Capacity Building
Climate Change
Early Warning & Risk Analysis
North America
Caitlin Werrell and Francesco Femia

The U.S. State Department has just released its “2014 U.S. Climate Action Report to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.” As announced on the official website:

"On January 1, 2014, the Department of State submitted the 2014 U.S. Climate Action Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This report, which includes the First U.S. Biennial Report and Sixth U.S. National Communication to the UNFCCC, details actions the United States is taking domestically and internationally to mitigate, adapt to, and assist others in addressing climate change. The 2014 U.S. Climate Action Report fulfills requirements under the UNFCCC for all Parties to report periodically on actions and progress in combating climate change. The last U.S. Climate Action Report submitted was in 2010. Over the course of 2014, UNFCCC Parties will provide their first biennial reports: developed countries are to provide theirs by January 1, 2014 and developing countries are to provide biennial update reports by the end of the year."

The report can be found here, 2014 U.S. Climate Action Report to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. For our readers, we have excerpted sections of the report below that explicitly highlight climate change as a national security concern. The concepts of “risk” and “preparedness,”  that are central to an understanding of the national security implications of a changing climate, are also embedded throughout the report (as are energy, food and water security), but for clarity, we are only including excerpts that explicitly mention climate change as a matter of “U.S. national security.” Mentions of U.S. national security appear most frequently in sections dedicated to vulnerability, adaptation and research, and systematic observations.

From the “First US Biennial Report” portion of the report:

For the complete article, please see The Center for Climate and Security.

Climate Change
Asia
Vance Wagner, China Dialogue

President Xi Jinping’s announcement of a post-2030 climate target aligns with global projections for what’s needed to achieve the Paris Agreement goals.

Kira Taylor, EURACTIV

Japan will join the EU in aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced on Monday (26 October).

Climate Diplomacy
Global Issues
Noah Gordon, adelphi

The best resource for all of our 21st Century Diplomacy: Foreign Policy Is Climate Policy content is the official website, hosted by the Wilson Center and adelphi. But the ECC editors are also collecting the topics here for eager readers.

Land & Food
Security
Global Issues
Compiled by Raquel Munayer and Stella Schaller, adelphi

What exactly triggers food riots? At which point does climate change come in? And what can we learn from analyzing the lack and impotence of government action in conflict areas? In our Editor’s Pick, we share 10 case studies from the interactive ECC Factbook that address the connections between food, the environment and conflict. They show how agriculture and rural livelihoods can affect stability in a country, which parties are involved in food conflicts and what possible solutions are on the table.