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Scarcity, Climate, Population, and Natural Resources
Integrated Analysis for Development and Security Policymakers
›Development, population, security, scarcity, climate, and natural resources: Increasingly, policymakers are realizing that the issues in this laundry list are inextricably linked. But how do policymakers break out of their institutional stovepipes to address these connections in an integrated way?
In an event hosted by the Environmental Change and Security Program on September 2, 2010, Alex Evans of New York University and Global Dashboard and Mathew Burrows of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) focused on the current state of integrated scarcity issues in the policymaking world.
A Developing Problem
“Why should we be worried with scarcity issues in the first place?” asked Evans. The crux of the problem, he said, is that people are simply consuming more across the board – particularly more energy, water, and food. In addition to general population growth, higher demand is driven by an expanding global middle class that is shifting to more Western-style diets and consuming more energy.
Globally, demand in key resources is outpacing supply:
You can’t address one of these scarcity issues without affecting another, argued Evans. In Haiti, for example, deforestation led to soil loss and erosion, thus degrading agricultural land. Deforestation also changed the country’s precipitation patterns. Together, these effects reduced food supplies even before the earthquake. Today, the UN estimates that more than 2.4 million people in Haiti are food-insecure.- Demand for oil is rising by a percentage point each year, and the International Energy Association has warned that investment is not keeping up;
- Demand for water will increase 32 percent by 2025, but one of the first impacts of climate change is expected to be less available water; and
- Demand for food will increase 50 percent by 2030, but food supplies are only growing by one percent annually.
Evans recommended that these concerns be better integrated into current development and aid efforts, focusing on five areas:
A New International System- Establishing land tenure and renewable resources;
- Exploring the overlaps between resilience and peacebuilding;
- Empowering women and stabilizing population growth;
- Improving agricultural investment; and
- Increasing general investment in the energy sector.
In addition to the physical dangers of scarcity, Evans pointed out that the perception of scarcity can drive what he sees as dangerous behavioral dynamics such as protectionism.
“Look at the way 30-plus countries slapped export restrictions on their exports of food in 2008,” said Evans. “It’s perceptions of scarcity driving irrational behavior, it’s fertile ground for panic and we need to factor that into our policymaking.” He called for a mechanism similar to NAFTA, which restricts sudden price changes, to help the global trade system become more resilient to changes in energy and food supplies.
Burrows pointed out that a big reason for the rising disparity between food, water, and energy demand and supply is the large “middle class” of emerging powers. “You are seeing this phenomenal change going on on the resource side, but at the same time, the international system is in great flux,” he said.
Scarcity will also affect the international legal system as well. “Of the world’s 263 transboundary river systems, 158 lack any kind of cooperative management framework,” said Evans, asking if they could be peacefully managed during times of scarcity. He offered another example: How will the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea handle coastlines that change with the climate? “We haven’t really begun to ‘stress test’ existing legal infrastructure, to look for these kinds of instances,” said Evans.
The biggest elephant in the “international room,” however, is how to settle the issue of carbon sharing, without which there can be little global cooperation on these issues that does not end in a zero-sum game, Evans said:For me the jury is still very much out on whether there are limits on growth per se, as a result of scarcity – I’m not convinced of that yet. But I think it is clear that there are obviously limits to how much carbon we can put in the atmosphere, how much oil there is, how much land and water is available, and so on. We can do a huge amount with efficiencies and new technologies, but I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think that efficiencies and new technologies get us off the hook all together from having to face up to the distributional questions, the questions of fair shares that arise in a world of limits.
Is Integrated Policymaking Possible?
Government has come a long way towards addressing scarcity, said Burrows, but serious structural issues remain because there are too many established, vested interests at stake. Often, the tactical takes priority over the strategic: “A lot of these issues, by their very nature, are long-range in character,” he said. “In my experience there are more policymakers that are simply focused on the tactical [and] fewer that take these longer-range perspectives.” In addition, he pointed out that the divide between government and the scientific community continues to impede policymakers’ understanding of the technological options available.
On the positive side, Burrows highlighted improved work by government planning offices, particularly in the intelligence community and the military. “If you compare Global Trends 2020 and Global Trends 2025…you’ll see a huge difference in terms of how we dealt with climate change, environment, and the resource issues,” said Burrows of the NIC’s reports. He said that the intelligence community is performing more long-range analyses, and that other countries like China are now starting similar global trends analyses.
Despite the silo problem, the best solution may not be in creating new government agencies and closing down others, said Evans. “I think instead perhaps we need to see the challenge as more creating shared awareness, common analysis; a common sense of objectives among existing institutional configurations. I think we may find we get better rates of return on that,” he said.
