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European Natural-Gas Security in an Era of Import Dependence: A Strategic Overview

Posted on July 27, 2013 at 8:36 pm

RUSI Journal, Apr 2014, Vol. 159, No. 2 By David Koranyi

As the Crimean crisis continues to develop, it’s becoming clear that Ukraine’s reliance on Russia for gas imports may prove to be a fundamental weakness, with the latter wielding price increases as an economic weapon. With Russia threatening to easily bring to a halt these crucial supplies to its neighbour, the conflict has also served to underscore key questions on European energy security more broadly. David Koranyi assesses the established order before analysing Europe’s options for supply diversification, focusing totally on its central and southeastern regions.

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Posted in Security Systems

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Warns of great Future Security Challenges

Posted on July 17, 2013 at 8:15 am

RUSI Analysis, 7 Apr 2014 By Duncan Depledge, Research Analyst, Environment and Security

The latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contains an intensive chapter at the implications of climate change for human security.  The results for defence and security planners are huge.

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Last week, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the second one of 3 reports with a purpose to constitute its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), the primary such assessment since 2007.[1] The findings were produced by Working Group II, and concern issues in terms of ‘Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’. Included during this assessment, for the primary time, is an intensive chapter at the implications of climate change for human security. 

Importantly, the chapter on ‘Human Security’ considers greater than just the human dimension. Noting that ‘human security should be progressively threatened because the climate changes’, the authors also found evidence that ‘climate change will result in new challenges to states and increasingly shape both conditions of security and national security policies’. Removed from being alarmist, these statements offer a sobering reflection of what researchers of climate change and security was arguing because the early 2000s.

Of the eight issues raised concerning security broadly-defined it’s the last three that demand immediate attention from the protection community.

Violent Conflict and State Sensitivity to Climate Change

The authors argue that ‘low per capita incomes, economic contraction and inconsistent state institutions are related to the incidence of violence’. The potential of climate change to further stress these conflict-factors is therefore a cause for concern. While the authors are careful to not suggest a causal link between climate and conflict (as some have tried to on the subject of Darfur, for instance), what they do draw attention to is the concept climate change is a ‘threat multiplier’.

It is usually the case that the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of society are those most directly depending on the natural environment for his or her livelihoods (most notably agriculture). Extreme weather (floods and droughts) can quickly undermine the steadiness of the natural environment, and as such poses a major risk to livelihoods. Where the state fails to intervene, resentment may build (particularly where lack of incomes or the unequal distribution of rents could be entwined with other political and historical grievances), raising the danger of social unrest (within the type of protests and riots) that during some circumstances may spiral into civil war.

Further evidence of those complex linkages remains needed. It’s unfortunate that the hot research at the impacts climate change will have had at the underlying factors of the ‘Arab Spring’ seem like absent from the assessment (likely since it was too late to be considered), particularly the popularity that record droughts all over since 2006 seemed to have a discernable impact on food prices and incomes during this portion of the sector.

Violent Conflict And Vulnerability To Climate Change

The second issue of interest this is that the authors argue ‘people living in places stricken by violent conflict are particularly liable to conflict change’. Widespread violent conflict may cause serious damage to infrastructure, institutions, natural capital, social capital and livelihoods – essentially the lynchpins of a stable social, political and financial system.

The evidence presented by the IPCC suggests chronic political conflict has already exacerbated challenges concerning the management of water resources, land use, and humanitarian crises in parts of the Balkans and the center East, including Iraq. The possibility of more extreme floods, droughts and other weather-related events in these ‘fragile’ regions therefore risks adding an extra layer of stress to already vulnerable populations lacking the elemental tools for adaptation. Briefly, planning for future interventions in conflict areas might want to be increasingly conscious of climate-related stress, particularly relating to post-conflict reconstruction.

Reshaping the Conditions of Security and National Security Policies

Lastly, the authors draw attention to the likely implications of climate change for national security policies. Specially, the possibility of climate change to exacerbate the sorts of strains frequently related to outbreaks of social unrest and conflict means that the monitoring of environmental stress in areas of strategic interest might want to be increased as portion of a holistic option to pre-empting and preparing for conflicts.

Moreover, the capacity of states to intervene in conflicts, in addition to provide relief through post-conflict reconstruction and humanitarian assistance, also are expected to come back under increasing pressure. More resources (finance, manpower and capabilities) will likely should be put aside to accommodate the increased pressure from environmental degradation in conflict zones. This in turn can have implications for broader defence planning, specifically because it pertains to the allocation of limited resources and civilian-military relations.

In light of the Strategic Defence and Security Review because of happen in 2015, there’s consequently much inside the IPCC’s assessment for UK defence planners to mirror on.  

NOTE

[1] The primary report on ‘The Physical Science Basis’ was released in September 2013. The third report on ‘Mitigation of Climate Change’ is because of be published in April 2014. a last synthesis report would be released in October 2014.

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Posted in Security Systems