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IMAGES (left to right): Natural disaster and its consequences (via Getty Images); In this picture taken on September 28, 2022, an internally displaced flood-affected family sits outside their tent at a makeshift tent camp in Jamshoro district of Sindh province (Photo by Rizwan Tabassum/AFP via Getty Images; Trees smolder and burn during the Dixie fire near Greenville, California on August 3, 2021. – Numerous fires are raging through the state’s northern forests, as climate change makes wildfire season longer, hotter and more devastating. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)

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A few weeks after I signed a lease on my first Houston apartment in 2017, Hurricane Harvey struck the city with levels of rain that are still hard to comprehend: 54 inches in just a few days.

In many ways, Harvey is the image of a storm that our federal disaster recovery system is built around: a fundamentally rare event that requires an extraordinary level of resource and response to recover from.

But the reality of a warming climate coupled with increasing urbanization means that extreme disasters aren’t rare anymore. In 2022 alone, there were 18 disasters that cost at least $1 billion, most of which never make the headlines. But with most policymakers located far away from the most affected parts of the country, federal disaster policy and strategy lacks the urgency and focus that this aspect of the climate crisis demands.

Especially in the Gulf South, local and state governments are engaged in a near-constant cycle of disaster recovery, much of it funded by the federal government. But disaster recovery occupies an awkward, ill-defined space in Congress and the national security bureaucracy that is leaving us poorly prepared to meet the demands of climate change.

First, Congress. The appropriations committees are vitally important in appropriating funds for disaster response. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is well known to most Americans and is the first federal agency to arrive on the scene when disaster strikes. Congress regularly monitors FEMA’s disaster relief fund to make sure it has sufficient operating capacity for various disaster events around the country.

Less well known are the many other agencies involved in long-term disaster recovery. FEMA’s mission is to restore the situation to the status quo before the disaster struck. Long-term recovery funds are intended to improve resilience, especially for low-income communities. But there is no standing, permanent authorization for these long-term recovery programs, the most significant of which is the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program for disaster recovery (CDBG-DR). CDBG-DR is a special, emergency form of funding that sits alongside routine block grant funding that underwrites major housing and community development programs around the country. CDBG-DR is intended to build communities forward into greater resilience after disaster, with a particular focus on low- and moderate-income survivors.

Severe delays in delivering assistance beyond the immediate FEMA programs and insurance payments have two main causes. First, it often takes more than six months for Congress to make emergency appropriations available at all. Second, as the Government Accountability Office reported in 2021, “because disaster recovery block grants aren’t part of a permanent program, grant requirements have to be customized for each disaster. This is time-consuming for the agency and grantees—leading to delays in receipt and use of the funds.”

Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in August 2017. I was working for the city’s housing department in January 2019 – 17 months after the storm – when the very first guidelines for the CDBG-DR-funded housing recovery programs were approved, following lengthy contract negotiations with state and federal agencies. While those who rely only on FEMA and insurance payments to recover from a disaster may be able to get back into their storm-damaged homes within about a year, survivors who rely on HUD-funded programs face much longer waits.

It seems like a no-brainer that Congress should permanently authorize the CDBG-DR program. This would make the rules predictable and reduce painful delays. It would also be a step toward overcoming enormous inequities in FEMA’s recovery programs, which are notorious for exacerbating racial wealth inequality and income inequality in general.

In a 2018 study that illustrated how FEMA assistance greatly exacerbates racial wealth inequality, Junia Howell and James Elliott concluded, “The two defining social problems of our day—wealth inequality and rising natural hazard damages—are dynamically linked.” And as NPR reported in 2021, low-income survivors were twice as likely as high-income survivors to have their FEMA assistance claims denied, and high-income homeowners received about twice as much financial assistance to rebuild their homes than the poorest homeowners.

Fixing FEMA is an essential task for this administration. Permanent HUD funding is also part of the solution. But an effort to establish a permanent program in the 2023 omnibus budget failed, likely due to opposition from Republicans who prefer a FEMA-only approach to recovery that excludes programs intended to help those with fewer resources.

