experience as risk managers and geopolitical security experts. With the foundation of CNA’s established analytical prowess, the report deserves strong attention from not only the security community, but also from the entire government and the American public.

The update serves as a bipartisan call to action. It makes a compelling case that climate change is no longer a future threat—it is taking place now. It observes that climate change serves as a catalyst of conflict in vulnerable parts of the world, and that projected changes in global migration patterns will make the challenges even more severe. It identifies threats to elements of National Power here at home, particularly those associated with our infrastructure and our ability to maintain military readiness.

The update makes clear that actions to build resilience against the projected impacts of climate change are required today. We no longer have the option to wait and see. We applaud this group of American patriots for this important update. We commend its reading in full and its recommendations to the Administration, to Congress, and to the American people.

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

Michael Chertoff Former Secretary of Homeland Security

Leon Panetta Former Secretary of Defense

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To the reader:

The nature and pace of observed climate changes—and an emerging scientific consensus on their projected consequences—pose severe risks for our national security. During our decades of experience in the U.S. military, we have addressed many national security challenges, from containment and deterrence of the Soviet nuclear threat during the Cold War to political extremism and transnational terrorism in recent years. The national security risks of projected climate change are as serious as any challenges we have faced.

Since we published our first report in 2007 on the national security implications of climate change, we have witnessed nearly a decade of scientific discoveries in environmental science, a burgeoning scholarly literature on global complex interdependence among nations, and a series of reactions (or in many cases, failures to react) to projected climate change. Hence, we were compelled to provide an update to our report. Over several months and meetings, we listened to scientists, security analysts, government officials, industry representatives, and the military. We viewed their information through the lens of our military experience as warfighters, planners, and leaders. Our discussions have been lively, informative, and very sobering.

At the end of the day, we validate the findings of our first report and find that in many cases the risks we identified are advancing noticeably faster than we anticipated. We also find the world becoming more complex in terms of the problems that plague its various regions. Yet thinking about how to manage the risks of projected climate change as just a regional problem or—worse yet—someone else’s problem may limit the ability to fully understand their consequences and cascading effects. We see more clearly now that while projected climate change should serve as catalyst for change and cooperation, it can also be a catalyst for conflict.

We are dismayed that discussions of climate change have become so polarizing and have receded from the arena of informed public discourse and debate. Political posturing and budgetary woes cannot be allowed to inhibit discussion and debate over what so many believe to be a salient national security concern for our nation. Each citizen must ask what he or she can do individually to mitigate climate change, and collectively what his or her local, state, and national leaders are doing to ensure that the world is sustained for future generations. Are your communities, businesses, and governments investing in the necessary resilience measures to lower the risks associated with climate change? In a world of high complex interdependence, how will climate change in the far corners of the world affect your life and those of your children and grandchildren? If the answers to any of these questions make you worried or uncomfortable, we urge you to become involved. Time and tide wait for no one.

National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change

Military Advisory Board

General Paul Kern, USA (Ret.)

Brigadier General Gerald E. Galloway Jr., USA (Ret.)

Vice Admiral Lee Gunn, USN (Ret.)

Admiral Frank “Skip” Bowman, USN (Ret.)

General James Conway, USMC (Ret.)

Lieutenant General Ken Eickmann, USAF (Ret.)

Lieutenant General Larry Farrell, USAF (Ret.)

General Don Hoffman, USAF (Ret.)

General Ron Keys, USAF (Ret.)

Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, British Royal Navy (Ret.)

Vice Admiral Ann Rondeau, USN (Ret.)

Lieutenant General Keith Stalder, USMC (Ret.)

General Gordon Sullivan, USA (Ret.)

Rear Admiral David Titley, USN (Ret.)

General Charles “Chuck” Wald, USAF (Ret.)

Lieutenant General Richard Zilmer, USMC (Ret.)

