The New Security Beat |
- The Top 5 Posts of February 2022
- ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’: U.S. conflict prevention policy in a world of climate change
- China’s Growing Environmental Footprint in the Caribbean
| The Top 5 Posts of February 2022 Posted: 24 Mar 2022 09:01 PM PDT  Since signing on to China's Belt and Road Initiative, Pakistan has furthered its government's partnership with China through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. While both initiatives concern development investments in infrastructure, the agreements have raised concern in Pakistan. In February's top post, Sheraz Aziz assesses the environmental impacts, like deforestation and pollution from coal plants, and economic impacts, such as those on Gwadar's fishing industry, that are sparking opposition from Pakistanis. In another post focused on Pakistan, Noman Ahed and Nazia Hussain's case study in Karachi covers the everyday impacts of climate-related stress on water insecurity. In last month's second top post, they explore the role of political and economic decisions at various governance levels that result in formal and informal groups controlling water access, namely in the "water mafia." With a focus on Africa, the third top post of the month, by Richard Cincotta and Stephen Smith, explores key findings of their demographic research on the Western Sahel. Without policy changes that support women and youth in the region, especially girls, "mutually reinforcing crises" could impact the region for the foreseeable future. The final two posts of February concern climate change response. In their post, Romain Chuffart and Andreas Raspotnik explore how the Arctic can be impacted by the European Green Deal, pushing other Arctic actors towards similar policy implementation. Finally, Achref Chibani analyzes the role of internal rural to urban migration in Tunisia as an adaptation response to climate and environmental change.
Image Credit: Fishing Boat at Gwadar Port in Balochistan, Pakistan, Aleem Zahed Khan/Shutterstock.com |
| Posted: 24 Mar 2022 09:01 PM PDT  The crisis in Ukraine is rightly at the center of U.S. foreign policy attention but, even in the midst of that justified focus, the latest IPCC report unflinchingly reminds us of another emergency: we are running out of time to avoid the most devastating effects of climate change, including the social, economic, environmental and security risks that can actually drive war. Ukraine spotlights for us that these challenges are nothing if not intertwined. President Putin could not wage this war against Ukraine without a fossil fuel dependent global economy and the resulting oil and gas profits that make his agenda possible. The old ways of doing things led us into this trap; if we had made bolder moves to invest in a more resilient future earlier, we might have actually avoided it. We must learn from our errors in foresight. The U.S. needs to remain committed to a conflict prevention agenda which recognizes the ever-increasing influence of climate change. The Biden administration has two policy tools available that offer some hope: the 2019 U.S. Global Fragility Act (GFA) and the accompanying 2020 U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability. Shifting the focus from near-term crisis to more comprehensive longer-term planning and investment, the GFA compels the U.S. government to create a more unified strategy "to help countries move from fragility to stability and from conflict to peace" (Strategy 2020, 3). Under the GFA, the U.S. must set no less than five priority countries or regions – a step that is already overdue. The multi-year implementation plans associated with these priorities offer an essential moment of opportunity to integrate what we already know about how climate change is influencing nearly every aspect of human society – from livelihoods to disease to infrastructure – especially in many GFA countries of concern. Further delay in setting these priorities and moving ahead with climate-informed implementation plans will only undermine our preparedness. We won't be starting from scratch. A growing body of literature is unpacking the complex ways in which climate change acts as a 'risk multiplier' and pinpointing opportunities for preventative action in the process. An upcoming report on Mali, presented at the World Bank's Fragility Forum this week, offers important real-world lessons to help us get the analytics and then the operational responses right in the GFA priority countries and regions. For those not familiar with the context, violent conflict in Mali has emerged significantly over the past decade, first in the regions of Gao, Kidal and Tombouctou, then in Mopti and Segou, and now increasingly in southern and western regions. Today, conflict dynamics overlay local histories of contestation playing on grievances and fueling intercommunal tensions. Violence is exacerbated by arms availability and marked by militarization, militia-ization and impunity. As the report explains, climate change is not making things any easier. Climate variability, both geographically and over time, is not new for Mali but recent decades have seen a notable change in unpredictability. Environmental pressures include land degradation, more frequent extreme weather events, changing rainfall