While U.S. and other governments are only beginning to grasp these issues, Burrows praised NGOs and think tanks, which “have played such a big part… in creating those sorts of networks and inter-relationships” that have raised the profile of scarcity issues.
While the political space for dealing with these issues is not there yet, Evans argued that it will eventually emerge – most likely after some kind of shock, because “after sudden-onset crises, people are often, for a short time, prepared to think the unthinkable.”
An adequate response requires readying integrated approaches to address the integrated problem of scarcity. “It’s necessary to have the solutions, so when the crisis hits, you can have some action, and I think we are doing that legwork,” said Burrows.
Sources: International Energy Agency, MSNBC, UN. -
Weather as a Weapon: The Troubling History of Geoengineering So Far
›September 27, 2010 // By Wilson Center StaffExcerpted from the original version of this article on Slate, by James Fleming.
Is there a technological fix for global warming? Where would we put a “planetary thermostat,” and who would control the settings? The long and tragicomic history of fixing the sky — of rainmakers, rain fakers, weather warriors, and climate engineers — indicates that such ideas are far-fetched. Dosing the stratosphere with sulfuric acid to turn the blue sky milky-white does not sound like a good idea. Neither does dumping an iron slurry into the oceans to fill them with algae and turn them soupy-green. A global forest of artificial trees? Storing massive amounts of carbon dioxide under our feet forever? A flotilla of ships pumping seawater into the clouds? Unlikely, unlikely, unlikely.
Global climate engineering is untested and untestable, and dangerous beyond belief. The famous mathematician and computer pioneer John von Neumann warned against it in 1955. Responding to U.S. fantasies about weaponizing the weather and Soviet proposals to modify the Arctic and rehydrate Siberia, he expressed concern over “rather fantastic effects” on a scale difficult to imagine and impossible to predict. Tinkering with the Earth’s heat budget or the atmosphere’s general circulation, he claimed, “will merge each nation’s affairs with those of every other more thoroughly than the threat of a nuclear or any other war may already have done.” In his opinion, attempts at weather and climate control could disrupt natural and social relations and produce forms of warfare as yet unimagined. It could alter the entire globe and shatter the existing political order.
Continue reading on Slate.
James Fleming is an environmental historian and Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Colby College. ECSP and the Wilson Center will be hosting the launch of his new book, Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control, on October 6, 2010.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “Lever du jour,” courtesy of flickr user Solea20. -
Latin America’s Future: Emerging Trends in Economic Growth and Environmental Protection
›Economic development and environmental sustainability in Latin America and the Caribbean are intrinsically connected, as evidenced by a seminar this summer organized by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Brazil Institute (on behalf of the Latin American Program), and co-sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The seminar — the culmination of six workshops and a regional meeting in Panama — presented the new Wilson Center report Emerging Trends in Environment and Economic Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean (also available in Portuguese and Spanish), which identifies key trends likely to shape the economy and natural environment in Latin America and the Caribbean over the next 10 years.
Janet Ballantyne, acting deputy assistant administrator of USAID’s Latin America and the Caribbean Bureau, stated that Latin America is “not our backyard, it’s our front yard.” It’s time that we “open the front door,” she claimed, and address the issues facing Latin America — issues that have long-term consequences for not only the region, but the United States and the world as well.
A Broad Range of Challenges
Christine Pendzich, principal author of the report and technical adviser on climate change and clean energy to USAID, covered the five interrelated economic and environmental trends that the report discusses: climate change, clean energy, indigenous and minority issues, challenges facing small economies, and urban issues. To capitalize on the Latin American demographic transition that will soon result in a large number of working age adults, Pendzich argued that the region needs to increase skilled job creation, educate workers to fill those positions, and maintain economic stability. She also declared that recent climate change trends are a “game changer,” which can fundamentally alter development paths.
While closer economic ties with China have contributed to Latin America’s above-average recovery from the global economic downturn, Pendzich argued that this economic relationship could add to the social and environmental problems facing the region. She added that insufficient innovation could lead to the continuation of the region’s dependence on commodity exports, while also noting that the inadequate economic integration and educational opportunities for indigenous and minority groups “drags everyone down.”
In terms of the regional economic trends, Eric Olson, co-author of the report and senior associate of the Mexico Institute, highlighted six challenges and opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean. Olson claimed that the recovery of the global economy will hurt net importers of fossil fuels, especially in Central America and the Caribbean; have a negative impact on the environment; increase natural resource exploitation that may exacerbate inequality and social conflict; increase demand for primary products that will decrease the incentive to diversify Latin American economies; provide opportunities to promote environmentally friendly growth; and allow for increased utilization of existing trade benefits and intra- and sub-regional trade opportunities.
