Environment & Climate Change

16 Items

3rd Marine Division in Vietnam in 1968

U.S. Military Photograph, DOD Media

Analysis & Opinions - PRI's The World

The Stuff of Life and Death: Part II

May 04, 2021

At one point in human history, water’s importance in war went beyond bearing convoys, hiding submarines, and slaking soldiers’ thirst. Water was often itself a weapon. In areas where it was scarce, armies took action to make it scarcer to force besieged enemy cities to capitulate, and in areas where it was abundant, combatants destroyed dams and watched the resulting floods carry their adversaries away. Today, however, most combatants recoil at the use of water as a weapon, and only the most depraved deploy it.

French soldiers paddling from house to house in an inundated western front village searching for food in France on June 7, 1940. The French voluntarily flooded the village in an attempt to hold up the blitzkrieging German army.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Water and Warfare: The Evolution and Operation of the Water Taboo

    Author:
  • Charlotte Grech-Madin
| Spring 2021

Since the end of World War II, nation-states in international conflict have made concerted efforts to restrain the weaponization of water. Distinct from realist and rationalist explanations, the historical record reveals the rise of an international normative inhibition—a “water taboo”—on using water as a weapon.

Arctic Circle Assembly Logo

Benn Craig/Belfer Center

Announcement - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Apply to Be an Arctic Innovator Delegate

| Aug. 27, 2019

The Belfer Center's Arctic Initiative is selecting a small group of 2–3 Harvard students to present their ideas at the Arctic Innovation Lab in Iceland. The Lab takes place at the world's largest Arctic gathering, the Arctic Circle Assembly, from October 10–13, 2019.  The application deadline is Friday, September 6, 2019.

The Politics of Shale Gas in Eastern Europe: Energy Security, Contested Technologies and the Social License to Frack

Cambridge University Press

Book - Cambridge University Press

The Politics of Shale Gas in Eastern Europe: Energy Security, Contested Technologies and the Social Licence to Frack

| May 2018

Fracking is a novel but contested energy technology – so what makes some countries embrace it whilst others reject it? This book argues that the reason for policy divergence lies in procedures and processes, stakeholder inclusion and whether a strong narrative underpins governmental policies. Based on a large set of primary data gathered in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, it explores shale gas policies in Central Eastern Europe (a region strongly dependent on Russian gas imports) to unveil the importance of policy regimes for creating a 'social license' for fracking. Its findings suggest that technology transfer does not happen in a vacuum but is subject to close mutual interaction with political, economic and social forces; and that national energy policy is not a matter of 'objective' policy imperatives, such as Russian import dependence, but a function of complex domestic dynamics pertaining to institutional procedures and processes, and winners and losers.

Report - Brookings Institution

Foresight Africa: Top Priorities for the Continent in 2014

| January 2014

As Africa's position in the world continues to grow and evolve in 2014, the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative continues its tradition of asking its experts and colleagues to identify what they consider to be the key issues for Africa in the coming year.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Quarterly Journal: International Security

Belfer Center Newsletter Summer 2011

| Summer 2011

The Summer 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features analysis and advice by Belfer Center scholars regarding the historic upheavals in the Middle East and the disastrous consequences of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The Center’s new Geopolitics of Energy project is also highlighted, along with efforts by the Project on Managing the Atom to strengthen nuclear export rules.

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- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Belfer Center Newsletter Spring 2005

Spring 2005

The Spring 2005 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features a discussion of the non-proliferation treaty and the Iranian and North Korean nuclear challenges. The Center's Spring issue also features an analysis of Post-9/11 Science, Belfer Fellows instructing NATO on Suicide attacks, and the Center's contributions to the United Nations reform efforts. Also in this issue is a Spotlight on Monica Duffy Toft, a Q&A with Calestous Juma, a letter from Belfer Center Director Graham Allison, and more.

 

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Report - Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Environmental Change and Security Project Report

    Editor:
  • Geoffrey D. Dabelko
| 2004

"After 10 years of multisectoral, multidisciplinary cross-pollination, where are we now? What are the key questions and themes for the next decade? For this 10th issue of the ECSP Report, we asked six scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to offer their recommendations for the future of environmental security."

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Report Chapter

The Security Implications of Climate Change for the UN System

| 2004

This short paper explores the security implications of climate change, focusing on the impacts on developing countries, particularly weak states. Security risks related to climate change will not be evenly distributed globally and will affect some kinds of governments more than others. While local and regional consequences of climate change remain very difficult to predict, three types of nations seem particularly vulnerable to the security risks of climate change: least-developed nations, weak states, and undemocratic states. Poor developing countries are the perhaps the most likely to suffer from climate change. These states lack the economic, governance, or technical capabilities to adapt to climate change. Failed and failing states—those with weak institutions of government, poor control over their borders, repressed populations, or marginal economies—stand a higher risk of being destabilized by climate change. The paper recommends a renewed emphasis on risk reduction and disaster preparedness with early warning systems that integrate meteorological risk with political risk.