patterns and increased heat stress. Local livelihoods are increasingly difficult to sustain due to a combination of pressures ranging from climate change and corruption to insecurity and social exclusion. It is a complicated picture and therefore essential that any conflict prevention strategy recognizes the ways in which climate change affects not only the physical world but also the way people move, make decisions, and interpret risk. For example, changing climatic conditions, including increasing temperature and declining rainfall, threaten crop production in a country where most people are dependent on agriculture. Adding to that strain, only seven per cent of land is suitable for cultivation and only one per cent of national crop land is equipped for irrigation. Farmers can't decide when to plant, pastoralists split their herds or sell, fishers feel forced to engage in overfishing by catching younger and breeding fish. Adaptation has meant expanding farmlands, constructing dams and irrigation channels and using greater amounts of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. All of these shifts can induce new forms of contestation and conflict as pastoralists confront agriculturalists over grazing routes and chemical pollution infiltrates water, reducing fish stocks. At the same time, younger people are often adapting by moving to urban areas, breaking traditional inter-generational family bonds and exacerbating gender-based vulnerabilities for the women and girls who most often stay behind. As climate change increases the risks faced by citizens, the pressure on governments to guarantee core functions and deliver basic services also increases. Failure to meet people's expectations exposes weak governance systems, negatively influencing people's perceptions of governments' legitimacy and effectiveness. Armed opposition groups can also capitalize on this breakdown in trust. Evidence from Mali and elsewhere has shown that conflict risks are higher when governments can't guarantee citizens the basic conditions that help them cope with climate change: responsive institutions, economic stability, security and a voice in decision-making. These factors are at play in many countries and regions that are candidates for prioritization under the GFA. In these places, we see that climate change can exacerbate, or even drive, unstable social, economic and political conditions at the same time that conflict and fragility can impede effective climate response and adaptation. These are not additive layers of risk, they are compounded risks. The reality is messy. Meanwhile, the shock of Russian aggression against Ukraine has reminded us again of the terrible reality of war and how quickly it can unfold. Even while we focus on restoring stability in Ukraine we should do everything in our power to prevent conflict happening elsewhere. That means selecting the priority countries under the GFA as quickly as possible and moving forward with investments in conflict prevention that are actively informed by the evolving reality of climate change. We know the cost of not acting and, increasingly, we know where to look for ideas that can generate some solutions and put us on a better path. Cynthia Brady is a Global Fellow with the Wilson Center's Environmental Change & Security Program. Sources: Climate Security Expert Network, IPCC, U.S. Global Fragility Act, United States Department of State, Weathering Risk Photo Credit: Fulani woman visits the market at January 16, 2006, Segou, Mali, courtesy of Attila JANDI, Shutterstock.com. |
| China’s Growing Environmental Footprint in the Caribbean Posted: 23 Mar 2022 09:01 PM PDT  China continues blazing a trail across the Wider Caribbean through large capital flows, loans, and investment. In the last two years alone, more than a dozen Caribbean nations have signed on to China's Belt and Road Initiative—even as some still recognize Taiwan, perhaps the only remaining sticking point preventing further signatories. The deepening of relations did not happen overnight, but it is only recently that the Belt and Road Initiative has drawn attention to China's strategic investments and growing political bonds with Caribbean island nations. Critics suggest that the United States can ill afford to lose geopolitical maneuvering space to China in a region where the United States is the main trade partner and longtime stalwart. Sadly, the United States has ignored the Caribbean at its doorstep, which has opened opportunities for stronger Caribbean-China relations that in turn greatly risk environmental, climate, and sustainability goals in the region. Emerging from the pandemic, these countries are economically vulnerable, potentially making China-led infrastructure projects—poor environmental standards and all—more appealing. In its investment in the Caribbean, China is focusing on trade, infrastructure projects, cheap, often opaque loans to regional governments, and the purchase of fossil fuels or other raw materials on a small but growing scale. The recent China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Joint Action Plan for 2022-2024 laid out Beijing's plans to expand cooperation over a broader range of areas, including defense, finance, trade, public health, and cultural exchanges. From 2005-2020 it is estimated that China has financed