Disaster recovery also falls into an awkward space in the national security policymaking framework. While John Kerry established a climate envoy position within the National Security Council (NSC) for the first time, the office is largely focused on future-looking aspects of climate adaptation and transition, especially internationally. Disaster response is a threat that has already arrived on our shores, with similar characteristics to a terrorist attack or critical infrastructure failure: people die, we spend billions of dollars cleaning up, and as a country, we repeat this relentless cycle every year. In this respect, responding to climate disasters could be understood to fall under the mandate of the NSC’s resilience directorate, but its focus appears to be critical infrastructure instead.

Responding to climate disasters requires intense inter-agency coordination: FEMA and HUD, certainly, but also the Small Business Administration (financial assistance), Army Corps of Engineers (infrastructure repair), and the Departments of Agriculture (food assistance) and Transportation (roads and other transit infrastructure), just to name a few. In other areas of national security policy, this process of coordination lies firmly within the NSC. But there is little evidence that the NSC is playing such a role in disaster recovery.

In February 2018, Congress appropriated $6.875 billion for disaster mitigation for storms that had occurred from 2015 – 2017. These funds are described as providing “a unique and significant opportunity…to carry out strategic and high-impact activities to mitigate disaster risks and reduce future losses.” This was a new kind of ambitious, forward-looking funding that sat between the traditional functions of FEMA and HUD. However, without a strong coordinating role from the NSC, it took almost two years to negotiate the program guidelines between the agencies, which were first published in August 2019, a full five years after some eligible storms had occurred.

And without strong leadership from the administration, progress on the disaster-driven racial wealth gap is a non-starter. FEMA is aware of this problem and even convened an advisory panel on equity to address it, but has not followed through on its recommendations.

The outlook for the 2023 hurricane season is uncertain, but water in the Atlantic Ocean is already very warm this spring. If I were in the White House, I’d get ready by pushing for permanent authorization of CDBG-DR programs and ensuring that the NSC is ready to play a strong coordinating role on disaster response. Instead, on June 1, I’ll hope that the weather gods smile on us and the season remains mild.

Image: A pickup truck is seen submerged in floodwater in Lumberton, North Carolina (Photo by Alex Edelman / AFP) (Photo by ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images).

The post Meeting the Climate Moment Requires a Coherent Climate Disaster Strategy appeared first on Just Security.

As global warming continues generating conditions for political instability and conflict, the United States must urgently consider irregular warfare approaches to stymie illicit activities contributing to the climate crisis. We are at a climate inflection point and all policy options should be on the table.

In fact, the Department of Defense (DOD) has the requisite authorities to train, equip, and enable Brazilian law enforcement and Environmental Special Forces to find and arrest these illicit actors. U.S. special operations forces (SOF) are uniquely designed for such a novel mission.

According to U.S. President Joe Biden and Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin, climate change poses an “existential threat” to the American way of life. The Biden administration’s National Security Strategy states that, without immediate collective action, climate change will become the greatest global threat. And according to the State Department, the “existential climate crisis can only be mitigated through aggressive, ambitious global action.” Additionally, in an era of increased competition with China, enabling the most vulnerable countries and relevant populations to address the effects of climate change is a strategic, as well as moral, imperative that furthers U.S. legitimacy, influence, and interests.

More than 85 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions driving the planet’s warming come from beyond U.S. borders. Now, the world cannot meet its climate goal to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius unless it protects the Amazon rainforest, says U.S. climate envoy John Kerry.

Brazil, a major non-NATO U.S. ally, is on the precipice of decimating a critically important global asset: the Amazon. Brasilia is also considering allowing China significant influence within its borders, supplanting U.S. influence, through increased trade and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Sino-Brazilian trade deals and investments have also contributed to illegal deforestation through incentivizing agricultural frontiersmen to clear space for farms or livestock and infrastructure projects in the Amazon under China’s BRI.

