NATO, Climate Change, and International Security

A Risk Governance Approach

Tyler H. Lippert

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783030145590
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030145606
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Biological Sciences

This book offers a prospective analysis of the anticipated security consequences of climate change in relation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Using climate and security literature to complement recent foresight and scenario analysis developed by NATO, the author applies the International Risk Governance Council's (IRGC) Risk Governance Framework to identify the considerations and actions that could assist NATO in a context where climate and environmental factors more intensively shape security. Tyler Lippert explores how climate change has the potential to increase the need for humanitarian assistance and disaster response, to create tension over shared resources, to renew and enhance geo-political interest in the Arctic, and to deepen concern with respect to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Within this new political and environmental reality, NATO must consider how to adapt to meet new demands, prepare for new security challenges, as well as manageunforeseen consequences. 

Offering a corrective, this book identifies near-term actions for NATO to improve its risk governance posture, providing a basis upon which longer-range policy considerations can be developed. This analysis is only the opening salvo of what is likely to be a complicated process that spans many years, if not decades. However, in mapping the risk governance dimensions to the security and climate nexus from the perspective of NATO, Lippert provides a foundation for risk-based policy planning for NATO. The book will be of immense value to policy and decision makers: NATO leadership and its affiliated organizations as well as to academics across a broad span of subject areas, particularly environmental sociology, defense and foreign policy, and the political sciences.

© The Author(s) 2019

Tyler H. LippertNATO, Climate Change, and International Securityhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14560-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Tyler H. Lippert¹

(1)

Chicago, USA

Tyler H. Lippert

End Abstract

Introduction

This book examines the anticipated security consequences of climate change using a risk governance framework from the perspective of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Throughout the past decade, a great deal of effort has been devoted to examining the anticipated consequences of climate change, in particular how it will affect security. Yet, little attention has been devoted to understanding how the role or posture of NATO may need to evolve in response.

While NATO isn’t a primary actor with respect to global climate policy, a ripple of consequences is anticipated to wash upon its shores as a result of climate change. More attention to climate is a potentially useful element in anticipating the next crises, many of which could present security challenges not fully addressed by current planning and response options. NATO recognizes its responsibility to help reduce the security consequences that could arise as a result of climate change. The challenge is how to elevate and prioritize policy and processes to address the new environment.

The climate-security problem requires consideration of issues often perceived to be near the edge or beyond traditional interpretations of NATO’s domain,¹ and it illustrates the evolving and context-specific nature of security issues. This study seeks to address future challenges that, at present, are not adequately linked to existing policy planning processes, and for which there is neither protocol nor a ready solution.² Accordingly, it starts from the assumption that NATO must adapt and respond to changes in the environment.³

Using NATO as the object of analysis for security risk governance in the context of climate change provides an entry point for application of the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) Risk Governance Framework. To date, the IRGC framework has been applied (mostly) retrospectively to (relatively) well-defined problems that fall within the purview of a single or small number of government ministries. It has not been applied prospectively to a larger risk issue that has a significant number of global dimensions and cascading impacts. The fundamental objective of this book is to address the following question: Can the IRGC Risk Governance Framework add policy-relevant insight for NATO if applied in real-time to a phenomenon as broad, uncertain, and complex as climate change-induced security risk (and, if so, how)?

Increasing Importance

With the signing of the Paris Decision in 2015,⁴ the 2014 release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, and a wide range of other publications throughout the past decade, the idea that a changing climate will have far-reaching impact—and fundamental influence on the international security environment—has gathered momentum. The international security community is becoming more aware of the necessity to account for and anticipate probable climate issues and to understand the demands climate change will place on international organizations. Climate change-related security risk is gaining relevance and provides a substantive, policy-relevant reason to examine how NATO can engage with this issue.

NATO will face a new security environment that will call for new ideas, concepts, and response types. Recognizing that climate change will have security implications, national governments and international and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have struggled to identify a way forward.⁵ However, as noted by a UK Commission, “[d]espite the magnitude of this challenge and the powerful evidence now available, there is still a lack of understanding about what a changed climate really means for society, or what institutions should be doing to prepare for it.”⁶

In October 2014, NATO welcomed a new Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, the former Prime Minister of Norway, who is also a former UN Special Envoy for Climate. Stoltenberg is the second successive NATO Secretary General to be well acquainted with climate change. The previous Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, served as Prime Minister of Denmark before his tenure with NATO. While Prime Minister of Denmark, Rasmussen initiated hosting (in Copenhagen) the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 5th Meeting of the Parties (MOP 5) to the Kyoto Protocol.

However, the political environment for NATO has changed. The 2016 American presidential election delivered a White House that caused concern among NATO Allies about American leadership within the Alliance; a few months earlier, the United Kingdom voted to withdraw from the European Union. These events resulted in domestic political disarray that both nations continued to struggle with three years later. Russian involvement could have influenced one or both.

It was only two years earlier, in the spring of 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula; the consequent geostrategic implications of this action reach beyond traditional security considerations in the region. This annexation and the pursuant fallout strongly suggest that NATO no longer considers Russia as a possible strategic partner, but rather as an adversary. More than the Russian actions in Georgia (2008), the annexation of Crimea provides a stark demonstration for most North Atlantic nations that Russia feels little obligation to be bound by international law. Thus, NATO may seek to reconsider its policy regarding Arctic security issues.⁷

Research Aims and Objectives

The overarching aim of this book is threefold: (1) to determine whether the IRGC Risk Governance Framework can contribute to improved risk governance outcomes for NATO (in the context of climate change); (2) to ascertain how the risk could be better handled if the framework is applied; and (3) to identify areas to improve NATO’s risk governance posture. To achieve these aims, this research pursues two fundamental research questions: (1) How can the IRGC framework assist NATO to identify and prepare for the security risk associated with climate change? and (2) How does prospective analysis highlight options for doing so?

Using climate and security literature to complement recent foresight and scenario analyses developed by NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) to understand the major (climate relevant) themes of the future security environment, I apply the IRGC Risk Governance Framework to examine the security consequences of climate change from the perspective of NATO. This study seeks to identify possible contours (e.g. actions, ideas, attributes) to create a basis from which NATO can move forward with anticipatory adaptation.

As a further aim, this analysis seeks to test the IRGC framework by applying it to a problem wherein the risks are complex and highly uncertain. In doing this, I assess how well the IRGC framework supports an understanding of the risks and how well it facilitates the development of policy options.⁸ This analysis advances the underlying goal of the IRGC framework, which is to provide guidance for the development of comprehensive assessment and management strategies to cope with risks, in particular at the global level.⁹

There are five distinct objectives for this analysis:

1. 1.
   Evaluate the literature pertaining to climate and environmental security and the anticipated security consequences of climate change (Chapter 2).
2. 2.
   Review NATO’s history of institutional transformation to understand the context in which previous institutional changes were achieved (Chapter 3).

   1. (a)
      Understand the trajectory of previous institutional transformation.
   2. (b)
      Understand the actions NATO has taken regarding climate and environmental security.
   3. (c)
      Identify the climate-relevant aspects of the NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT), Strategic Foresight Analysis (SFA), and Framework for Future Alliance Operations (FFAO) workshops.
3. 3.
   Conduct an analysis of what is known about the anticipated security consequences of climate change (from ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Literature Review
• 3. Taking Stock of the Situation: NATO
• 4. Methodology and Context
• 5. A Risk Governance Case Study
• 6. Major Findings
• Back Matter