Climate Change Threatens US Influence

Security experts say a modern Marshall Plan of aid for the Asia-Pacific region is needed to protect US strategic and economic interests from climate-related challenges.

Two American security experts say the Asia-Pacific region needs massive international aid to tackle its greatest problem − climate change.

And they fear that without a huge outlay on development, diplomacy and defense, the US claim to global leadership may be challenged.

In a report they edited for the Centre for Climate and Security (CCS), Caitlin Werrell and Francesco Femia say the region needs a new version of the Marshall Plan, the visionary scheme that helped to rebuild western Europe after the second world war.

The US contributed $13 billion (worth about $130 bn today) to that Plan, which was an international package of development assistance to help European economies, beginning in 1947 and running for four years.

The CCS report starts with a foreword by the former US Pacific commander, retired admiral Samuel J Locklear III, who says climate change “may prove to be Asia-Pacific’s greatest long-term challenge”, with “potentially catastrophic security implications”.

Political tensions
Werrell and Femia say the US has “a new strategic focus on the Asia-Pacific: a rising China; rapid economic and population growth; the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials (five of the world’s nuclear powers are in the Indo-Asia-Pacific); increased economic activity and political tensions in the South China Sea; military build-ups (the area has seven of the world’s 10 largest standing militaries); and the opening of previously impassable sea lanes by a melting Arctic”.

They see a clear military imperative for Washington to act.  They believe nations in the region may be tempted to “accept the reality of a regionally dominant China, and the economic and political consequences of that reality . . . More robustly addressing the region’s climate challenges offers the US an opportunity to enhance its regional influence.”

They also recognise a strong humanitarian argument.  Some nations in the region, they say, which have traditionally had quite a difficult relationship with Washington, are also very vulnerable to natural disasters.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction says: “The Asia-Pacific region is the most disaster-prone area of the world and it is also the most seriously affected one.  Almost two million people were killed in disasters between 1970 and 2011, representing 75% of all disaster fatalities globally.”

Werrell and Femia say climate change will significantly multiply this vulnerability, leaving the region facing food shortages, water crises, catastrophic flooding, greater frequency and intensity of hydro-meteorological disasters, refugee movements, and increased public health problems.

Read more at Climate Change Threatens US Influence