Summary: “After Ukraine, ISIS, terrorism…there are a lot of distractions in 2015,” says Nick Mabey, founder and chief executive of the environmental NGO E3G, in this week’s podcast. “Short term issues are important, but they’re not everything,” Climate change is a massive, long-term national security issue, he says, and what happens at this year’s UN climate summit in Paris will be tremendously consequential. Climate experts have seen how quickly their predictions and worse-case scenarios can take place. In 2008, as E3G was looking at climate security, they were discussing if and how climate change would affect things like trade balance, energy security, and resentment between countries, says Mabey. In 2015, those scenarios are now the reality; “this is the world we live in.” “The Mediterranean is full of refugees driven by conflict exacerbated by drought, and Arctic politics continue to grow,” he says. “We’re seeing a massive growth of government repression of anti-coal activism, including in India but also in places like Poland and Turkey and our democratic friends…We’re seeing a global fossil divestment campaign look like the anti-apartheid movement.” The United States is the most climate-vulnerable OECD country. Over the last three decades, the United States has experienced 37 percent of all global damage, by value, from major weather events, says Mabey. A recent poll shows 41 percent of U.S. experts believe climate change is a top foreign policy issue. But politics still makes climate change a hot potato. While President Obama and Secretary Kerry have emphasized the issue, Mabey says it is hard to take action once they leave the room. In addition, there is concern that Congressional Republicans could threaten the U.S. role in Paris in their efforts to counter the president. The lack of engagement and urgency from policymakers, not only in the United States but around the world, is worrying, says Mabey. “Unless you have a gut feeling of how much risk you’re going to take, you will not prioritize to reduce that risk.” While we have the ability to adapt to and mitigate climate change, top officials across the Atlantic are not having the conversations necessary to get people to understand it is a risk worth avoiding, Mabey says. Building political consensus is difficult not only because of distracting security factors like ISIS and terrorism, but because certain governments are not listening to their citizens’ calls for change. But popular movements are gathering steam. In 2009, 40,000 people marched at the climate rally in Copenhagen. Last year, 400,000 marched in New York City and were joined by an additional 200,000 around the world. Mabey says even more protestors are expected to turn out in Paris at the start of December’s climate talks. The public pressure will hopefully drive more official discourse in this high-stakes year for climate negotiations, he says. “The world is fragile, the climate system is fragile, it’s like an egg…and so the question is…how much climate risk do you take? How much do you want to poke that egg?” Nick Mabey spoke at the Wilson Center on February 12. Download his presentation to follow along. Friday Podcasts are also available for download on iTunes.
