General Stephen Cheney Briefs Public Opinion Leaders on Energy and Climate Security
ASP Board Member Brigadier General Stephen A. Cheney, USMC (Ret.), today briefs policy and public opinion leaders as part of a panel on the national security implications of energy dependence. The 2010 Clean Energy, Jobs and Security Forum analyzes the effects of energy dependence on national security and the economy, including prospects for future job growth in the clean energy sector.
General Cheney’s full written comments are below:
Thank you all for being here today to discuss this crucially important issue which we will all have to grapple with in the months and years ahead.
Ladies and gentleman, changes to our earth’s climate and the implications of these changes for our nation’s security, both here and abroad, are very real. The national security community and the U.S. military have been thinking about them for years and even decades.
Climate change has already impacted water supplies, resulting in food shortages, scarcity of resources and mass migration. Taken together, these changes will have dramatic repercussions or the stability of countries, and the likelihood of global conflict and terrorism.
After looking at the evidence, the bipartisan board of the American Security Project concluded nearly two years ago that climate change would become one of the greatest challenges to American National Security in the coming years.
At this point in time, there can be little doubt that there are very real and dramatic changes occurring to the Earth’s climate. A change of 3° F is enough to reduce crop yields significantly, and regions such as the Middle East and Northern Africa are predicted to see their temperatures increase by over 6°F by the end of the century. These increased temperatures will affect everything from sea levels, to fresh water availability, to sanitation, to the spread of disease. Rising sea levels in combination with expected changes in precipitation will affect access to fresh water, crop yields and food.
Water scarcity, decreased agricultural production, mass human migrations, and the spread of disease, among other things – will exacerbate tensions and conflict in already unstable regions. Extremists will exploit these changes to undermine existing governments and order.
We have already seen evidence, in recent years, of terrorist violence increasing most where climate change is already being felt the hardest—particularly in areas of the globe affected by loss of farmland to desertification.
North Africa, East Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia are all regions predicted to suffer some of the most devastating effects of climate change, including more droughts, lower agricultural yields, and less fresh water.
In much of the developing world, people already live close to the edge. Millions live on marginal land that is vulnerable to natural disasters. In fact, according to a recent report by the International Organization of Migration, it is estimated that between 25 million and one billion people could be displaced by climate change over the next 40 years.
Climate change raises serious concerns not only for global stability and humanitarian reasons, but it also places new demands on American military capacity, operations and logistics. Make no mistake about it – as these changes continue to occur around the world, America’s men and women in uniform will be increasingly called on to respond to humanitarian crises brought about by climate change – whether they are assisting climate refugees, providing rule of law in failed states, delivering food and water or responding to insurgencies empowered by instability. We will increasingly grapple with violent conflict and terrorist activity in regions of the world that will be most susceptible to these changes.
Consider some of the most already vulnerable areas of our world, where terrorism and violence are already a grave concern:
In Sub-Saharan Africa, projected climate change will have a devastating impact on some of the most vulnerable populations in the world, exacerbating poverty, increasing the spread of disease, and overwhelming limited governance capacity. In fact, studies have shown that the Rwandan genocide was most severe precisely in those districts where population growth and soil erosion had reduced farm sizes to below subsistence levels.
In South Asia, the expected rise in sea level will likely cause coastal flooding that could displace one million people, as well as increase the incidents of cholera, malaria, and other diseases. Violence by extremists in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan—compounded by changes in climate—could further destabilize the region and all three states are among the top-ten countries surveyed by the U.S. Marine Corps for instability and potential conflict.
In the Middle East and North Africa, the region is already very vulnerable to water shortages and droughts. Poor subsistence farmers will be hardest hit, and for countries already struggling with rapidly rising populations and lagging economic growth, the broader impact will be significant. Projected sea level rise could also displace millions in the Nile river delta.
These changes are not far off – already, experts project that India could lose 50% of its wheat-growing land due to climate change, and China is already predicting the loss of 5 to 10% of its wheat harvest by 2030 due to climate change.
Moreover, America’s reliance on foreign oil jeopardizes key national security interests, because most of the oil consumed in the United States comes from regimes at high risk of political instability, and several large suppliers are actively hostile to American interests. American oil dollars fund Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who has gradually eroded democracy in Venezuela and has sought to export his unique brand of authoritarianism and anti-American demagoguery throughout the Western Hemisphere. And our oil dollars also fund an increasingly authoritarian Russia that seeks to reassert some control over former Soviet Republics and may be threatening U.S. efforts to contain nuclear proliferation, including in Iran.
The economic opportunities of the twenty first century will be found in developing solutions to meet the challenges of climate change and energy dependence. If we ignore the warnings of scientists and national security leaders, we will only deepen our addiction to imported oil, hamstring our economy, and weaken our country. But if we heed those warnings, the United States will lead the world in a new wave of profitable, green technology, reduce our dependence on foreign energy supplies, and reduce our contribution to global warming.
