On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council concluded its open debate with a Presidential Statement that formally recognized the link between climate change and the maintenance of international peace and security.
The move lays a foundation for future work on the issue and demonstrates growing concern about the potential for climate change to exacerbate existing conflicts and spark new ones as people are increasingly forced to compete for scarce resources, like food, water, and habitable land.
The outcome clearly marks a shift in the way we think about the realities of life in a warming world, but there is still disagreement over what concrete action the Security Council should now take.
As a representative of the countries who led this initiative, I would like to elaborate on why we are so serious about this issue and on the details of our proposal.
For Pacific island nations, the security implications of climate change are not hypothetical. Right now, prolonged droughts are depleting our limited fresh water supplies and killing our crops; ocean acidification is degrading the coral reefs and fisheries many of us depend on for food and survival; and coastal flooding is ruining our agricultural land.
What's worse, sea level rise has already forced communities in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to evacuate their homes for higher ground, while Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands could vanish entirely by the end of the century.
The changes have heightened competition for resources in a region where they are scarce even in the best of times and could foreshadow life in a world with 10 billion mouths to feed and not enough food and water to go around.
In fact, the past few years alone have witnessed unprecedented severe weather events on nearly every continent, which have displaced millions and triggered widespread food shortages. Agricultural scientists estimate that grain yields drop by 10 percent for each degree the temperature rises above optimum growing conditions. These impacts and others could lead to as many as 200 million climate refugees worldwide by 2050, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Unfortunately, there is already so much greenhouse gas pollution in the atmosphere that even if we stopped all emissions today, these impacts would still be with us tomorrow and for decades to come. We must therefore prepare. At its core, Security Council involvement in climate change is about planning for the risks that in all likelihood lie just around the corner.
The Presidential Statement is an important first step in meeting these challenges. We must now go further and appoint a United Nations special representative on climate change and security.
Sooner or later, the Security Council will be called upon to deal with a conflict in the aftermath of another catastrophic flood or drought or famine. A special representative would not only help anticipate such a challenge before it occurs, but also draw on the wisdom of UN members, particularly from the impacted regions, to make the Council's response more effective. We also need to assess the capacity of the UN system to respond to a crisis of this magnitude.
Now let me tell you what our proposal is not about. It is not about encroaching on the responsibilities of the UNFCCC, which is and must remain the primary forum for negotiating an agreement capable of averting the worst impacts of climate change. If anything, these security threats should inspire countries, particularly the biggest emitters, to redouble efforts to establish a climate treaty. Nor is it about mobilizing blue helmets to stop emissions at their source, as some have feared.
As United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the Security Council debate:
The members of this Council bear a unique responsibility to mobilize national and international action to confront the very real threat of climate change and the specific threats to international peace and security which derive from it.Climate change has transformed the world we live in: It is as big a threat to peace and security as nuclear proliferation or global terrorism. It brings hunger and disease, drought and deluge; in its wake will come the spread of deserts and a tide of refugees.
A failure by the Security Council to respond to this manifest challenge risks rendering the body irrelevant.
The age of the Anthropocene wars will not be fought as before- they will be fought over water, and parts of the planet that become uninhabitable. Enjoy the show- it will be something humans have never faced- a global environmental catastrophe affecting everyone.
"Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change."
"Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.html?pagewanted=all
Most wars are fought over Food, Water, or the Resources to get Food or Water.
These folks at the UN are as dumb as a box of rocks.
Tell me again why we send them BILLIONS every year?
That's just over the thickness of a DIME. It is real but not, to me, quite an emergency greater than many other emergencies humanity faces right now.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_thickness_of_a_dime"
"The actual thickness of a dime is between 1.35 and 1.40 mm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise
But how does your 10 cent education respond to expensive events like Katrina?
By focusing on coinage, you forgo bigger bucks from building a high efficiency economy.
On the other hand, if Climate Change isn't handled, won't your coin collection get washed away?
It doesn't. People and animals respond, educations do not.
"On the other hand, if Climate Change isn't handled, won't your coin collection get washed away? "
Yes, it won't get washed away. I have already moved to an elevation at least three feet above sea level. I encourage others to do the same over the next 300 years.
As to high altitude washings, warmists don't seem to agree on whether I am facing flooding or drought; or both at the same time. I suspect north moving Hadley cells will migrate the monsoon phenomenon slightly northward; part of the year flooded and part of the year drought. Some people love it and move to Arizona.
Implications, by definition in my opinion, are always hypothetical. It is an implication, implied, but not proven.
However, DOD research is a huge effort, with many many PhD's.
DARPA
NRL
ARL
AFRL
and many more including funding of university research
huge effort
The DOD takes climate change very seriously. They may be required to deal with it.
DOD and Climate Change
Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.html?pagewanted=all
Navy Official Discusses Climate Change Investment Strategy
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=59713
Video How DoD is Responding to Climate Change
http://science.dodlive.mil/2010/12/09/video-how-dod-is-responding-to-climate-change/
and UN able to distinguish between facts and UN truths.
Translation: The members of this Council envision a unique opportunity to mobilize national and international action to give the UN a LOT more power on the basis of the phony threat of climate change and whatever additional threats we manufacture in regard to international peace and security which derive from it.
