The U.S. withdrawal from the COP21 Paris Agreement has given new life to the debate around the consequences of climate change.
The Trump Administration has cited concerns over national sovereignty and the economic burdens of reducing emissions to justify its policy. While this rationale remains controversial, it surely represents a narrow view of the trade-offs associated with international efforts to rein in climate change. The costs of rising global temperatures, extreme weather, and changing climate conditions go well beyond their economic impact. Indeed, the near-term financial costs associated with droughts, famines, floods, and the resulting displacement of populations may ultimately pale in comparison to the attendant security challenges a changing climate will surely create. These security costs are being witnessed firsthand in both Syria and Bangladesh, where climate change has served as a catalyst for conflict and instability.
Although the headlines from war-torn Syria rightly attribute the conflict to the brutality of the Assad regime and a fractious polity, less recognized are the environmental antecedents of this conflict, which date back a decade to when large swaths of Syria experienced an extreme five-year drought. Those conditions precipitated large-scale crop failures and a serious economic downturn. Up to 1.5 million people who lived in rural areas and depended primarily on agriculture, migrated into cities. Amid the drought and ensuing mass migration, observers recognized its deviation from historic norms; its effect on local livelihoods and the inability of migrants to make a living in cities; the lack of public services available to them and the government’s incapacity to respond. In 2008, Syria requested assistance from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to provide funding and technical assistance to farmers struggling under the pressure of the drought. Yet, despite the chorus of alarm about the destabilizing effects of the drought, and even the climate risks in the region, the international community failed to systematically address what we now see as one of the core accelerants to the conflict in Syria and the resultant global refugee crisis.
Even as Syria rightly absorbs global attention, today in Bangladesh a changing climate is reshuffling a security dynamic that could have profound consequences for the region and for the world. Across that country, environmental drivers are displacing rural and impoverished populations, and a changing climate is projected to exacerbate that trend and foment serious security challenges in a region already plagued with instability. As a result of the country’s location on a low-lying delta, Bangladesh is susceptible to floods from the Himalayas, destructive storms, and the inundation of coastal regions, all of which will contribute to food and water insecurity. Due to the government’s lack of capacity to respond effectively, such disasters impose especially high human and economic costs in that country. In 2015 alone, there were 531,000 new disaster-related displacements in Bangladesh. Not only do these events have immediate and destructive impacts, including the destruction of homes and livelihoods, they also have longer-term implications. Surges of seawater into the delta have salinated water tables, dramatically reducing farming production and freshwater access.
Today and in the future, many of these people are moving into cities, many already over-capacity. As in Syria where 1.5 million people migrated to urban environments, the government of Bangladesh is likely to face a much greater challenge in the coming decades. By 2050, an estimated 15 million people in Bangladesh will be displaced for climate-related reasons. At present, migrants live in slums that lack access to basic public services, like electricity and clean water, exposing them to public health risks and intensifying civil discontent. Compounding prospects for unrest, many displaced people lack skills and access to jobs, making these populations potentially vulnerable to exploitation and radicalization—again, demonstrating worrisome parallels to disaffected Syrians targeted by Al-Nusra and ISIL. In Bangladesh, the U.S. Government has identified an increasing terror threat that could be worsened by the flooding of vulnerable populations into urban centers.
Coupled with the increased threat of terrorism, the international community will likely see an uptick in tensions between Bangladesh and India. While most of those displaced by natural disasters have stayed within the borders of Bangladesh, the country’s fortified border with India raises concerns over conflict in the face of a larger refugee crisis. Since tensions in India over Bangladeshi migration erupted into violence in 1983, the border has become one of the bloodiest in the world. Between 2001 and 2010, India’s Border Security Force killed 900 Bangladeshis attempting to cross the border. As Dhaka and other cities reach their carrying capacities and 17 percent of Bangladesh will be underwater with just a one meter increase in sea level, we should expect to see migrants flow across this border, and tensions between the two nations rise.
The United States has interests across Southeast Asia, and the U.S. Government recognizes the importance of responding to these climate-related threats. Thus far, this recognition has come primarily in the form of building disaster resilience and providing disaster response training and assistance. In 2017, the State Department financed $2 million to the Department of Defense to bolster the patrol and response capabilities of Bangladesh’s Navy and Coast Guard, in part to enhance their disaster relief capacity. However, to meet the mounting challenges of a changing climate, both strategic and tactical, the U.S. Government needs to deepen its understanding of the security implications of climate change and develop a more robust emergency preparedness, response, and resiliency toolkit.
First, Congress needs to target some portion of the Department of Defense’s growing budget toward technical assistance to build natural disaster resilience. The U.S. spending on climate in 2017 was $21.83 billion compared to $588.31 billion spent on traditional instruments of military force – a proportion that is not commensurate with the recognized threats associated with climate change. Along with this, we need to increase inter-agency cooperation between the Departments of Defense, State, and USAID to coordinate assistance related to agricultural productivity, vulnerability to and resilience against natural disasters, food security, and improving governance – priorities across the three agencies.
Third, we need to sustain and enhance U.S. global weather-monitoring capabilities, starting with safeguarding NOAA’s budget. While the proposed 16 percent cut to NOAA was targeted at U.S. coastal programs, cuts to the agency’s satellite program and National Weather Service would impede our ability to monitor weather globally and document trends, which proved necessary to help understand why the drought in Syria was so severe. In the lead-up to the war in Syria, few observers understood the connections between the drought and a warming climate. Gathering this data is critical to identifying these trends in places like Syria and Bangladesh so that we can accurately build readiness at these environmental flashpoints.
In 2015, there were 19.2 million new internal displacements resulting from natural disasters, twice the number caused by conflict. The Syrian conflict is a portent for the future. As early as 2008, experts realized that the drought there deviated from the historic norm, and many pointed to the ways in which it could become a driver of conflict. But neither the FAO nor the U.S. Government responded to provide food aid and other assistance in the three years before violence broke out, despite repeated requests by the Syrian government. Better understanding the barriers to action in the Syria case to ensure that they can be overcome in future crises is essential. Above all, it is important to learn from this example to better equip the international community to respond effectively and preemptively to potentially destabilizing climate events moving forward. Indisputably, they will continue to happen with greater frequency as temperatures and sea levels rise around the world.
Over the coming months, The Cipher Brief, in conjunction with the Stimson Center, will be publishing a Natural Security Series featuring articles on the convergence between environmental and national security issues. Be sure to check in next month for the next part of the Natural Security Series.