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The CNA Military Advisory Board

General Paul Kern, USA (Ret.) CNA MAB Chairman Former Commanding General, Army Materiel Command

Brigadier General Gerald E. Galloway Jr., USA (Ret.) CNA MAB Vice Chairman Former Dean at the United States Military Academy Former Dean at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University

Vice Admiral Lee Gunn, USN (Ret.) CNA MAB Vice Chairman Former Inspector General of the Department of the Navy

Admiral Frank “Skip” Bowman, USN (Ret.) Former Director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program Former Chief of Naval Personnel

General James Conway, USMC (Ret.) Former Commandant of the Marine Corps

Lieutenant General Ken Eickmann, USAF (Ret.) Former Commander, U.S. Air Force Aeronautical Systems Center

Lieutenant General Larry Farrell, USAF (Ret.) Former Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force

General Don Hoffman USAF (Ret.) Former Commander, U.S. Air Force Materiel Command

General Ron Keys, USAF (Ret.) Former Commander, U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command

Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, British Royal Navy (Ret.) Former UK Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change

Former Commandant, UK Joint Services Command and Staff College

Vice Admiral Ann Rondeau, USN (Ret.) Former President, National Defense University Former Deputy Commander, U.S. Transportation Command

Lieutenant General Keith Stalder, USMC (Ret.) Former Commanding General, U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific

General Gordon Sullivan, USA (Ret.) Former Chief of Staff, U.S. Army

Rear Admiral David W. Titley, USN (Ret.) Former Oceanographer of the Navy

General Charles “Chuck” Wald, USAF (Ret.) Former Deputy Commander, U.S. European Command

Lieutenant General Richard Zilmer, USMC (Ret.) Former Deputy Commandant for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Former Commanding General of Multi-National Force–West in Al Anbar Province, Iraq

MAB Executive Director: Ms. Sherri Goodman, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, CNA Corporation

Former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security

CNA Team: Dr. Leo Goff, Program Manager, Lead Writer Ms. Jennifer Atkin, CNA Research Analyst

Dr. Lauren Malone, CNA Research Analyst

Mr. Chuck McCutcheon, Writer

vi www.cna.org/reports/accelerating-risks

Acknowledgements

We are thankful to many for their support of this effort. We thank Ms. Cheryl Rosenblum and Ms. Morrow Cater for

their sage insights and feedback throughout the process; Ms. Lee Woodard, who handled the design and layout of the

report; and the Wilson Center, Climate Nexus, the Freimuth Group, and the Center for Climate Security for support of

the initial release. We thank Ms. Brenda Mitchell and Ms. Jennifer Babbitts, who provided valuable administrative

support during this effort. We especially thank the Energy Foundation for its generous support of this project.

We thank the following individuals for sharing their technical, geopolitical, science, and policy expertise with the

CNA Military Advisory Board:

Lt General Thomas Bostick, U.S. Army Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Dr. James Clad, CNA, Senior Advisor for Asian Affairs

Mr. John Conger, Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Installations and Environment

Major General Rich Engel, USAF (Ret.), Director, Environment and Natural Resources Program, Strategic Futures Group, National Intelligence Council

Ms. Alice Hill, Senior Advisor for Preparedness and Resilience to the President’s Assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism

Dr. Ron Filadelfo, CNA, Research Team Leader, Resource Analysis Division

Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg, CNA, Senior Research Scientist, Center for Strategic Studies

Mr. Kevin Knobloch, Chief of Staff, Department of Energy

Ms. Leslie-Anne “L-A” Levy, CNA, Managing Director, Safety and Security Division

Dr. Satu Limaye, CNA, Senior Advisor, Director of East-West Center

Dr. Mike MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs with the Climate Institute

Dr. Jeff Marqusee, Chief Scientist, Enterprise Engineering and Environment, Noblis

BGen. Donald McGregor, Director, Strategic Plans and Policy, National Guard Bureau

VADM Denny McGinn, USN (Ret.), Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations, and Environment (EI&E)

Dr. Jerry Melillo, Chair, National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee

