Chad Briggs, Strategy Director of Global Interconnections and lecturer at the American University in Kosovo, spoke with adelphi about the role of diplomacy as well as that of the intelligence and military communities in reducing disaster risk and vulnerability.
adelphi: How can we obtain an accurate assessment of environmental risks?
There is a red line between doing the assessment and prescribing policy, meaning that the intelligence community, which was one of the first groups in the US to address climate change and climate security, could give warnings but was not responsible for giving policy prescriptions. I think that is a useful distinction because often, if people want to be influential in policy, they may water down the warnings because they want to make sure there is a clear link between what they are warning and what they are able to accomplish. However, looking only at the most likely scenarios, we end up underestimating the risks. The reason for that is that we base most probabilities on historical records, but we are now outside of the historical records. We have shifted the boundary conditions of environmental systems, we find that disasters are now coming up that have never occurred before.
adelphi: What is the role of military and intelligence communities in an appropriate response to climate change and environmental risks?
Dr. Chad Briggs: What the intelligence and military communities can do is give a very realistic assessment of the vulnerable points and the critical nodes in the system. We need to focus on those critical nodes. We also need to be able to identify the early-warning signals. Specifically for disasters, two types of those can be defined: discrete disasters that require traditional responses (e.g. typhoon in the Philippines, which leads to the responsibility of the US to send in the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Unit) and complex disasters, in which multiple things happen simultaneously. For the latter, we need to ensure that our allies are not overwhelmed by these issues and have the confidence that they will get assistance. It is also crucial to work in advance.
adelphi: What precautionary measures can be taken to reduce disaster risk and what are the specific tasks of diplomacy?
The projects that the US Pacific Command has worked on for years are a good example. The aim of these projects is to do disaster scenarios in advance and invite all countries from across the Pacific to work together so that ahead of time all parties know who has the capabilities to respond in case of a disaster. Those discussions in advance not only help increase disaster response capabilities but they also have diplomatic benefits of countries talking to one another about technical issues. Climate security is not only about coping with destabilisation and conflicts. If we start acting ahead of time, we can create dialogue and form the structures and networks that can help prevent the conflicts. Important things can be done in advance to strengthen governance (e.g. signing transboundary water agreements, agreements for intervention in airfield use, etc.). Only the diplomatic corps or related agencies can do this. The military may have a role in warning about what might happen in the future and advise on the actions needed, but the confidence-building and the formation of diplomatic networks are the tasks of other agencies, such as the Foreign Ministries, the US State Department and so forth.
Please watch the video interview with Chad Briggs as well as talks with other experts on our Video Platform.
Climate Change, Disasters, and Security: Unconventional Approaches to Building Stability
It is “not sufficient to look at history for lessons on how we should prepare for and prevent future security risks in a climate change world,” said Swathi Veeravalli, research scientist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Geospatial Research Laboratory, at the Wilson Center on January 14. Climate change and the extreme weather events it brings pose an “unprecedented” threat to human security.
From Thailand to Aceh and Sri Lanka: how extreme weather events and disasters can be catalysts of fragility or an opportunity for peace
In 2011 Thailand was hit by unprecedented monsoon rains far above the average rainfall of the previous 30 years. Two million people across 26 provinces were affected. During the crisis, hundreds of civilians took it to the streets to protest discrimination by the Flood Response Operation Centre and the unfair distribution of water, electricity supply, shelter and food. Civilians were so angry that they broke a sandbag wall in Bangkok which was protecting a wealthy district from water surges. Public unrest and discontent with the government continued until a military coup in 2013.
2019 has only just begun, but it is already hard to imagine that there will be other extreme weather events with disastrous consequences such as cyclone Idai happening again this year. In all likelihood, such events will continue to occur as 2019 rolls on. Idai is, once more, proof of how devastating and toxic the mix of climate change, extreme weather events and poverty can be: Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe – countries that rank low in human development but contribute very little to global greenhouse gas emissions – suffer from some of the worst impacts of climate change.
adelphi has relaunched its exhibition Environment, Conflict and Cooperation (ECC) Exhibition to illustrate how unprecedented environmental changes interact with social, political, and economic risks to exacerbate conflict. We invite you to explore our online exhibition and to learn more about urgent issues of our time: climate, energy, migration, extractives, food and water.
Climate security risks are, by all interpretations, a global threat. But when it comes to setting a political climate security agenda, a handful of countries stand out. In an interview with Climate Diplomacy, Michaela Spaeth, Director for Energy and Climate Policy at the German Federal Foreign Office, highlights some of Germany’s goals and challenges in forwarding the issue during its 2019-20 membership in the UN Security Council.
Planetary Security Conference 2019: Spotlight Region Mali
The Planetary Security Conference 2019, which concluded on 20 February, saw a number of workshops being held on the Sahel region and specifically Mali, one of the Conference’s three spotlight regions. These workshops examined the region’s climate-water-security risks as well as the #doable actions and solutions to address these issues.