Archive for the ‘Climate Change’ Category
Climate Change as a Security Metric
As the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Denmark approaches the debate about climate change will bounce to the front of the global agenda. From a security perspective much attention will be given to the potential for protesters to make some kind of statement, even though 2009 has been the year when street activism has notably failed to adapt, or score any success. Beyond the tactical security concerns of the event itself the real rallying cry should be the need to embrace climate change as a security metric. The CIA has recently opened a climate change center to examine the national security implications of climate change and this work can be replicated at a corporate and non-governmental level.
There is a wealth of information available relating to climate change, what isn’t available is local or individualized synthesis to make sense of this data for an organization. The terms, ‘increased resource competition’, ‘water scarcity’, ‘extreme weather events’ and ‘coastal flooding’ are all in the popular consciousness– but what would all this mean for governments, companies or individuals? Given the interconnected nature of environmental systems this is tough analytical work but increasingly looks highly necessary especially when considered projects with longer time horizons. Read the rest of this entry »
