Environment and Energy Daily: Foreign Relations panel zeros in on global security risks
Robin Bravender, E&E reporter
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) will lead a probe into the effects of climate change on global security during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing tomorrow.
As the Senate prepares to craft its version of a comprehensive bill to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Kerry, the panel’s chairman, is hoping to keep national security concerns on the forefront.
Kerry told a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations last month that a mechanism to cope with climate change is fast becoming the major security imperative for the United States and urged U.S. lawmakers to lead the world in developing a response (ClimateWire, June 16).
“Almost indescribable, catastrophic things can happen” should concentrations of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere exceed the “tipping point” of 450 parts per million, Kerry said at the meeting. “The crisis in Darfur, Sudan, is but “one example of how climate change can contribute to a more dangerous world.”
Kerry noted that so-called “environmentally displaced persons” may soon outnumber war refugees but added that the United States faces other climate-related security risks beyond refugee crises.
The hearing will focus on concerns about potential security threats including receding Arctic sea ice and rising water levels, food scarcity caused by drought, water scarcity and mass human migration caused by these scarcities and the loss of coastal areas, said committee spokesman Frederick Jones.
Recent studies have shown that Arctic sea ice has receded rapidly in recent years, leading to concerns about conflicts over environmental protection, control of recently opened waterways and access to natural resources as nations scramble to exploit the resource-rich region.
The Arctic is on pace to be ice-free in the summer by 2013, Scott Borgerson, a visiting fellow for ocean governance at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee earlier this year. “That’s soon, and our country is not prepared,” he said (E&E Daily, March 26).
Borgerson warned lawmakers that the region holds a tremendous amount of oil and gas resources and lines on state sovereignty in the region are blurred, so “there are all the ingredients for trouble.”
Former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), who co-sponsored a cap-and-trade bill last year and previously served as secretary of the Navy and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, will testify.
Warner last week announced plans to travel around the country as a spokesman for a Pew Environment Group campaign to link national security, energy and climate change issues (ClimateWire, July 15).
The changing climate of the Earth is going to affect the nation’s security in a number of profound ways, said retired Navy Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, president of the American Security Project, who will also testify at tomorrow’s hearing.
As terrain changes and resources become increasingly scarce, Gunn said, “Old alliances may be strained; new friendships and mutually dependent relationships may arise and these will be driven in part by economic, energy, and other resource kinds of competitions.”
He added, “It is vitally important that Americans become better informed and more increasingly engaged with the consequences of climate change.”
Schedule: The hearing is tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. in 419 Dirksen.
Witnesses: Former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) and retired Navy Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, president of the American Security Project.
