Research Paper on Climate Change: Greatest Threat to Humanity?

Introduction

Climate change has become one of the greatest threats to the existence of humanity across the planet. It involves a periodic modification of the earth's climate that occurs as a result of the changes in the atmosphere, in addition to the interactions between the atmosphere and other geographic, biological, and chemical elements within the system. The causes of climate change are numerous, including the release of carbon emissions into the atmosphere-a phenomenon known as global warming. This causes the earth's temperatures to change to the extremes. Other causes of global warming are through natural processes like the changes in the radiation of the sun, volcanoes, or internal variability occurring in the climate system. Climate change is also caused by certain human activities that result in high concentrations of gases like methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere. Some greenhouse gasses like halocarbons are chemically made and enhance the greenhouse effect that warms the earth's surface. The impact of climate change is being felt globally, whereby the temperature rises to very high levels, ice sheets on top of mountains are melting at higher rates resulting in floods in the lower areas, and environmental degradation is increasingly affecting people. While it is evident that the effects of climate change have been widely discussed, its impacts on national security have always been ignored. In this paper, I argue that climate change is one of the most critical national security issues faced by the United States and other nations across the world. It is not merely an environmental issue as it speeds up the existing national security threats that play crucial roles as a threat accelerant and a catalyst for conflicts.

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How Climate Change Causes National Security

There is a considerable consensus that climate change poses a tremendous impact on national security. However, the details about the more explicit nature of such threats as well as the timeframe over which it will take place remain scanty. It is crucial to note that any comprehensive evaluation regarding any risks needs the answers to three different questions that revolve around the nature of the danger and when it is likely to take place. The 2010 Quadrennial Defence Review recognized that climate change presents several different types of threats to national security (Lee et al. 243-245).

Influences Military Installations, Operations, and Preparedness

Firstly, climate change poses a direct impact on government military installations. Concerning this impact and threat, there is a consensus that climate change affects the readiness, operations, supply chains as well as the infrastructure associated with the military. These impacts are based on the direct effects of climate change on the weather events on military facilities such as the permanent installations within the U.S bases and facilities abroad. The unintended evacuation of 30 ships from the U.S Naval Base at Norfolk as a result of Hurricane Florence in September 2018 is one significant example of the climate change threat. Similarly, there was a destruction of hangars at the U.S Tyndall Airbase, which occurred as a result of Hurricane Michael the following month is another recent example of such impacts.

About this threat, it is crucial to note that climate change does not only affect the operations of the naval bases through extreme storms and the rising sea levels. Ideally, it also affects the installations of the marine equipment because such installations processes can be disrupted by winds, wildfire, drought as well as the erosions that are associated with massive events of precipitation (Toscano 457). In 2018, the Department of Defence reported that more than half of the total military facilities in the U.S. said at least a threat to climate change on their equipment, with airfield operations being the most types of assets.

The impacts of the changing climate have also been observed and encountered by the military facilities established overseas. For example, climate change has led to increased soil erosion, which has, in turn, threatened the munitions complex. The increased rains and flooding have contributed the increased soil erosion. Many stations have therefore faced black flag days because of the increased heat at the bases in various parts of the world such as the Middle East. This phenomenon has undeniably led to the postponement of the non-mission essential physical training. These impacts support climate change's huge and long-term financial cost because of large scale spending. Overall, it disrupts the preparedness of the training, testing, and deployment of machinery to the required regions.

Geopolitical and Global Economic Threats

Although this is an indirect threat from climate change, various studies have reported huge impacts on geopolitical and global financial risks. According to the U.S. Pentagon, climate change is expected to shape and effects the operating environment, roles as well as missions performed by the Department of Defense (Cataclysm 45). The Federal government of the U.S. thus views the risks associated with these impacts to be geopolitical threats caused and hastened by the climate change. This has led to a more delicate and vulnerable economic system. The government further recognizes that the effects of climate change include big events of precipitation and hydrological cycle, unpredictable and more intense storms, and the rise in the severity and frequency of the drought.

Other impacts include warmer mean atmospheric temperature, ocean acidification, and the changes in biodiversity (Ross et al. 367). All these effects have profound implications for food insecurity, which ultimately poses a threat to the military. For instance, a food crisis due to the changes in precipitation in North America has led to the increased migration to South America. This phenomenon increases conflict over the scares water resources in various parts of the world, such as North Africa, thereby demanding the intervention of the military (Busby and Josh 34).

Climate change has further contributed to a ripple effect beyond the national boundaries. According to Ross et al. (369), the unregulated movement of people across the national borders to the harsh impacts of climate change might give rise to unrest, facilitate terrorism and extremism. This impact may further lead to severe inter-state conflicts, such as what has been experienced in most parts of Africa, Asia, and South America. Arguably, the climate-induced disputes between states mainly result from the population movements. In the arctic region, for example, the melting of icecaps has created more shipping routes in the area, thereby making the oil and gas reserves present become easily accessible even to other nations that do not own a share to those regions. Over time, conflicts have been accelerated, especially over maritime sovereignty among countries such as Russia, U.S., and Canada (Busby and Josh 34-45. These kinds of disputes exert a tremendous amount of pressure to the militaries of the parties under disputes, and which end up spending a substantial colossal amount of resources of money and time.

Effects on the National Power

Research has shown that national power is highly reliant on numerous variables. These include environmental factors such as geography and resource availability, military capability, and intelligence capacity, among other factors. The effects of climate change are severe because it has a considerable potential of affecting all these elements of national power. For instance, climate change makes the military less effective and responsive, especially when it comes to the project and exercising power in any case they have to operate in flood-affected areas or during an extreme heatwave. It is essential to understand that the type of warming that affects the land cover can highly lower the nation's renewable resource base. The collection of intelligence is difficult and analysis within the domain that is dominated by the social effects.

Conclusion

In conclusion, climate change is one of the most critical national security issues that affect many nations across the world. The difference is not merely an environmental issue because it also accelerates the existing national security threats that play crucial roles as a threat accelerant and a catalyst for conflicts. It has affected the government's military installations, readiness, operations, supply chains, and infrastructure associated with the military (Busby and Josh 45). Moreover, it has contributed to the geopolitical and global economic threats, such as increased trans-national movements, increase in conflicts and over-exploitation of scare resources. While climate change threatens national security, the Department of Defense should use the available technological know-how to develop a useful national security framework to incorporate climate-security into policy planning. Most importantly, securitization of climate change is essential helpful because it will encourage early preparation and planning as well as adaptation mechanisms.

Works Cited

Brown, Oli, Anne Hammill, and Robert McLeman. "Climate change as the 'new'security threat: implications for Africa." International affairs 83.6 (2007): 1141-1154.

Busby, Joshua W., and Josh Busby. Climate change and national security: an agenda for action. No. 32. Council on Foreign Relations Press, 2007.

Cataclysm, Climatic. "The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Climate Change." (2008).

Lee, Harry F., et al. "Demographic impact of climate change on northwestern China in the late imperial era." Quaternary international 425 (2016): 237-247.

Toscano, Julia. "Climate change displacement and forced migration: An international crisis." Ariz. J. Envtl. L. & Pol'y 6 (2015): 457.

Moran, Ashley, and Robert Chesney. Climate Change, State Stability, and Political Risk in Africa. No. 55870-LS-MRI. 274. TEXAS UNIV AT AUSTIN AUSTIN United States, 2016.

Ross, Lee, et al. "The climate change challenge and barriers to the exercise of foresight intelligence." BioScience 66.5 (2016): 363-370.