energy and infrastructure projects in the Caribbean islands in excess of $7 billion. This is not a small sum and yet it is a small echo of China's investments in neighboring Latin American countries. Because Caribbean investment is often lumped in with all of Latin America, it is easy to overlook environmental risks of the projects shaping and reshaping these small island economies and their natural environments. A lack of international compliance mechanisms to hold Chinese activities to appropriate environmental standards make it difficult to ensure that investors are complying with proper regulations, creating transnational challenges for energy and climate issues. Increased investment, increased environmental concernWhile mostly welcomed by Caribbean leaders, some international observers voice growing environmental concerns with such activities, given China’s track record in other parts of the world. The Caribbean countries already grapple with extreme climate impacts, land and marine pollution and biodiversity losses, and economic ravages to their "bread-and-butter" tourism sectors due to ongoing pandemic travel restrictions. Many Chinese loans and investment opportunities are primarily aimed at cultivating raw materials while also establishing influence in the host country, much of which comes in the form of mergers and acquisitions. The Caribbean economy is extremely susceptible to economic and political control from foreign investment and highly unregulated projects create a multiplier effect of risks on the environment, industry, society, and culture. Ironically, the urgency for climate resilient investment is increasingly becoming a justification for island nations to accept what China is offering. China's Belt and Road investments have been hitting some bumps in the region.
U.S. diplomacy beneficial to Caribbean environmental sustainabilityAcross the region, these projects have sparked lively public debates between communities negatively impacted and officials and businesses that see them as economically beneficial. Although China has committed to environmentally sustainable infrastructural development in BRI countries, evidence of such efforts is mixed. Weak island nation governance mechanisms make it difficult to ensure that investors are complying with environmental regulations. Where environmental impact legislation remains weak, tension is growing between island governments and local environmental watchdogs. Most recently, China has been pursuing clean energy projects across the Caribbean, including wind farms and solar generation facilities, alongside fossil fuel investments. As it is, the capacity of Caribbean countries to repay Chinese loans may be handicapped by the pandemic, leaving them vulnerable if Beijing should call for their support, be it in the geopolitical realm or in the form of lowering market entry for more trade. Welcoming so much Chinese investment is also causing tensions in U.S.-Caribbean relations. U.S. diplomacy that finger wags to Caribbean allies will do little good. Instead, Caribbean environmental safeguards could be strengthened through the provision of more technical assistance to island governments. This will allow Caribbean countries to better leverage the potential of Chinese investments while mitigating the associated risks. If the United States can provide “carrots” to Caribbean governments while insisting that doing business depends on their observance of transparency, the rule of law, and competent institutions that enforce environmental laws, island leaders will be prompted to reevaluate the risks of accepting Chinese investments that could jeopardize these criteria. The Heritage Foundation suggests that the U.S. Development Finance Corporation is a logical tool for such efforts. The Biden administration recently visited Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama to explore green, climate sensitive private investment opportunities as part of the Build Back Better World. Such investments should extend to Caribbean nations as well. Geopolitically, the United States may do well to monitor China's activities on its Caribbean front doorstep. Kalim Shah, Ph.D. is assistant professor of energy and environmental policy at the Biden School, University of Delaware. He heads the Island Policy Lab and leads the UN Universities Consortium of Small Island States. Erica Chiorazzi is an Affiliate of the UD Island Policy Lab. She received her BA in International Studies and Energy and Environmental Policy from the University of Delaware. Sources: CSIS, Caribbean Investigative Journalism Network, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Congressional Research Service, Journal of Chinese Political Science, Ecological Economics, Energy Policy, Environmental Policy and Governance, Foreign Policy, Global Americans,. The Guardian, Heritage Foundation, Insolvency and Restructuring International, Lawfare, Kaieteur News, National Bureau of Economic Research, The New York Times Stabroek News, Xinhua General News Service. Lead Image Credit: Rainforest destruction from gold mining in Guyana that mirrors similar degradation throughout the regions as roadbuilding and other developments open up more forested areas to mining, courtesy of Kakteen/Shutterstock.com. |
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