Climate
summit under terror’s shadow
The
Paris attacks are reshaping the optics of the international climate
change talks set to kick off there in two weeks.
By ANDREW RESTUCCIA
11/16/15, 1:48 AM CET Updated 11/16/15, 1:56 AM CET
Friday’s deadly
attacks in Paris threaten to cast a shadow on the global climate
summit that’s set to begin in that city two weeks from now —
steering public attention away from the longer-term threat of a
warming planet and rising seas toward the more immediate threat of
ISIL terrorists.
But advocates of a
climate pact say hopes for a consensus at the summit could gain
momentum from the emerging international unity on combating the
Islamic State. And the gathering provides a new platform for
President Barack Obama and other leaders to drive home an argument
that they have been making for years: that climate change itself is a
threat to the world’s peace and security.
Still, pressing the
terror-climate connection poses political risks at home, as was shown
by the Republican derision that greeted Democratic presidential
candidate Bernie Sanders’ statement during Saturday night’s
debate that climate change “is directly related to the growth in
terrorism.”
A raft of studies
backs up the argument that a changing climate can worsen the tensions
that help fuel terrorism and wars, including Pentagon and CIA reports
that found instability from changes in the climate can contribute to
conditions that breed insurgencies. But conservative critics
immediately ridiculed Sanders — with one columnist, Ben Shapiro,
tweeting mockingly that “climate change causes terrorism like a
fish causes a bicycle.”
Obama and dozens of
other world leaders are still scheduled to travel to Paris for the
beginning of the two-week-long talks that start Nov. 30, along with
thousands of activists and observers. They’ll gather at a
conference center in the north of the city, not far from the Stade du
France, where suicide bombers detonated bombs outside a soccer match
attended by French President François Hollande.
On Sunday, Obama and
several of the same world leaders pledged at the G20 summit in
Ankara, Turkey, to step up their pressure on ISIL and take new steps
to cope with the flow of refugees from Syria. But climate advocates
seemed unfazed by the possibility that environmental issues could get
squeezed off the leaders’ priority list.
“The [climate]
talks won’t gain as much attention in the media because it will be
crowded out by other issues. But that’s not what’s most
important,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former climate aide in the Clinton
White House. “The resolve of world leaders is going to be redoubled
to gain an agreement and show that they can deliver for populations
around the world. The likelihood for a successful agreement has only
increased because of these attacks.”
Former U.S. climate
diplomat Nigel Purvis, who now leads the consulting firm Climate
Advisers, agreed. “Nations will be more likely to work closely with
France to produce a constructive outcome,” he said in an email.
While the substance
of the negotiations themselves isn’t likely to be affected by the
attacks in Paris, the attacks will draw more attention to the links
between climate change and terrorism. Activists say Obama has an
unprecedented opportunity to use his trip to Paris to talk about how
drought, desertification, rising seas and other effects of climate
change could destabilize countries and worsen conditions that lead to
radicalism.
Conservatives, on
the other hand, have mocked Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry
for talking about the national security threat posed by climate
change.
Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump blasted Obama’s comments during
a recent television interview about the threat of climate change. “He
said CLIMATE CHANGE is the most important thing, not all of the
current disasters!” Trump tweeted in disbelief. Rival candidate
Mike Huckabee scoffed at the notion earlier this year, saying that “a
beheading is a far greater threat to an American than a sunburn.”
Kerry devoted an
entire speech to the issue of climate change and national security
just three days before the attacks in Paris, saying “because the
world is so extraordinarily interconnected today — economically,
technologically, militarily, in every imaginable way — instability
anywhere can be a threat to stability everywhere.”
Following Friday’s
coordinated attacks in Paris that killed at least 132 people, some
worry that touting the national security threat of climate change may
strike the wrong chord.
“I understand that
it has been, and I assume will continue to be part of the argument
for a climate change deal, but in light of what just happened in
Paris it is going to ring hollow for an awful lot of people. It may
be correct, but it just seems out of touch right now,” said Jim
Manley, a former adviser to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
Indeed, focusing on
the climate security argument could give Republicans an opening to
argue that Democrats are soft on terrorism and have their priorities
mixed up.
“People are
afraid. And it is not of global warming,” said Michael McKenna, a
Republican energy lobbyist. “The Democrats need to start to speak
to that or they will be politically dead.”
Authors:
Andrew Restuccia
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