1 / 15

Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis

Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis. Committee on Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on Social and Political Stresses Board on Environmental Change and Society NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 2013 (released November 2012). sample.

conway
Download Presentation

Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis Committee on Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on Social and Political Stresses Board on Environmental Change and Society NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 2013 (released November 2012)

  2. sample The IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risksof Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation www.ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX

  3. Observed Global Mean Temperature Changes from 1850 to 2008 Relative to 1861-1899 Stott et al. 2010

  4. Jun-Jul-Aug Temperature Anomalies NH Land Hansen et al. 2012

  5. US Daily Temperature Extremes 2010 2011 2012 2.3:1 2.7:1 9.0:1 The ratio of record daily highs (red) to record daily lows (blue) at about 1,800 weather stations in the 48 contiguous United States from Jan. 1950 to Sept. 2009. Meehl et al. GRL 2009 Update using NOAA data: Climatecommunication.org thru Jun 18, 2012

  6. Expect to be surprised …it is prudent for security analysts to expect climate surprises in the coming decade, including • Single events that were once considered rare • Simultaneous or sequential conjunctions of events that stress response capacity • Shocks to globally integrated systems (e.g., food supply, strategic commodities, public health) • Impacts occurring far from triggering events The surprises are most likely to result from the interaction of climate events and social circumstances Troublesome interactions can be expected to become progressively more serious and more frequent over time, probably at an accelerating rate

  7. Conceptual framework: Links of climate events to outcomes of security concern

  8. Three areas of focus • Social and political stresses outside the USA • Events that exceed the capacity of affected countries or populations to cope and respond (i.e. disruptive events) • Risks that call for action in the coming decade

  9. Some basic conclusions • The overall risk of disruption is determined by the interplay of • event severity, • exposure of people or valued things, and • vulnerability of those people or things, including susceptibility to harm and the effectiveness of coping, response, and recovery • Exposure and vulnerability may pertain to the direct effects of a climate event or to effects mediated by globalized systems that support the well-being of the society

  10. Need for stress testing • The intelligence community should establish a system of periodic “stress testing” for countries, regions, and critical global systems regarding their ability to manage potentially disruptive climate events of concern • Stress tests would focus on potentially disruptive conjunctions of climate events and socioeconomic and political conditions

  11. Recommendations for monitoring Develop a systematic and enduring whole-of-government strategy for monitoring threats connected to climate change in order to inform choices about reducing vulnerability • Build the scientific basis for indicators of climate event risks, exposures, vulnerabilities, and factors linking these to societal and security outcomes • Develop and periodically update priorities for high-resolution monitoring • Integrate quantitative indicators with traditional analytical methods

  12. Contents of Report • Climate Change as a National Security Concern • Climate Change, Vulnerability, and National Security: A Conceptual Framework • Potentially Disruptive Climate Events • How Climate Events Can Lead to Social and Political Stresses • Climate Events and National Security Outcomes • Methods for Assessing National Security Threats

  13. Committee Membership • JOHN D. STEINBRUNER (Chair), University of Maryland • OTIS B. BROWN, North Carolina State University • ANTONIO J. BUSALACCHI, JR., University of Maryland • DAVID EASTERLING, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Asheville, NC • KRISTIE L. EBI, Stanford University • THOMAS FINGAR, Stanford University • LEON FUERTH, National Defense University and George Washington University  • SHERRI GOODMAN, CNA Analysis and Solutions, Alexandria, VA • ROBIN LEICHENKO, Rutgers University • ROBERT J. LEMPERT, RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA • MARC LEVY, Columbia University • DAVID LOBELL, Stanford University • RICHARD STUART OLSON, Florida International University • RICHARD L. SMITH, Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute, Research Triangle Park, NC • PAUL C. STERN, Study Director • JO L. HUSBANDS, Scholar

More Related