Climate Change Threatens National Security

Fact: Climate change increases the intensity and frequency of tropical storms and severe weather events

• Natural disasters have quadrupled in the last twenty years.
• Munich Re, one of the world’s largest re-insurance firms, compared losses in the 1960s with losses in the 1990s, adjusted for factors such as inflation, population, the growth of global wealth, etc., and found that a major part of the increase in losses was due to changes in frequency of extreme weather events.
• Swiss Re made a list of the 40 worst insured losses between 1970 and 1999 and found that only 6 catastrophes were not weather related.
• In the period 1963-1992, the number of disasters causing more than 1 percent GDP damage had increased two to three times for the weather-related disasters in comparison to the earthquake disasters.

Fact: Damage resulting from extreme weather events already imposes a heavy toll on society that few economies are easily able to absorb.

• Floods along the Yangtse River in China in 1998 were responsible for 4,000 deaths and economic losses of US $30 billion.
• In the same year, extreme weather conditions in Florida lead to drought and widespread wildfires caused the loss of 483,000 acres and 356 structures from fires, and resulted in an estimated US $276 million in damages.
• These changes will affect human health, water supply, agriculture, coastal areas, and many other aspects of society and the natural environment.
  • Hurricanes and severe storms have a debilitating impact on energy infrastructure.
    • Direct losses to the energy industry in 2005 are estimated at $15 billion, with millions more in restoration and recovery costs.
    • Severe weather events affect power lines and interruptions of electric power supply
    • Damage to rail transportation lines
      • Rail transportation lines, which carry approximately two-thirds of the coal to the nation’s power plants, often follow riverbeds, especially in the Appalachian region.
      • More intense rainstorms can lead to rivers flooding, washing out or degrading nearby rail beds and roadbeds.

Fact: Increased incidents of natural disasters means the U.S. will have to engage in more humanitarian efforts, both at home and abroad.

• In an increasingly interdependent world, U.S. vulnerability to climate change is linked to the fates of other nations.
• People in developing countries are 20 times more likely to be effected by natural disasters.
  • They lack the means and resources to respond adequately and therefore are more susceptible to social unrest and the eventual growth of terrorist activities which often result.
• Only the U.S. military has the capacity to respond so quickly to a disaster of great magnitude. If the occurrence of such storms increases, the demand for a U.S. response will increase in turn.
• Allocation of funds for disaster relief and response efforts utilizes funds that could have otherwise been spent on National Security
  • The U.S. is still paying economically and militarily for the areas hit by Hurricane Katrina
    • The cost of repairing the damage to the Pascagoula Naval Station in Mississippi alone reached several billion dollars.
  • The U.S. military responded to the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia with logistics aid, ships, planes, and helicopters, costing $5 million per day.
  • Resources used to respond to these disasters could have been spent on improving intelligence, fighting terrorism, or supporting our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    • In June 2008 the Department of Defense was granted $65.9 billion by Congress to support military operations for the first portion of the fiscal year of 2009.
      • This does not include the $9.9 billion being requested by the National Nuclear Security Administration (as part of the Department of Energy budget for the fiscal year of 2010) for Weapons Activities, Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, Naval Reactors, and to fund the Office of the Administrator.
      • An additional request for $75.8 billion has been made to continue Overseas Contingency Operations and other security activities through the remainder of the fiscal year.

Fact: Growing instability from drought and other climate impacts further drains military resources and create a breeding ground for extremism.

