Brisbane Times: Armed forces may be the agents of climate change
By: Warwick McFadyen
The oceans are getting warmer, coral reefs are increasingly under threat, Arctic ice is dropping into the sea. July was the warmest month in 130 years of testing ocean temperatures. Who are we going to call?
The admirals and the generals. It appears that the US military is as concerned about the fate of the Earth as the man and woman on Civvy Street. And, as history has shown, what troubles the US generals troubles the rest of the world.
Actually what is causing the hairs on the back of their necks to stand up is the effect climate change might have on America’s national security. The depths of that concern emerged recently in a hearing of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations into climate change and global security.
The example to surface at that hearing by several speakers was a speck in the ocean, a place that has been described as a stationary aircraft carrier. Yet the tiny reef of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean may well hold part of the answer in getting the US, and therefore the rest of the world, to act against climate change.
Diego Garcia is a 50 kilometre-long strip of jungle and sand that barely rises above the waves: seven metres at its highest point, but mostly just one metre. It is also of crucial importance to America’s military as a naval and airforce base for South Asia. It is owned by the British — who threw off the native Ilois people and transplanted them to Mauritius to accommodate UK and US military personnel — who lease it to the US. The Ilois have exhausted every legal avenue in Britain and Europe to win the right to return, but that’s a story of conquest not climate.
The change in the climate just might do what the Soviets couldn’t do and what terrorists cannot do: that is, sink the military facility. To keep the base, and therefore American security, afloat the ocean must not rise. The generals want the climate to stay the way it is or was, actually, about a generation ago. They don’t want natural catastrophes because that would lead to power and hegemonic catastrophes. They don’t want wars based on mass migrations of people, social dislocation or depleting resources.
It’s all a bit surreal. Put the national interest as the primary reason in doing something about climate change, instead of the rainforests, for instance, and governments may feel the need to act more swiftly and decisively. If they don’t the nation becomes vulnerable and its grip of global power becomes as slippery as the mooring ropes at Diego Garcia. It is a hard concept for anyone with a non-militaristic world view to grapple, but look at the greater good. Clearly the fate of the Earth is not much having effect on the world’s politicians. Despite the rhetoric, the promise of developments from Copenhagen in December seems to be deflating by the day.
But this might help: “Addressing the consequences of changes in the Earth’s climate is not simply about saving polar bears or preserving the beauty of mountain glaciers. Climate change is a threat to our national security. Taking it head on is about preserving our way of life.” That was Vice-Admiral Lee Gunn, retired United States Navy, and now president of the American Security Project, addressing the Senate hearing.
The American Security Project describes itself as a non-profit bipartisan group. Its board of directors include Richard Armitage, most recently Bush Administration Deputy Secretary of State, General Anthony Zinni, formerly chief of US Central Command, and Gary Hart, former senator and twice candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in the ’80s.
Climate change is seen as a “threat multiplier”. Cascading dominoes as an image of geo-political events is a little old-fashioned, shop-worn and discredited. Two years ago, a report by 11 former generals and admirals warned of the multiplier effect on national security. In effect, as conditions worsened in countries because of climate change, terrorism would flourish. The National Intelligence Council, a thinktank for government intelligence organisations, is examining the effects and implications of climate change in India, China, Russia, North Africa, Mexico and the Caribbean and South-East Asia and the Pacific.
The foreign relations committee chairman John Kerry told the hearing: “Just as 9/11 taught us the painful lesson that oceans could not protect us from terror, today we are deluding ourselves if we believe that climate change will stop at our borders.”
But as in most countries, the fight against climate change is hostage to other factors. There has been a surge in the US from vested interest groups lobbying against carbon emissions schemes, and despite President Obama’s climate change legislation passing the House of Representatives, its passage through the Senate is not guaranteed.
Perhaps now is the time for the generals.
Warwick McFadyen is an Age senior writer.