The drama is coming from the warmists. Was it a "denier" that created the movie "An Inconvienient Truth"? No. Was it a denier that created a movie of polar bears falling from the sky? No. The drama is coming from the warmists.
So HOW could the actual sea level of each of of those places mean nothing?
Papua New Guinea had a weird spike in maximum recently but what caused it? Nobody knows but it came back down, (instrument error?). http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70058/IDO70058SLI.pdf
The Solomons saw mean sea level go both up AND down within about 1 foot since ~1994 . Trend wise though - http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70061/IDO70061SLI.pdf Though there does seem to be a slight increase in the max in only the last ~5 years the difference back to 2001 is only like 4mm/ year tops. But then again that's only the maximum; I really don't see any 'trend' for the mean or minimum over the entire period shown.
Whatever these people are running from as the author claims - it does NOT appear to be the ocean.
Location Number of months of record Sea level trend (mm/year) Change from previous month Kiribati 89 -11.0 +0.5
These values show that there have been significant sea level falls at Kiribati, Tuvalu and Nauru since the start of the project. The stations in Tonga, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea have shown a marked sea level rise. These larger changes in sea level are believed to be due to the recent El Niño and La Niña events, and the sea level changes will be reduced when the effects of these events subside.
http://www.globaleducation.edna.edu.au/archives/secondary/casestud/south_pacific/1/sea-level.html
Tuvalu - http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70056/IDO70056SLI.pdf
Marshall Islands - http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70052/IDO70052SLI.pdf
Cook Islands - http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70051/IDO70051SLI.pdf
Samoa - http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70062/IDO70062SLI.pdf
Tonga - http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO70053/IDO70053SLI.pdf
Hard scientific FACT trumps alarmist BS every time.
Serial deniers, usually clueless but quite willing to claim BS anyway.
Even if the icecaps all melt, the effect won't be enough to significantly drive that conclusion.
Such as - which ones show a rise and by HOW MUCH that you think is an 'alarming trend' that presents any conceivable threat to the islanders?
Sea level has been RISING FOR OVER 8000 YEARS! So simple 'rising' has NEVER been an issue among any scientist. You scammers have been claiming that sea level rise would accelerate to an alarming rate and there would millions of climate refugees.
THAT ain't happening and those charts PROVE IT!
Seems agreeable. In 555 years the sea will be one meter (39.37 inches if I remember right, just over 3 feet) higher than now. Brace yourself for the flood.
It's quite telling that the author doesn't exactly say what the point of this representative is, nor what the world (or even the security council) should DO about climate change and/or the conflicts and refugees it may produce. It's all a hand-waving exercise: even if some policy were agreed upon today (and that's a stretch), it's ludicrous to believe that the nations of the world would execute it as planned if and when it became needed. Changing political parties, goals, and national needs make such a policy a hopelessly moving target. So what's the point, really?
Surely this desire for special representatives and hearings couldn't have anything to do with pushing more authority to the UN, nor with attempts by developing nations to get the developed world to cough up money. Surely nothing to do with that.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/FY12-climate-fs.pdf
Nearly all scientists are government employees in some sense. They tend to be highly skilled and hard working people.
Except for the questionable ones working for Big Energy PR firms, et cetera. In their case one wonders how they always arrive at results favorable to Big Energy.
I don't really blame them; these sorts of things take on lives of their own and everyone hops on board the gravy train. This one derailed a few years ago but there's still some life left in it.
The US Congress delays action on climate change- therefore believing security threats are not going to be a problem. Very bad decision.
Hurricane energy trend - http://tinyurl.com/38uqvts
Severe tornado trend - http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/tornado/tornadotrend.jpg
Global temperature trend since 1997 - http://tinyurl.com/6espvwp
Texas precipitation, (currently in a severe drought) - http://climvis.ncdc.noaa.gov/tmp/graph-Jul1213:09:496954956054.gif
Sea level rise (NO acceleration) - http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
A picture tells a thousand words
http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/images/20071017_extent.png
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
why is it melting?
Sometimes this is very good advice. If the man says he cannot blow out the fuse on a piece of dynamite he is holding, run away. If the man says there's plague in the house, run away. If the man merely says the sky is falling; a quick glance upward will confirm or deny; but after that walking away slowly would probably suffice.
http://coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/
"During the past 6-years since Hurricane Katrina, global tropical cyclone frequency and energy have decreased dramatically, and are currently at near-historical record lows. According to a new peer-reviewed research paper accepted to be published, only 69 tropical storms were observed globally during 2010, the fewest in almost 40-years of reliable records.
Furthermore, when each storm's intensity and duration were taken into account, the total global tropical cyclone accumulated energy (ACE) was found to have fallen by half to the lowest level since 1977."
Who do you want to believe - charlatans or people who have been studying this stuff LONG before Al Gore came along?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Atlantic_hurricane_season
So far, 2011 has proved a year destined for the tornado record books.
Nearly 1,200 tornadoes have swarmed the United States this year, according to preliminary numbers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Four of these storms have been rated at the highest tornado strength, an EF-5. The death toll from these tornadoes has likely topped 500, a number not seen since 1953.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/0525/Why-has-2011-s-tornado-season-been-so-terrible