The world is entering a new phase of climate change defined by “failure to mitigate sufficiently and failure to adapt sufficiently,” said Saleemul Huq, director of the Bangladesh-based International Center for Climate Change and Development, at the Wilson Center on March 16. [Video Below]

The year is 2022. Strong El Niño and La Niña events in successive years have drastically reduced wheat yields in India and Australia and increased the range of certain pests and plant pathogens in the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, a drought across North America has reduced corn and soybean yields significantly. Global commodity prices are up 262 percent over long-term averages. These price increases are compounding other social and economic challenges, contributing to social unrest in several food-importing nations.

Climate change is the world’s greatest environmental threat. It is also increasingly understood as a threat to domestic and international peace and security – recognized by the Department of Defense as a “threat multiplier,” by Secretary of State John Kerry as “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction,” and by President Obama, in an address to graduates of the United States Military Academy, as “a creeping national security crisis.” The Supreme Court’s temporary blocking of the Clean Power Plan highlights the Federal-State divide over how to address climate change, but because of its national security dimension, climate change also raises unique separation of powers issues between the president and Congress with regard to how the military can respond.

It is “not sufficient to look at history for lessons on how we should prepare for and prevent future security risks in a climate change world,” said Swathi Veeravalli, research scientist at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Geospatial Research Laboratory, at the Wilson Center on January 14. Climate change and the extreme weather events it brings pose an “unprecedented” threat to human security. [Video Below]

The agreement coming out of the COP-21 negotiations gave breakthrough recognition to the concept of “loss and damage,” sorting through thorny discussions and politically charged negotiating positions. These positions revolved around liability and compensation, which developing countries called for but developed countries were unwilling to have included in the agreement.