Recognizing the Need for an Integrated Response
Three of the 77 participants involved in the formation of the report explored in greater depth what Geoffrey Dabelko with the Environmental Change and Security Program described as the “integration and interconnectivity” of the five trends discussed in the report. Blair Ruble, chair of the Comparative Urban Studies Project, noted that with 78 percent of the Latin American population living in urban areas, “cities and urban life create a context in which there are opportunities for solutions to problems,” opportunities that can be used to further innovation, encourage social equality, and promote good governance.
Meanwhile, working with rural indigenous communities and minority groups can also provide valuable opportunities for change, specifically in the area of climate change, according to Judith Morrison, senior adviser at the Inter-American Development Bank’s Gender and Diversity Unit. Morrison argued that indigenous populations are the ones most affected by climate change, but also the most able to improve environmental stewardship as a result of their unique knowledge of the local geography.
Maria Carmen Lemos, associate professor at the University of Michigan, highlighted that vulnerability to climate change depends on two sets of factors: geographical location and socioeconomic factors. As a result, Lemos asserted that climate-change adaption measures must focus on poverty reduction as well as the vulnerability of specific geographic locations.
Julie L. Kunen, senior adviser to the Bureau of Policy, Planning, and Learning at USAID, applauded the report for its cross-trend analysis and called the development community to work together to address these trends in the Latin American and Caribbean region. The next step, Kunen claimed, must be to develop an ambitious strategy and “convene everyone who cares about the issues and rally them around the agenda.”
Elizabeth Pierson is an intern with the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Photo Credit: “The River Runs Through the Andes,” courtesy of flickr user Stuck in Customs. -
U.S. v. China: The Global Battle for Hearts, Minds, and Resources
›September 22, 2010 // By Schuyler NullThis summer, Secretary Clinton gave a speech at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Hanoi that Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi called “in effect an attack on China.” What did Clinton say that prompted such a direct response? She called for negotiations over the rights to resource extraction in the South China Sea to be multilateral rather than bilateral:
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A Blueprint for Action on the U.S.-Mexico Border
›September 17, 2010 // By Robert DonnellyAt the U.S.-Mexico border, environmental degradation is a chief concern affecting both countries’ shared watersheds, “airsheds,” and greater ecosystems. At the same time, continuing population stresses in the U.S. Southwest are further aggravating the area’s perennially acute water needs, while climate change is threatening to make the region even hotter and drier.
Compounding these ecological challenges and their consequent health risks is the fact that the poverty on both sides of the border appears largely intractable, at least in the short-to-medium term. Yet the region and its shared challenges also present unique opportunities for enhanced U.S.-Mexico collaboration, particularly in the areas of joint environmental management, cross-border emergency response, and renewable energy development.
Earlier this summer, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute looked to address these challenges and opportunities by co-sponsoring an event with the Good Neighbor Environmental Board (GNEB), an independent federal advisory committee (coordinated by the Environmental Protection Agency) that advises the U.S. government on border environmental practices. The event revolved around the release of the board’s new report, A Blueprint for Action on the U.S.-Mexico Border.
Initiatives Show Promise
Chief among the report’s 63 policy recommendations is the need for better coordination among and between federal, state, and local agencies at the border. GNEB Chair Paul Ganster cited the report’s support of a transboundary environmental impact assessment (TEIA) process “to address transnational (environmental) impacts, and encourage transborder cooperation on environmental infrastructure projects.” The report suggests that the trilateral Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC)—comprising Mexico, Canada, and the United States—“explore such an agreement.”
Ganster added that U.S. border communities require dedicated focus from the government in ways that non-border communities might not because of their unique and poverty-aggravated environmental challenges.
Michelle DePass, an assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of International and Tribal Affairs, said that the board’s findings would be used in the search for solutions to border-region environmental challenges. She acknowledged recent advances in tackling such challenges, such as EPA-coordinated efforts to reduce the serious environmental threat posed by heaps of tires scattered throughout the region.
DePass also described the EPA’s U.S.-Mexico Environmental Program, known as Border 2012, highlighting its successful involvement in efforts to clean up the Metales y Derivados industrial waste site in Baja California.
Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said that the border region is poised to become part of a “clean energy revolution” because of its supply of renewable resources. She lauded the report for encouraging clean-energy collaboration with Mexico, and said the report’s recommendations have a special significance because they are issued by individuals who actually live and work in the border region.