• Climate change causes drought, the disappearance of drinking water, and a rise in sea levels.
  • Sea-level rise will increase risks of erosion, storm surge damage, and flooding for coastal communities, especially in the Southeast and parts of Alaska.
  • Reduced snowpack and earlier snow melt will alter the timing and amount of water supplies, posing significant challenges for water resource management in the West.
    • Example: Colorado River system supplies water to over 30 million people in the Southwest.
      • Reservoirs in the system were nearly full in 1999, with almost four times the annual flow of the river stored.
      • By 2007, the system had lost approximately half of that storage after enduring the worst drought in 100 years of record keeping.
      • Numerous studies over the last 30 years have indicated that the river is likely to experience greater reductions in runoff due to climate change.
  • More than one billion people are likely to face inadequate water supplies by 2050.
  • If global temperatures rise more than 4C, 300 million people could face coastal flooding and 1.5-2.5 will be exposed to dengue fever.
  • Billions of people live near coastal plains that could end up underwater, causing mass-migration of millions and creating ungoverned spaces where terrorists can flourish.
    • Examples: Afghanistan in the 1990s, and currently in Somalia.
  • It is predicted that by 2025, 40 percent of the world’s population will be living in countries that will be affected by extreme drought, leading to more internal conflicts and refugee situations.
• Climate change will exacerbate food scarcity.
  • Crops and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.
    • Higher levels of warming often negatively affect growth and yields, as well as increased pests, water stress, diseases, and weather extremes.
  • According to the World Bank, 100 million people could be forced into poverty as a result of the food crisis.
• Competition over resources, which increases with drought and dwindling water supplies, leads to violence.
  • • Examples: Darfur, where the drying of Lake Chad and competition for land sparked genocide, leaving 300,000 dead.
• The growing instability and threat of political destabilization means that the U.S. will have to respond more frequently to immediate international humanitarian efforts.
  • Again, the U.S. military is one of the few with the capacity to respond quickly and adequately to extreme need.

Fact: The long-term consequences of inaction are far-reaching.

• The increase of incidence of natural disasters costs lives and resources both here and abroad.
• The projected rapid rate and large amount of climate change over this century, if not checked, will challenge the ability of society and natural systems to adapt, and therefore necessitate military intervention/assistance.
  • Adaptation will be particularly challenging because society won’t be adapting to a new steady state but rather a rapidly moving target.
  • Rapid rates of warming would lead to particularly large impacts on natural ecosystems and the benefits they provide humanity.
  • Some of the impacts of climate change will be irreversible, such as species extinctions and coastal land lost to rising seas.
  • Unanticipated impacts of increasing carbon dioxide
    • Ex. Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is causing an increase in ocean acidity.
  • Unexpected consequences of ecological changes
    • Massive dislocations of species or pest outbreaks.
  • Unexpected social or economic changes
    • Major shifts in wealth, technology, or societal priorities

Fact: Preventative measures are available and within reach.

• Mitigation
  • Improving energy efficiency: using energy sources that do not produce carbon dioxide, or produce less of it.
    • Reducing emissions of carbon dioxide would lessen warming over this century and beyond
    • Sizable early cuts in emissions would significantly reduce the pace and the overall amount of climate change.
    • Earlier cuts in emissions would have a greater effect in reducing climate change than comparable reductions made later.
    • Utilizing renewable energy would free up oil related allocation of resources and funds, which in turn could be used for efforts to protect National Security.
      • The Department of Defense is the world’s largest buyer of oil and the nation’s largest single user of energy. In 2006, DoD purchased 110 million barrels of petroleum, costing $13.6 billion, and 3.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity—roughly 78 percent of all energy consumed by the federal government.
      • Fully burdened cost of fuel –The entire cost of delivering the energy, sometimes hundreds of times the fuel’s direct cost.
        • Entire divisions of military personnel are devoted to delivering fuel, guarding fuel convoys, and protecting shipping lanes and ports.  Thus, replacing fuel with a renewable energy source will save billions, ultimately tens of billions, of dollars a year.
        • In total, the Department of Defense estimates that each $10 per barrel increase in oil prices costs the U.S. military an additional $1.3 billion dollars.
    • Saving fuel will also save lives- half the casualties in theater are related to convoys, and about 70 percent of the tonnage they haul is fuel.
• Adaptation
  • Providing poor populations with the means to adapt to climate change can help prevent situations that are conducive to the development and prosperity of extremist groups.
    • Farmers switching to growing a different crop variety better suited to warmer or drier conditions
    • Companies relocating key business centers away from coastal areas vulnerable to sea-level rise and hurricanes
    • Community altering of zoning and building codes to place few structures in harm’s way and to make buildings less vulnerable to damage from floods, fires, and other extreme events.
    • Climate proofing roads by placing them higher than sea level with improved drainage systems
  • Cost effective: capital costs for incorporating a variety of adaptive changes are minimal in comparison to accumulated costs, including repairs and maintenance, over the course of 15 years.
  • Robust public health infrastructure can reduce the potential for negative impacts.
    • Harmful health impacts of climate change are related to increasing heat stress, waterborne diseases, poor air quality, extreme weather events, and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents.