Report: How Climate Change Affects United States National Security

The Council on Foreign Relations, an independent think tank that provides information on international relations, has published a new council special report by writer Joshua W. Busby. The report, titled "Climate Change and National Security: An Agenda for Action," is available for download free of charge, or in print copy for a small fee, from the Council on Foreign Relations web site. The report was published by the Council on Foreign Relations Press.

In the report, the author says that the overwhelming Hurricane Katrina catastrophe in 2005 served as an omen of what climate change could mean for the future. This past year, the report says, the debate about global climate change shifted from a focus on economics to a focus on national security.

This focus on climate change and how it relates to U.S. national security is important, the author says, but the solutions developed thus far have tended to focus more on wide reaching climate change policies rather than addressing the specific threats that global climate change could pose for national security. Thus, the report says, an approach that is not limited to greenhouse gas emissions is what is required. The report attempts to address this disconnect by strengthening the links between climate change and national security and offering specific recommendations to address climate change consequences for the United States and its security.

Instead of focusing on solutions that treat adaptation and mitigation individually, the author says, strategies for dealing with climate change consequences should treat the two as complementary. Some of the policies recommended in the report deal with adaptation, specifically, the report says, preparedness and reduction of risk, and some deal with mitigation, or the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigation, the report says, is accepted virtually universally as a necessary means for combating global climate change.