Bilateral collaboration is necessary to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change and to resolve shared environmental problems at the border, said Enrique Escorza, an official with the Political Affairs Section of the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C. Escorza said the need for collaboration has finally eclipsed prior impediments, such as concerns about violations of national sovereignty.
“The border throws us together,” Escorza said, adding that Mexico has a new understanding about shared resources. “It’s not about ‘our’ water,” he declared. “It’s about shared watersheds and our working as partners.”
A Federal, State, and Local Stakeholder Perspective
Duncan Wood, acting chair of the Department of International Relations at the Instituto Tecnólogico Autónomo de México (ITAM), noted that the border region presents enormous opportunities in the area of renewable energy investment. The border is a unique region, he added, since ecosystems overlap rather than respect national boundaries. He drew linkages between the report’s policy options for improving the border and two pillars of U.S.-Mexico security cooperation policy: the development of a 21st century border where security and trade concerns complement one another, and the construction of resilient border communities.
Russell Frisbie, the Washington liaison for the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), and John Wood, a county commissioner in Cameron County, Texas, both discussed the need for a bilateral federal-to-federal memorandum of understanding on cross-border emergency-management response. The development of such a protocol could help first responders in both countries more easily cross the border to provide relief in the event of natural disasters, such as floods or wildfires.
Allyson Siwik, executive director with New Mexico’s Gila Resources Information Project, seconded the report’s recommendation for a successful Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program, which would, according to the GNEB report, “scientifically characterize aquifers that underlie the international boundary and encourage other efforts to improve data gathering and accessibility for border water resources, such as harmonization of standards.” Ann Marie A. Wolf, president of the Sonora Environmental Research Institute (Arizona), called for upgrades to water and wastewater systems in border sister cities, some of which suffer regular overflows from flooding.
Siwik also stressed an ongoing need to assess the environmental impact of security fencing along the border, which Wood said prevented the natural movement of animal species, while not effectively deterring unauthorized migration.
Robert Donnelly is a program associate with the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Photo credit: “U.S.-Mexico border fence at Nogales, Arizona,” courtesy of flickr user jim.greenhill. -
New World Bank Report on Land Grabs Is a Dud
›After months of delays and false starts, and a tantalizing partial leak to the Financial Times earlier this summer, the much-ballyhooed World Bank report on large-scale land acquisitions has finally arrived.
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The Dead Sea: A Pathway to Peace for Israel and Jordan?
›September 7, 2010 // By Russell SticklorThe Middle East is home to some of the fastest growing, most resource-scarce, and conflict-affected countries in the world. New Security Beat’s “Middle East at the Crossroads” series takes a look at the most challenging population, health, environment, and security issues facing the region.
Amidst the start of a new round of Middle East peace negotiations, the fate of the Dead Sea — which is divided between Israel, Jordan, and the West Bank — may not seem particularly relevant. But unlike the perpetually thorny political issues of Israeli settlement policy and Palestinian statehood, the Dead’s continuing environmental decline has sparked rare consensus in a region beset by conflict. Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians all agree that something must be done. The much more difficult question, however, is what. But no one is lacking for ideas.Who Stole the Dead’s Water?
Some 1,400 feet below sea level, the shoreline of the Dead Sea lies at the lowest dry point on the planet. Since the 1970s, this ancient inland saltwater sea has been changing, and fast, with the water level dropping at a rate of three feet per year. The region’s stifling heat and attendant high evaporation rates have certainly played their part. But the real culprits are irrigated agriculture and household water demand, spurred by population growth, which have siphoned off much of the precious little water that once flowed into the sea.
Historically, the Jordan River and its tributaries have contributed roughly 75 percent of the Dead’s annual inflow, or about 1.3 billion cubic meters per year. Even though the Jordan isn’t a large river system, it is an economic lifeline in this parched region. The basin’s waters have been tapped to the point of exhaustion by businesses, farms, and households in Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, and, father afield, Syria and Lebanon. With the cumulative population of those areas projected to increase by 68 percent between now and 2050 (or from 44.9 million today to 75.4 million by mid-century), strain on the region’s water supply will only increase with each passing year.
Already, the Jordan and its tributaries are far worse for the wear. Pollution is an ongoing concern thanks to untreated wastewater entering the river system, while a sprawling network of dams and other irrigation diversions to “make the desert bloom” has carried with it a hefty environmental price tag. The Jordan now delivers a scant 100 million cubic meters to the Dead each year, with up to 50 percent of that flow likely contaminated by raw sewage due to inadequate wastewater treatment upstream.
