Climate Threat: Elevated?
By Amy Harder
Forget saving the polar bears; if Congress doesn’t pass comprehensive climate change legislation, our national security could be in jeopardy.
With action in Congress stalled, that’s the line coming from climate bill supporters — increasingly so in the last six months. The administration has recently taken substantial steps connecting climate change to national security, while advocacy groups pushing for comprehensive climate legislation are beginning to view the security angle as a more effective argument than the “save the planet for our grandkids” motto.
Supporters of this line of reasoning connect national security to climate change on two fronts. They say that U.S. dependence on foreign oil funnels money into unstable regions in the Middle East. A parallel concern is that events caused by climate change, such as droughts and rising sea levels, can destabilize governments, which can lead to violence — or the need for U.S. intervention.
“Our presidents — past, current and in the future — will look to the armed forces to assist in certain situations, some of which are caused by climatic issues, some by energy, some by water, some by food,” former Sen. John Warner, R-Va., told NationalJournal.com.
In 2008, Warner and then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., added language to the National Defense Authorization Act requiring the Pentagon to include climate change as a national security risk in its Quadrennial Defense Review. The latest QDR, released last week, devotes four pages to climate and energy. The Homeland Security Department in its own quadrennial review also included climate change and dependence on foreign fossil fuels as national security risks. And last September, the CIA opened a center dedicated solely to climate change.
Advocacy groups have taken notice of these recent actions and are working to get the message out across the country. The Truman National Security Project launched a campaign last summer called Operation Free, which organizes veterans in rallies around the country to highlight the national security risks associated with climate change and to push for comprehensive climate legislation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., spoke at an event hosted by the group in Las Vegas earlier this month. The group is also planning to bring in almost 100 veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars later this month to speak with senators about their cause.
Politicians have long warned about the national security consequences of the U.S. reliance on oil from the Middle East. “Every time we send that money abroad, we’re not only disinvesting in America, but we’re empowering people who don’t like us very much,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in a speech to veterans at the “Clean Energy, Jobs and Security Forum” on the Hill last month. “Some of that money goes to Al Qaeda, goes to Hezbollah, goes to Hamas, finds its way into their charities, supports things that don’t help us one bit and allows those countries a great big bye on responsibility.”
Some national security and energy experts, though, are hesitant to make the same argument about climate change, even if it does create unstable governments. “Terrorism doesn’t necessarily derive from instability,” said Christine Parthemore, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “The causes of terrorism are extraordinarily complex, and there is a lot of good work understanding it, but nothing is ever that simple.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. — like Kerry, a veteran and a leader in the climate debate — also spoke during the “Clean Energy, Jobs and Security Forum” last month. The conference was sponsored by economic and national security groups, including Operation Free, who are devoted to passing climate legislation. Environmental groups wary of making the national security connection, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, helped publicize the event but didn’t want to be described as sponsoring it. Parthemore said that traditionally, there has been a “pushback from environmental groups who think you’re securitizing the issue or militarizing the issue.” But in the last six months to a year, she said, she has sensed a shift: “I talk to environmental groups all the time. There doesn’t seem like there is the same kind of hesitancy that there used to be.” Indeed, as climate bill proponents see their cause fall further down the agendas of both the administration and Congress, they seem to be warming up to the idea of using the security argument.
Bob Deans, NRDC’s director of federal communications, acknowledged that the security issue does speak to a “different constituency” of people. “When Americans understand how clean energy and climate legislation can reduce our reliance on foreign oil, it speaks to people who see it as a priority,” he said. Kerry and Graham taking on the issue also helps, Deans added: “Most Americans give credence to people who come from a security background when we’re discussing national security matters.”
Framing climate legislation in the national security arena may help proponents gain a better foothold on the agenda, but some experts are skeptical that it could actually help pass legislation. “It has attracted more interest to dealing with the problem,” said Michael Levi, a senior fellow on energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Very few people have been turned off by it, and a lot of people are engaged by it. What that does in terms of leading to action is another question.”
Levi dismissed the notion that more imminent security priorities will get less attention because climate change is now explicitly recognized in the QDR. “We’re not going to miss the next Iranian nuclear development because we we’re investing too much in climate change,” Levi said. “It’s a false choice.”
“The question isn’t whether or not there is a gigantic line item for climate change,” said Dave Solimini, Operation Free’s media director. “We’re not going out there to rescue polar bears with our submarines. Climate change makes the military’s job harder. It exposes new threats. It makes existing threats worse.”
But even if the government isn’t devoting robust national security resources to climate change, the increased attention on the issue from both federal agencies and advocacy groups can only help climate change policy, Levi suggested. “The national security connection brings fresh voices and minds to the issues,” he said. “Climate policy can get pretty stale, and having new people in the mix with a different way of looking at the issues can only help.”
