strategic asia asia s rising power Ashley J. Tellis, Andrew Marble, and Travis Tanner

Transcription

1 strategic asia asia s rising power and America s Continued Purpose Edited by Ashley J. Tellis, Andrew Marble, and Travis Tanner Environment Climate Change and Environmental Impact Richard A. Matthew restrictions on use: This PDF is provided for the use of authorized recipients only. For specific terms of use, please contact <publications@nbr.org>. To purchase the print volume Strategic Asia : Asia s Rising Power and America s Continued Purpose, in which this chapter appears, please visit < or contact <orders@nbr.org>.

2 executive summary This chapter focuses on the real and potential impacts of climate change in Asia. main argument: Climate change models predict significant climate effects throughout the region. Dry areas will become drier and wet areas will become wetter. Coastal storms will increase in frequency and intensity. The monsoon may transform in dramatic ways. This situation is driven by many factors, including rapid population growth, urbanization, and economic growth. The likely social impacts of climate change include challenges to public health, increased population movement, diminishing state capacity, obstacles to development, and environmental damage. In this context, the potential for violent conflict ranging from riots to war is real, although there are also considerable opportunities for cooperation. In particular, with China s acknowledgment of the seriousness of climate change and its emergence as the world s leading investor in clean energy, the U.S. should deepen engagement in the region on climate change and related issues. policy implications: Take a leadership position on mitigating climate change and urge China to do the same. Develop a better understanding of the region by encouraging study abroad and similar programs. Fund research collaboration in China and throughout Asia. Rethink regional dynamics and consider the impact that activity at this level will have at the local level. Step up regional diplomacy there are many stresses that need to be reduced. Help create a global humanitarian response capability.

3 Environment Climate Change and Environmental Impact Richard A. Matthew Since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) in 2007, climate change has been widely acknowledged as a phenomenon likely to have a significant and perhaps decisive impact on the prospects for development and security worldwide for many decades. The overall picture is quite alarming for Asia, as climate change models predict significant effects throughout the region. While many factors will play a role in determining regional and local impacts, and planning will need to take place in the context of high levels of uncertainty, dry areas will tend to become drier and wet areas will tend to become wetter. Coastal storms will increase in frequency and become more intense. Disease curtains will migrate northward and southward from the equator. India and China may face unprecedented levels of water scarcity, while low-lying areas such as Bangladesh will face unprecedented levels of flooding. The timing and intensity of the monsoon, which is the single most important weather process in Asia, are likely to change, although the precise character of this transformation is not yet known. It is possible that weather patterns that are vital to the predominantly agricultural economy of much of Asia, such as the beginning of the rainy season, will become harder to predict in the decades ahead. In the following seven sections, this chapter will provide a snapshot of the climate change situation in Asia today; examine the demographic, economic, and other factors underlying this snapshot; consider the likely Richard A. Matthew is Founding Director of the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs and an Associate Professor of International and Environmental Politics at the University of California Irvine. He can be reached at <rmatthew@uci.edu>.

4 206 Strategic Asia and possible social effects of climate change within and outside Asia; explore the potential for conflict and cooperation around this issue; consider the potential for surprises in this area; and conclude with a discussion of the implications of climate change in Asia for the United States. The principal argument that emerges from this analysis can be summarized in three statements. First, poverty, geography, and demographics have combined to make much of Asia highly vulnerable to climate change, especially to drought and flooding. Second, the social effects of climate change could be disastrous massive population displacement, chronic and rising famine, vast and aggressive health challenges, and diverse forms of misery and violence as communities struggle to survive. Finally, though this worstcase scenario is in no sense assured, it is an important benchmark for policymaking and provides a strong basis for recommending a deepening and expansion of U.S. engagement on climate change mitigation and adaptation throughout the region. Overview of Climate Change In very simple terms, climate change refers to an enduring change in the statistical characteristics of weather. A hot year is not climate change; a trend of global warming over decades or centuries is. Based on weather data extending back hundreds of thousands of years, scientists have concluded that we are living in a period in which the weather patterns that characterized past millennia are changing dramatically. 1 Specifically, since approximately 1850, the average temperature of the world has increased by one degree centigrade. This is scarcely the first time this has happened. As is made clear in numerous studies, the earth has been subjected to dramatic climate change since it was formed some 4.5 billion years ago. Variables that have caused climate change in the past include the intensification of solar energy, the shifting of tectonic plates into new latitudes, changes in the earth s orbit that affect the distribution of solar energy on the earth s surface, and intense volcanic activity. 2 Contemporary research suggests that none of these variables can explain current climate change, and scientists studying this issue since at least 1896 have identified and recently confirmed a new climate-forcing agent industrialized human activity. Industrialization affects global climate through a range of factors including fossil fuel 1 S. Solomon et al., eds., The Physical Science Basis: Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 2 Edward O. Wilson, The Diversity of Life (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999).

5 Matthew Environment 207 emissions, aerosol use, and the dramatic reduction of natural carbon storage areas such as forests. 3 It is worth noting that while the IPCC reports demonstrate strong scientific support for anthropogenic climate change, many people remain unconvinced by this claim. Although there are few skeptics within the scientific community, opinion polls show that throughout the world the general public is deeply divided on this issue. For example, a 2010 Populus poll in the United Kingdom showed skepticism rising, with only 26% of the public convinced that climate change was both real and caused by human behavior. 4 The concerns of climate skeptics can be organized into several categories: Concerns that climate change is not happening but has been fabricated by liberals and radicals to advance the hidden agenda of wealth redistribution Concerns that models are imperfect because they do not adequately take into account important variables such as cloud formation Concerns that climate change is real but there are alternative explanations for it that have not been adequately disproven, such as solar variation Concerns that while climate change may be real, the social impacts receiving attention are largely speculative and discount the possibility that impacts will be, on balance, positive, opening access to resources in the north and south and expanding growing seasons in large parts of the world such as Australia, Canada, and Russia Concerns that mitigation will impose higher costs than simply allowing societies to gradually adapt in response to market signals Extensive consideration by climate experts suggests that these concerns tend to be nonscientific or highly selective in their use of science. Although there are some valid points raised about uncertainty, especially with regard to social effects, and though the possibility of a more robust alternative 3 Spencer Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming: Revised and Expanded Edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008). 4 Climate Skepticism On the Rise, BBC Poll Shows, BBC News, February 7, co.uk/2/hi/ stm.