Climate and Social Stress Implications for Security Analysis (2013) / Chapter Skim
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6 Methods for Assessing National Security Threats
6 Methods for Assessing National Security Threats
Pages 139-160
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From page 139... ...
supporting a continuing series of assessments of the likelihood and nature of security threats arising as a result of climate events in combination with other conditions, (b) informing timely preventive measures, and (c)
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From page 140... ...
In addition to the monitoring capacity we recommend here, the intelligence community will need the means to monitor, understand, and make forecasts concerning such developments. WHAT SHOULD BE MONITORED, AND WHY The analysis in the previous chapters, developed from our conceptual framework which was informed by an analysis of available knowledge, indicates that from a natural security perspective the climate events of most concern are those that would create the equivalent of a perfect storm: a country or region of importance to U.S.
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From page 141... ...
Other kinds of science are needed in conjunction with climate science to define the monitoring needs for events that are more than just physical, such as climate-driven increases in food prices or outbreaks of infectious disease. These other types of science are also important for defining methods for monitoring and anticipating clusters and sequences of potentially disruptive events that might affect particular regions of interest and for considering the potential for climate events to generate shocks to integrated global systems of potential national security importance.
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From page 142... ...
Monitoring of the slower-moving factors makes it possible to use a scenario approach for considering the consequences of rapidly appearing climate events. In this approach, analysts posit the occurrence of a particular potentially disruptive climate event the risk of which is high or increasing and consider how a country, region, or system of interest would likely respond, given what is known or expected from monitoring and assessment of the state of other environmental conditions, exposures, vulnerabilities, and likely responses to inadequacies of coping, response, and recovery.
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From page 143... ...
Setting Data Priorities Because of the multifaceted nature of the phenomena that might connect climate events to national security concerns and because of the complexity of these connections, setting priorities for monitoring is a significant challenge. Substantial ongoing monitoring activities may prove useful for measuring aspects of the key phenomena.
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From page 144... ...
Appendix E illustrates the current state of thinking about data needs and discusses examples of current monitoring efforts for climate and biophysical variables, exposures, susceptibility to harm, and coping, response, and recovery. It shows that across these types of phenomena there are substantial differences in the level of consensus within the relevant communities of experts about which are the key variables from which a small and useful set of indicators could be developed.
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From page 145... ...
Less extensive coverage is provided for 15 more countries through partner-based monitoring. FEWS NET, which relies on a combination of physical and socioeconomic indicators to estimate and predict the degree of, and changes in, the food security conditions of vulnerable countries, was one of the earliest users of satellite imagery to monitor rainfall and crop conditions in the developing world.
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From page 146... ...
Both the phenomena and the ECVs are color coded to describe the adequacy of the current monitoring systems for capturing trends on climate time-scales. Green indicates global coverage with a sufficient period of record, data quality, and metadata to enable meaningful monitoring of temporal changes.
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From page 147... ...
One of the objectives of this effort should be to build the scientific basis for indicators in this domain. This effort would support activities by the research communities involved in assessing exposures and vulnerabilities to environmental change to identify a relatively small number of key variables relevant to the social and political consequences of climate events.
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From page 148... ...
For example, composite indicators are sometimes created to summarize knowledge about various phenomena of interest, such as drought, susceptibility to damage from flooding, health status of a population, emergency coping capacity, or political instability. Developing such indicators for the full range of security threats related to climate change presents a major challenge for several reasons.
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From page 149... ...
government. Developing the needed broad monitoring system for climate-related security threats will also require integration of climate science, various branches of social science, and security analysis.
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From page 150... ...
For many existing and potential indicators the required spatial and temporal resolution is finer than what is currently available. In setting priorities for indicator development and improvement, the intelligence community should take into account the gaps between the existing and the desired resolution and should invest in improved resolution for those indicators judged to be the most needed and the most useful in places of concern.
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From page 151... ...
As climate change proceeds and its human implications continue to be experienced, a clearer understanding is likely to emerge of the mechanisms linking climate events to security concerns and, therefore, of the most important things to monitor. The needed monitoring will be a major undertaking over an extended period, which should avoid duplication of 2 Several persistent and sometimes specialized statistical issues will also need serious attention as part of the development of information that will be useful to the intelligence community.
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From page 152... ...
As important as data and monitoring are for assessing the effects of potential climate events on national security concerns, data in the absence of effective analytical techniques to process them and produce useful information are of little help. In some situations, more data could actually make the situation worse in terms of producing useful forecasts.
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From page 153... ...
We emphasize that improved understanding and monitoring of the various elements of climate vulnerability -- a key link between climate events and security concerns -- is an objective that the intelligence community shares with the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)
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From page 154... ...
The intelligence community should adopt a risk-based strategy for setting its monitoring priorities. Such a strategy seeks to prioritize the measurement and assessment of the most significant expected security risks that may arise from conjunctions of potentially disruptive climate events; exposures; susceptibilities; limitations of coping, response, and recovery; and the reactions to revealed limitations.
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From page 155... ...
A research investment in indicator development is likely to increase in value over time, both because monitoring systems are likely to improve through continued efforts and because potentially disruptive climate events are expected to increase in frequency and intensity in years and decades to come. It is therefore important to begin now to build and test the capability to monitor and anticipate climate-driven security threats.
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From page 156... ...
and the strong convergence of the climate change monitoring objectives of the intelligence community as discussed here and those of the USGCRP. As noted in previous chapters, these interagency enterprises have many common needs for monitoring and for the fundamental science that informs monitoring choices, but their efforts are not integrated.
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From page 157... ...
If the capacity of a society to manage internal stress is to be subjected to detailed scrutiny, the motivating purposes must be accepted as constructive, access to the data must be equitable, and the benefits derived must be mutual. Given the historical legacy of security concerns, those conditions will not be easy to achieve, but they will certainly be essential.
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From page 158... ...
The concept of a climate stress test provides a framework for integrating climate and social variables more systematically and consistently within national security analysis. A stress test is an exercise to assess the likely effects on particular countries, populations, or systems of potentially disruptive climate events to which they have some likelihood of exposure in the coming decade.
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From page 159... ...
Stress testing should also be applied periodically to global systems that meet critical needs, including food supply systems, global public health systems, supply chains for critical materials, and disaster relief systems, as well as to international emergency response systems. Decision science techniques should be used and further developed to ensure that the stress tests make the best use of the available information.
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