Ms. Lindene Patton, Zurich Insurance Group

Mr. Jonathan Powers, White House Council on Environmental Quality

Ms. Nilanthi Samaranayake, CNA, Research Analyst, Center for Strategic Studies

Mr. Ghassan Schbley, CNA, Research Analyst, Center for Strategic Studies

Dr. Yee San Su, CNA, Senior Research Scientist, Safety and Security Division

Mr. Chris Steinitz, CNA, Research Analyst, Center for Strategic Studies

Ms. Nancy Sutley, Chair, White House Council on Environmental Quality

Lt General Jeffrey Talley, Chief of the Army Reserve, Commanding General, U.S. Army Reserve Command

Mr. Roy Wright, FEMA, Deputy Associate Administrator for Mitigation

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Executive Summary

CNA’s Military Advisory Board (MAB) first addressed the

national security implications of climate change in our

2007 report—National Security and the Threat of Cli-

mate Change. We gather again as a group of 16 retired

Generals and Admirals from the Army, Navy, Air Force,

and Marine Corps to re-examine climate change in the

context of a more informed, but more complex and

integrated world, and to provide an update to our

2007 findings.

We are compelled to conduct this update now because

of nearly seven years of developments in scientific

climate projections; observed climate changes, par-

ticularly in the Arctic; the toll of observed extreme

weather events both at home and abroad; and changes

in the global security environment. Although we have

seen some movement in mitigation and other areas

where climate adaptation and resilience are starting to

be included in planning documents, we gather again

because of our growing concern over the lack of com-

prehensive action by both the United States and the

international community to address the full spectrum

of projected climate change issues.

The specific questions addressed in this update are:

1. Have new threats or opportunities associated with

projected climate change or its effects emerged since

our last report? What will be the impacts on our

military?

2. The 2014 National Climate Assessment indicates

that climate change, once considered an issue for a

distant future, has moved firmly into the present.

What additional responses should the national secu-

rity community take to reduce the risks posed to our

nation and to the elements of our National Power

(Political, Military, Social, Infrastructure, and Infor-

mation systems (PMESII))?

Major findings:

Actions by the United States and the international community have been insufficient to adapt to the challenges associated with projected climate change. Strengthening resilience to climate impacts already locked into the system is critical, but this will reduce long-term risk only if improvements in resilience are accompanied by actionable agree-

ments on ways to stabilize climate change.

Scientists around the globe are increasing their con-

fidence, narrowing their projections, and reaffirming

the likely causes of climate change. As described in

Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third

National Climate Assessment: “Heat-trapping gases

already in the atmosphere have committed us to a

hotter future with more climate-related impacts over

the next few decades. The magnitude of climate change

beyond the next few decades depends primarily on the

amount of heat-trapping gases emitted globally, now

and in the future.”1 Some in the political realm continue

to debate the cause of a warming planet and demand

more data. Yet MAB member General Gordon Sullivan,

United States Army, Retired, has noted: “Speaking

as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If

you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, some-

thing bad is going to happen on the battlefield.”

Climate mitigation and adaptation efforts are emerging

in various places around the world, but the extent of

these efforts to mitigate and adapt to the projections

are insufficient to avoid significant potential water, food,

and energy insecurity; political instability; extreme

weather events; and other manifestations of climate

change. Coordinated, wide-scale, and well-executed

actions to limit heat-trapping gases and increase resil-

ience to help prevent and protect against the worst pro-

jected climate change impacts are required—now.

If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen….

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The potential security ramifications of global climate

change should be serving as catalysts for coopera-

tion and change. Instead, climate change impacts are

already accelerating instability in vulnerable areas of

the world and are serving as catalysts for conflict.

As we identified in our 2007 report—and as the

Department of Defense’s (DOD) 2014 Quadrennial

Defense Review (QDR) echoed—the projected effects

of climate change “… are threat multipliers that will

aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environ-

mental degradation, political instability, and social ten-

sions—conditions that can enable terrorist activity and

other forms of violence.”2 We remain steadfast in our

concern over the connection between climate change

and national security.

In many areas, the projected impacts of climate change

will be more than threat multipliers; they will serve

as catalysts for instability and conflict. In Africa,

Asia, and the Middle East, we are already seeing how

the impacts of extreme weather, such as prolonged

drought and flooding—and resulting food shortages,

desertification, population dislocation and mass

migration, and sea level rise—are posing security chal-

lenges to these regions’ governments. We see these

trends growing and accelerating. To protect our

national security interests both at home and abroad,

the United States must be more assertive and expand

cooperation with our international allies to bring about

change and build resilience. The rapidly changing

Arctic region is a clear example where such interna-

tional cooperation and change is imperative.

