Latest in climate change
In a perfect world, the historic policy and economic changes made to adapt to the pandemic would move the world forward into a future prepared to combat the climate crisis.
Addressing the national and international economic effects of climate change has become crucial to the Fed’s mission.
The draft National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2020, currently in conference, includes three Arctic-specific provisions that show a continuing increase in congressional attention to the Arctic over the past five years.
For decades, China was reluctant to deem climate change a national security issue, preferring instead to view it through the lens of development. The driving concern behind China’s reticence was sovereignty; Beijing feared that crisis rhetoric about climate change would be used to legitimate interventionist actions on the part of Western powers, including forcing Beijing to curtail its economic growth.
The U.S. national security establishment has been increasingly vocal that climate change is a national security threat—and the U.S. is not alone in this regard. But exactly how serious is this threat? How concerned should policymakers be? Assessing the magnitude of the national security threat posed by climate change requires addressing the antecedent issue of timing.
In the middle of the last century, Dr. Murdock Head, a George Washington University professor, acquired an old manor house and farm known as Airlie outside the nation’s capital. Dr. Head wanted to create a place where experts and organizations could meet in a neutral environment to analyze the pressing issues of the day.
The Climate Security Act of 2007 was introduced by Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator John Warner, both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee keenly aware of the dangers that climate change poses to our national security and military readiness.
Even where speakers took pains to avoid uttering it, the name “Donald Trump” still dominated the 53rd Munich Security Conference this past weekend.
When President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily banning refugees from a number of Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States and blocking Syrian refugees indefinitely, his justification was that the ban was necessary to “protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals,” and to prevent the entry of those who “bear hostile attitudes toward [the United States] and its founding principles.”
Several weeks ago we expressed our hope that the incoming administration and the national security community will work together to address the sweeping challenges created by climate change. We stressed two main ideas.