Before sending U.S. military forces to the Amazon to address climate change, it is important to acknowledge that the DOD’s own carbon footprint exceeds that of nearly 140 countries. That said, the military services, like the Army, do have comprehensive plans to achieve “net-zero emissions by 2050” through transitioning to carbon-free electricity and clean global supply chains. While DOD should be held accountable to reach this important milestone, there are also significant opportunities to work with allies and partners to address their own climate change challenges, which collectively impact global security.

Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is known as the “lungs of the Earth,” with its 2.8 million square miles of jungle in the Amazon basin representing more than half of the planet’s remaining tropical rainforest. These essential ecosystems play a central role in filtering CO₂ from the atmosphere and moderating the global climate.

However, the Amazon contains approximately 123 billion tons of carbon above and below ground. Deforestation has both eliminated CO₂-absorbing trees while releasing this stored carbon back into the air, accelerating global warming.

The Amazon is at a tipping point, but there is hope in the fight against illegal deforestation, which accounts for 94% of the area deforested. Brazil’s newly elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pledged during his campaign to achieve net-zero deforestation in Brazil. Since then, he announced that the fight against climate change will have the highest priority in his government — particularly the fight against deforestation.

Lula said at a recent climate conference, “There is no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon.” He said Brazil will “do whatever it takes to have zero deforestation and degradation of our biomes.”

But President Lula’s government needs additional capabilities to detect and stop the transnational criminal networks carrying out illicit acts, such as logging, mining, and burning of protected and pristine rainforest.

Unlike his predecessor, the Lula administration has indicated its willingness to engage with the United States on the climate crisis. Since Lula’s inauguration, the Biden administration has participated in a series of senior level engagements discussing the effects of climate change and regional security cooperation.

Although there are some significant foreign policy disagreements between the two governments, the Biden administration should still take advantage of this opening and engage the Lula administration on the military and intelligence support necessary to halt illegal deforestation activities.

If the Biden administration is looking to balance its ways and means with the aim of slowing climate change, then its sights should be set on increasing security assistance to Brazil.

Immediately, with the concurrence of the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense can provide to Brazil training and military equipment for security forces (10 U.S. Code § 333); and intelligence, airborne reconnaissance, personnel transport and command, control and communications support to law enforcement to counter transnational organized criminals (10 U.S. Code § 284).

While SOF are certainly not a panacea to all transnational challenges facing the lightly-guarded Amazonian region, they have proven highly adept at finding, fixing, and capturing bad actors — whether unilaterally or by, with, and through partner forces, as demonstrated in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

Less publicly, these same counterterrorism and intelligence tools were effectively used against other transnational criminals. In neighboring Colombia, 7th Special Forces Group has a long history of training and supporting Colombian security forces in countering narco-guerillas. The U.S. Embassy in Bogota even houses an Embassy Intelligence Fusion Center of intelligence analysts that produces products on transnational organized crime organizations and their threat to Colombian interests while liaising with Colombian military and law enforcement agencies. Although these efforts were marshaled primarily to support the Colombian government from failing to stem the flow of illegal narcotics to the United States, the climate crisis represents a threat of no less significance. At minimum, commensurate resources should be committed to this collective challenge in Brazil.

It will take nimble statecraft, but the Biden administration should work through the State Department to gain President Lula’s approval to establish a security cooperation plan. Such a plan should leverage U.S. SOF and intelligence enablers, such as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite detection capabilities, to support Brazilian security forces to locate and stop illicit deforestation activities.

U.S. SOF traditionally operate in low-visibility and have a history of supporting groups with mixed human rights records; therefore, any military support to Brazil should also require sufficient monitoring and congressional reporting on compliance with the laws of armed conflict, use of force agreements, and respect for human rights.

However, even human rights groups that do not traditionally condone “hard power” approaches believe the Lula administration should take more forceful measures to protect the Amazon, since doing so also protects indigenous peoples’ human rights.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), indigenous peoples and local communities in the Amazon have been risking their lives and livelihoods as they try to hold on to their land and protect the environment from criminal networks involved in illegal activities.

