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American Government Capability and Responses

Climate change and its impacts will stress the U.S. government's ability to respond at home and abroad.

Climate change will affect human life and security. Because it is unlikely that even concerted action will wholly prevent all negative climate change consequences, the United States will need to take steps to mitigate the effects. As a result, we must consider how well prepared the United States is to deal with some of the predicted security ramifications of climate change such as humanitarian emergencies, military conflict, and the spread of disease.

Climate change will increase global poverty and cause humanitarian emergencies. The United States will need to fund a generous program of foreign assistance. U.S. capacity to alleviate global poverty is at a low ebb. The U.S. Agency for International Development shed a great deal of expertise over the past two decades, and now serves largely as a contracting instrument rather than an effective instrument of U.S. policy. Furthermore, even with increases in foreign assistance under President George W. Bush, American foreign assistance has been declining as a percentage of GDP for nearly 50 years.²⁰ Increasing poverty will mean a higher likelihood of famine, economic migration, and conflict.

According to current predictions, climate change will also lead to an increase in communicable diseases including malaria and dengue fever, and, indirectly -- due to human migrations -- HIV/AIDS. As a result, the United States will need to focus on efforts to eradicate and contain these diseases abroad as well as establish effective monitoring and rapid response measures at home. In 2002, the World Health Organization documented the effects of climate change on global health. The authors examined ten major risks, including: temperature extremes; weather disasters; disease vectors; food- and water-borne illnesses; smaller harvests; diseases affecting plants and animals; fresh-water scarcity; air pollution; and armed conflict. These developments -- essentially climate change and its effects -- were responsible for 2.4% of the world's cases of diarrhea, 6% of malaria cases in some middle-income countries, and 7% of the cases of dengue fever in some industrialized countries.²¹ By one estimate, climate change contributes to 300,000 deaths annually.²² Under President Bush, the United States dramatically increased global health expenditures, notably under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI).²³ These expenditures will need to continue to increase in the future.

Potential Water Conflicts

The Indus River system, originating in India and running through Kashmir into Pakistan, is shared through the Indus River Treaty. The treaty has thus far survived two wars between the nations; but increased irrigation needs, allegations that India is misappropriating water, continued low-level conflict in the area, and the melting of the Siachen Glacier (the source of the river system) due to climate change, threaten the agreement and peace in the region.

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Few water agreements that govern the division of surface and groundwater resources in the Middle East region exist. The majority of countries have significant populations highly dependent on agriculture and desperate for scarce water. Access to water resources continues to play a large role in territorial disputes including the Golan Heights and the Palestinian Territories.

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The Nile Basin is shared between ten African countries with Egypt dominating water usage. Allocation of the water resources continues to be a contentious issue dealt with for the most part successfully under the Nile Basin Initiative. Egypt has in the past indicated that it was willing to use force to guarantee its access to the Nile--a growing concern as populations continue to rise in the area.

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The Zambezi river basin and river system is severely exploited. Disputes within and between the countries bordering the river will likely escalate as farmers intensify irrigation, national governments institute water transfers from the river to distant areas with drought, individual countries go through with plans for wide-scale water withdrawal, and conflicts over areas of land continue.

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Although Thailand and Laos share the bulk of the Mekong River Basin, China is able to strongly influence distribution of water resources due to its political clout and geographic position upstream. Countries diverging interests in the river including cheap hydropower, fisheries, and irrigation for agriculture are mediated by the Mekong River Commission, without China's participation. China continues to build dams increasing the rate of environmental degradation and putting the livelihoods of countries downriver at stake.

The U.S. government will also need to take a leadership role in establishing principles for the equitable sharing of increasingly scarce resources -- particularly water -- beginning in North America.²⁴ Establishing a North American water agreement may require a contentious revision of the 1922 Colorado River Compact, but doing so would show the world that the United States is working seriously to alleviate the worst impacts of climate change -- despite domestic political pressure.²⁵ Such an agreement would also serve as a useful model to the world of how states can peacefully negotiate sustainable solutions to the impacts of climate change.

In order to cope with these and other consequences of climate change, the US military will need the ability to respond to famines, epidemics, interstate conflict, mass migrations, and resource scarcity. While the United States military already has significant capacity for humanitarian intervention, our allies have lagged in developing similar capabilities.²⁶

Nonetheless, with US forces committed to a large, openended deployment to Afghanistan, it seems unlikely that the United States will be in a position to respond quickly to any but the most extreme crises. Darfur, for instance, has languished in the shadow of Iraq and Afghanistan. There is little reason to assume that the United States will be able or willing to do more in the future than it has done there. American leaders will face a multitude of tough choices as climate-induced national security threats begin to compete with and crowd out our ability to respond to traditional threats such as terrorism, rogue states, and the rise of peer competitors.

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