Rapid population growth, especially in coastal and

urban areas, and complex changes in the global

security environment have made understanding the

strategic security risks of projected climate changes

more challenging. When it comes to thinking about

the impacts of climate change, we must guard

against a failure of imagination.

The world has added more than half a billion people

since we began the research for our 2007 report.

During this period, hundreds of millions of people

have settled in urban areas and coastal regions—areas

that are at increased risk to climate change effects. At

the same time, geopolitical power is becoming more

dispersed. Nonstate actors, such as globalized finan-

cial institutions and corporations, and even Internet-

empowered individuals—or the causes they represent

—are having increasing impacts on the political land-

scape. The world has also become more politically com-

plex and economically and financially interdependent.

We believe it is no longer adequate to think of the pro-

jected climate impacts to any one region of the world

in isolation. Climate change impacts transcend interna-

tional borders and geographic areas of responsibility.

When it comes to thinking about how the world will

respond to projected changes in the climate, we believe

it is important to guard against a failure of imagination.

For example, in the summer of 2001, it was, at least

partly, stovepipes in the intelligence community and

a failure of imagination by security analysts that

made it possible for terrorists to use box cutters to

hijack commercial planes and turn them into weapons

targeting the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Regarding these threats, the 9/11 Commission found

“The most important failure was one of imagination.

We do not believe leaders understood the gravity of

the threat. The … danger … was not a major topic for

policy debate among the public, the media, or in the

Congress….”3 Failure to think about how climate change

might impact globally interrelated systems could be

stovepipe thinking, while failure to consider how

climate change might impact all elements of U.S.

National Power and security is a failure of imagination.

… the projected impacts of climate change will be more than threat multipliers; they will serve as catalysts for instability and conflict.

Climate change impacts transcend international borders and geographic areas of responsibility.

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Accelerated melting of “old ice” in the Arctic is

making the region more accessible to a wide variety

of human activities, including shipping, resource

extraction, fisheries, tourism, and other commerce.

This activity level will accelerate in the coming

decades. The United States and the international

community are not prepared for the pace of change

in the Arctic

In 2012, the level of ice coverage in the Arctic was

lower than the historic average by more than one

million square miles. While annual figures vary, the

overall trend is clearly toward less ice coverage. The

Arctic is rich in resources, and less ice will mean

that valuable resources and shorter transit routes

will be increasingly accessible. Nations, corporations,

and even individuals will be anxious to exploit the

opening Arctic region, even if they have to accept

higher levels of risk than in other areas of the world.

While the United States and the international commu-

nity prepare for more Arctic activities in the future,

the increased activity today brings high levels of risk

to that fragile area. The U.S. military’s current con-

struct of dividing the Arctic area of responsibility

(AOR) between two Combatant Commands (CCMDs)

under DOD’s Unified Command Plan likely will slow

the Defense Department’s ability to generate require-

ments and respond. Although the United States is a

member of the Arctic Council—an intergovernmental

consultative group—its refusal to sign the UN Con-

vention on the Law of the Sea will make U.S. partici-

pation in the resolution of international disputes in

the Arctic more challenging.

As the world’s population and living standards con-

tinue to grow, the projected climate impacts on the

nexus of water, food, and energy security become

more profound. Fresh water, food, and energy are

inextricably linked, and the choices made over how

these finite resources will be produced, distributed,

and used will have increasing security implications.

From today’s baseline of 7.1 billion people, the world’s

population is expected to grow to more than 8 billion

by 2025. The U.S. National Intelligence Council assesses

that by 2030, population growth and a burgeoning

global middle class will result in a worldwide demand

for 35 percent more food and 50 percent more energy.4

Rising temperatures across the middle latitudes of the

world will increase the demand for water and energy.

These growing demands will stress resources, constrain

development, and increase competition among agricul-

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