HRW’s position is that the Lula administration should mobilize all levels of the government to fight the criminal networks responsible for the environmental destruction and deadly violence.

Adverse impacts to local economies must also be addressed, to prevent job loss and economic hardship to Brazilians, including those who depend on illegal deforestation for their livelihoods. Therefore, the Biden administration should work with international organizations, such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, to build on the work of the U.S. Agency for International Development. A multi-pronged approach can foster sustainable economic activities and help Brazil develop a workable strategy for compensating residents in the Amazon, who stand to lose their means of subsistence if deforestation is rolled back.

Ultimately, any sustainable solution to illegal deforestation in Brazil must be buttressed by conditions that incentivize other economic opportunities. The U.S. military, including SOF, do have an important – and immediate – role to play, but addressing the root causes of the climate crisis will require a more holistic approach in the long term. As a first step, the U.S. military should partner with Brazilian forces to counter illegal deforestation activities in the Amazon that are contributing to a rapidly deteriorating climate.

Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense, members of Congress, or the U.S. Government.

IMAGE: An officer of the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) takes part in an operation against Amazon deforestation at an illegal mining camp, known as garimpo, at the Yanomami territory in Roraima State, Brazil, on February 24, 2023. (Photo by ALAN CHAVES/AFP via Getty Images)

The post The U.S. Military Can Help Save the Amazon appeared first on Just Security.

The Ocean-Climate-Biodiversity Nexus and Why It Matters

Over the past few decades, ocean advocates have worked to formally recognize the interconnectivity between the ocean, climate, and biodiversity challenges, and to develop law and policy mechanisms to address the crisis. 

Whereas the international climate negotiations now include an Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue and opportunity to fold ocean-based measures into Nationally Determined Contributions, the international ocean negotiations go even further in aiming to improve the regime under UNCLOS to better address the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ), which comprises the portion of the global ocean—the high seas (water column) and the Area (seabed, ocean floor, and subsoil)—that extends beyond any one state’s jurisdiction.

An Emerging Global Blue Economy

After nearly a decade of negotiations, delegates from across the globe have reached an agreement on this new legally binding instrument. The four elements of the international treaty establish the foundation for collective action in tackling the ocean’s most pressing threats: 1) area-based management tools (ABMTs) such as marine protected areas (MPAs); 2) environmental impact assessments; 3) capacity building and technology transfer; and 4) fair and equitable sharing of benefits (both monetary and non-monetary) derived from activities with respect to marine genetic resources and digital sequence information. Together, these steps can help stem biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystems, build resilience to the adverse effects of climate change, protect ocean carbon cycling services, and improve the ability of all nations to advance more integrated, ecosystem-based and precautionary approaches to management while more equitably benefiting from natural resources.

MPAs and other ABMTs are tools that can be used to promote “place-based” conservation, that is, conservation programs developed by communities for the benefit of those communities. In designing these area-based tools, socio-ecological knowledge can inform the determination and designation of areas of particular interest for protection. This knowledge contributes to identifying conservation threats across space and time, while proactively adopting protective measures to guard against future threats. Increasingly, MPA design applies a dynamic approach to account for the evolving nature of place-based management, where climate is driving changes in species distribution and biogeographic regions.

The BBNJ Agreement addresses these challenges by setting forth requirements to ensure that processes for consultation and assessment of ABMT proposals are inclusive, transparent and open to all relevant stakeholders, including the scientific community, Indigenous Peoples and local communities. It distinguishes MPAs from other types of ABMTs by defining MPAs to focus on long term biodiversity conservation objectives, with sustainable use allowed only where consistent with those objectives. Criteria for any type of ABMT specifically includes climate-related criteria such as vulnerability to climate change and ocean acidification, cumulative impacts, and important ecological processes occurring therein. Alongside the establishment of a comprehensive system of ABMTs including ecologically representative and well-connected networks of MPA networks, the treaty also recognizes the need to enhance the health, productivity, and resilience of individual sites to environmental stressors, including those related to climate change, ocean acidification, and marine pollution. 

