home > by publication type > council special reports > Climate Change and National Security
Email
| Author: | Joshua W. Busby |
|---|
November 2007
40 pages
ISBN 978-087609-413-6
$10.00
Council Special Report No. 32
Recent actions and statements by members of Congress, members of the UN Security Council, and retired U.S. military officers have drawn attention to the consequences of climate change, including the destabilizing effects of storms, droughts, and floods. Domestically, the effects of climate change could overwhelm disaster-response capabilities. Internationally, climate change may cause humanitarian disasters, contribute to political violence, and undermine weak governments.
In this Council Special Report, Joshua W. Busby moves beyond diagnosis of the threat to recommendations for action. Recognizing that some climate change is inevitable, he proposes a portfolio of feasible and affordable policy options to reduce the vulnerability of the United States and other countries to the predictable effects of climate change. He also draws attention to the strategic dimensions of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that sharp reductions in the long run are essential to avoid unmanageable security problems. He goes on to argue that participation in reducing emissions can help integrate China and India into the global rules–based order, as well as help stabilize important countries such as Indonesia. And he suggests bureaucratic reforms that would increase the likelihood that the U.S. government will formulate effective domestic and foreign policies in this increasingly important realm.
The result is an authoritative, well-written, and practical paper that merits careful consideration by members of Congress, the administration, and other interested parties in the United States and internationally.
Joshua W. Busby is an assistant professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and is affiliated with the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, both at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2004, Dr. Busby and Nigel Purvis of the Brookings Institution contributed a paper for the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change titled “The Security Implications of Climate Change for the UN System.” A forthcoming article, “Who Cares About the Weather? Climate Change and U.S National Security,” will appear in Security Studies.
Dr. Busby has been a research fellow at the Brookings Institution, Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. His work has appeared in International Studies Quarterly and Current History, among other publications. He served in the Peace Corps in Ecuador from 1997 to 1999. Dr. Busby is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He has a BA from both the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill and the University of East Anglia, where he was a British Marshall Scholar, and he received his MA and PhD from Georgetown University.
Listen to Joshua Busby discuss the Climate Change CSR in a podcast produced by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
In The Closing of the American Border, Edward Alden goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the Bush administration’s struggle to balance security and openness in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.
America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.
Complete list of CFR Books.
This report lays out a thoughtful agenda for U.S. policy toward the Democratic Republic of Congo, arguing that what happens there should matter to the United States--for humanitarian reasons as well as economic and strategic ones.
In this report, CFR Senior Fellow Michael A. Levi analyzes the potential use of deterrence in preventing terrorist groups from acquiring nuclear weapons and recommends a new approach to U.S. declaratory policy, as well as ways to improve U.S. capabilities to determine the sources of terrorist attacks.
Complete list of Council Special Reports.
This report argues that the United States must lead with domestic action on climate change and proposes a U.S. negotiating strategy for a global UN climate agreement that includes commitments from all major economies, while also promoting a less formal Partnership for Climate Cooperation that would focus the world's largest emitters on implementing aggressive emissions reductions.
This Task Force report examines changes in Latin America and in U.S. influence there, while taking account of the region's enduring importance to the United States. The Task Force offers an agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America and identifies four critical areas that should provide the basis of a new U.S. approach.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR.
Foreign Affairs has compiled a collection of articles that offer policy prescriptions to some of the world's most pressing problems.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1-212-434-9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
To request permission to reuse Council materials, please email publications@cfr.org or fax +1.212.434.9859.
Please include the complete information of the requested work—author, title, sections/pages to be copied or reprinted, and number of copies to be made—along with a brief description of where and how you would like to reuse the work.
You may also request permission for Council material through Copyright Clearance Center. For more information, please click on the link below.
Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.
Global Economy 