Meanwhile, water depletion rates in the Dead have been exacerbated by mineral-extraction companies on the sea’s southern reaches, which rely heavily on evaporation ponds to remove valuable minerals from the saltwater.
Tapping the Red
Attempts to internationalize the environmental dilemmas facing the greater Dead Sea region range from a proposed transborder “peace park” in the Jordan River valley to a global, internet-driven campaign to vote the Dead Sea as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. But by far the most ambitious — and controversial — idea for restoring the Dead Sea’s health is to build a 186-mile canal to bring in water from the Red Sea.
The plan has been around for decades, but has not gotten off the drawing board due to its large scale and costs. The project’s centerpiece would be a waterway built through the Arava Desert Valley along the Israeli-Jordanian border. Proponents on both sides of the border say the canal could help raise the Dead’s surface level, helping restore the area’s struggling ecosystems. And given the canal’s substantial elevation drop from sea level to shoreline, its waters could likely be harnessed for hydroelectricity, powering desalination plants that would provide new fresh water for the region.
The project could also harness cross-border environmental issues to transcend long-standing political and religious divisions between the region’s Jewish and Arab populations. “People are saying that water will cause wars,Dr. Hazim el-Naser in a 2002 interview on the canal project, when he served as Jordanian minister of water and irrigation. “We in the region, we’re saying, ‘No.’ Water will enhance cooperation. We can build peace through water projects.” Currently, the canal proposal is the subject of a World Bank feasibility study expected to be completed in 2011.
Deep Skepticism Remains
Still, as diplomatically and environmentally promising as a Red-Dead canal may seem, not everyone is on board with the proposed project. Environmentalists’ concerns run the gamut from unintended ecological impacts on the Dead Sea’s delicate chemical composition, to a sense that, even after decades of on-and-off consideration, the project is being pushed at the expense of other possible policy options.
The New Security Beat recently contacted Mira Edelstein of the international environmental nonprofit Friends of the Earth Middle East via email to discuss some of the group’s concerns about the canal. Edelstein highlighted some of the potential pitfalls of — and alternatives to — a canal link to the Dead:
New Security Beat: How have population growth and the corresponding rise in food demand in Israel, Jordan, and the West Bank affected the Dead Sea’s health?Mira Edelstein: The Jordanian and Israeli agricultural sectors still enjoy subsidized water tariffs, making it easy to continue growing water-intensive crops. But this depletes flows in the lower Jordan River system, and directly impacts the Dead Sea.
NSB: Why is your organization opposed to the idea of a Red-Dead canal link?ME: Friends of the Earth Middle East does not support a Red Sea link, as this option carries the risk of irreparable damage. We believe that this option will not only damage the Dead Sea itself — where the mixing of waters from two different seas will surely impact the chemical balance that makes the Dead Sea so unique — but also because we are worried that pumping such an enormous amount of water from the Gulf of Aqaba will likely harm the coral reefs in the Red Sea itself.
NSB: What steps do you propose to improve environmental conditions in the Dead Sea and the Jordan River valley?
Additionally, the Arava Desert Valley, where the pipes will be laid, is a seismically active region. Any small earthquake might damage the pipes, causing seawater to spill and polluting underground freshwater aquifers.ME: It all has to do with the water policies in the region. The governments [of Israel, Jordan, and the West Bank] desperately need to reform our unsustainable policies, and at the top of this list is agriculture. This means removing water subsidies and changing over from water-intensive crops to more sustainable crops appropriate for the local environment.
Sources: Friends of the Earth Middle East, Israel Marine Data Center, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Geographic, the New York Times, Population Reference Bureau, United Nations, Washington Post, Waternet, the World Bank.
In addition, wastewater treatment plants need to be built throughout all of the Jordan valley region so that only treated wastewater is used for agriculture. Some of that treated water, and of course fresh water, should be brought back into the Jordan River system that will later flow into the Dead Sea…In addition, ecotourism projects should be encouraged, as they are an economic stimulus that can help support greater environmental conversation in the region.
Photo Credit: “Dead Sea Reflection,” looking east across the Dead Sea to the Jordanian shore, courtesy of flickr user Mr. Kris. -
Historic Floods Plague Pakistan
›August 19, 2010 // By Shawna Cuan“Staggered by the scale of destruction from this summer’s catastrophic floods, Pakistani officials have begun to acknowledge that the country’s security could be gravely affected,” reports the Washington Post. The Pakistani government – already cash-strapped between fighting “the war on terror” and trying to prevent an economic collapse – now faces recovering from the worst flooding in over 80 years.
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