To ensure action, the Conference of Parties (COP), or the decision-making body responsible for reviewing the implementation of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, is empowered to vote on establishment of ABMTs and related measures, to make recommendations to other international bodies such as regional fisheries management organizations, where measures are within their competence, and to adopt compatible measures. When all efforts to reach consensus have been exhausted, voting flexibility is crucial to avoid a small minority of States Parties blocking conservation action as has happened in the Southern Ocean under the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. The interests of other international bodies and instruments are protected through      requirements that the COP “shall respect the competencies of and not undermine such bodies or instruments.” At the same time, the treaty requires States Parties to promote the objectives of the treaty in these other bodies, enables the COP to arrange for regular consultations to enhance cooperation and coordination, and invites other bodies and instruments to report on measures adopted to meet the objectives of the ABMTs established by the COP.

Environmental assessment has long been used by national governance systems to account for the environmental impacts associated with potential harmful activities, so that their effects on wildlife and habitat can be avoided, mitigated, or minimized. Environmental assessments provide situational awareness and a check on unfettered development and resource exploitation. Approaches to conducting environmental assessment have evolved to encompass consideration of the environmental stressors associated with human impacts, and how those stressors interact with one another, often synergistically. It is not enough to list the anticipated impacts associated with a potential activity. Rather, states and parties must explore how those impacts will interact with one another, and how that interaction will, in turn, impact the health of the ocean ecosystem. 

The new treaty establishes a nationally driven Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process that will nevertheless be subject to broad consultation and review by the international community, and an obligation to ensure that approved activities can be conducted in a manner consistent with the prevention of significant adverse impacts, taking into account cumulative effects including climate change-related impacts. The treaty also advances a new tool for those seeking to integrate biodiversity and climate change into management of activities in ABNJ. The treaty enables strategic environmental assessments (SEAs) both by States Parties for new plans or programmes, and by the COP for an area or region to collate and synthesize available information, assess current and potential impacts, and identify data gaps and research priorities. Such information can support conservation planning as well as more sustainable management.

The Treaty’s Role in Centering the Newly Positioned Global Blue Economy on Equity

The negotiations had identified that most countries are disadvantaged because they lacked the capacity and technology to engage in activities in ABNJ as they attempted to grapple with managing areas within their own national jurisdictions. For example, the gap between developed and developing countries is evident, and developing countries have identified a need for training, access to relevant technologies and data, and research vessels. Further, a new treaty would place legal obligations on countries, raising the question of whether countries could effectively participate in the treaty’s implementation. Such capacity constraints cut across other elements of the package, including when undertaking or reviewing environmental impact assessments, the establishing or reviewing ABMTs, including MPAs, and exploration and exploitation of marine genetic resources. The new agreement builds on Part XIV of UNCLOS in which States have a duty to cooperate to support capacity-building and technology transfer. The BBNJ Agreement provides for a capacity-building committee mandated to review these efforts and make recommendations to the COP. Though equity concerns cut across all elements of the treaty (e.g., parachute science in establishing MPAs), the treaty’s provisions on the exploitation of marine genetic resources, processes to be used for capacity building, and transfer of marine technology addresses equity concerns raised throughout the agreement and embedded in international legal principles reflected in UNCLOS.

Areas beyond national jurisdiction have long been touted as holders of the next groundbreaking medical discovery, but currently lack a regime to govern issues of discovery, collection and utilization of marine genetic resources found in them because the discoveries have extended beyond any one nation’s sovereign control. The final text addresses the concerns that there would be no way of tracing resources, including their origin and subsequent utilization; currently developed countries account for most patents with a gene of marine origin. The most significant gain is the “BBNJ standardized batch identifier.” Parties will be required to tag material collected and report important information to the BBNJ clearinghouse to track both monetary and non-monetary benefits. The subject of benefit-sharing remained pertinent throughout the negotiations, as a group of countries argued that they were disadvantaged compared to countries and industries with the technology and capacity to explore and exploit marine genetics resources. The agreement establishes a committee to advise the COP on issues of benefit-sharing. Finally, the agreement also creates a Special Fund to support numerous efforts, including capacity-building.

What’s Next

Empowered with the text, the next step is signature, ratification and early implementation. It will be a global community effort, with each nation deciding whether and how to adopt the treaty into domestic law.

Beyond the mechanics of ratification, the international community representing scientific knowledge and ocean conservation will watch to see how interim arrangements for the COP can advance, while continuing to crosswalk between treaty regimes. Equipped with the new treaty, negotiators with an ocean focus can now return to the climate intersessionals this summer with the ocean-climate-biodiversity nexus in mind as they prepare for the second session of the annual Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue.

Meanwhile, the need for inclusive participation and early implementation continues. Of note, the very same tools set forth in the new high seas treaty are being used in exclusive economic zones, but not always effectively, impelling stepped up efforts throughout our interconnected ocean. The new treaty’s capacity-building elements can play a vital role in enabling all states to safeguard ocean health and more equitably participate in the enjoyment of its resources. Given the urgency of addressing the climate and biodiversity crises, and the ocean’s role in solving for those crises, it is essential that the multilateralism that drove this new agreement be leveraged to galvanize action in international and sovereign waters toward a blue economy of the future—an economy that centers justice and environmental security and actively manages for marine protection and avoidance of environmental impacts. These steps are essential if we are to meet clean energy and food security needs, as well as conserve marine life and habitats on a climate-challenged planet.

IMAGE: Humpback whales swim off the coast of Australia (via Getty Images)

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To counteract China’s growing influence in the Pacific, the United States must prove itself a true ally to its Pacific neighbors. Doing so requires the United States to provide meaningful redress for its past human rights abuses in the region and commit to legally binding accountability measures to prevent future harm. The Compact renewal negotiations offer a crucial opportunity for the Biden administration to do just that.

Earlier this month, the years-long negotiations between the United States and three Pacific island nations – the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Marshall Islands, and Palau, sometimes referred to collectively in U.S. treaty parlance as the Freely Associated States (FAS) – reached a significant milestone, as the United States and the latter two nations each signed bilateral memorandums of understanding setting forth a framework for finalizing the renewal of their Compacts of Free Association, the funding provisions of which currently expire in September 2023 for FSM and the Marshall Islands and September 2024 for Palau.

The Marshall Islands and the FSM entered into Compacts of Free Association with the United States in the 1980s, shortly after gaining independence from the United States. Palau followed in 1994. The Compacts give the United States unfettered access and strategic denial rights to FAS airspace and territorial waters and the ability to claim land, sea, and airspace for military bases and operations, such as the Ronald Reagan Missile Defense Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

In exchange, the United States provides financial assistance, military protection, and services such as the U.S. Postal Service to the FAS. Citizens of the FAS are able – and often aggressively recruited – to enlist in the U.S. military, where some reports indicate that they have both served and died at higher rates than citizens of the 50 states in the post-9/11 wars.

The Compact Leaves FAS Citizens in a Legal No-Man’s Land

When the initial Compacts were negotiated, the United States promised citizens of the FAS the ability to live and work in the United States and its territories, as well as eligibility for social safety nets like Medicaid. However, in 1996, Congress unilaterally stripped the FAS citizens living in the United States of their eligibility for federal welfare programs under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, leading to a spike in death rates among FAS citizens residing in the United States who previously relied on Medicaid. Because the text of the Compact did not impose an enforceable obligation on the United States to follow through on its Medicaid promise, advocates for the rights of FAS citizens living in the United States needed to fight for nearly 25 years to get Congress to reinstate FAS residents’ Medicaid eligibility.

The Medicaid issue exemplifies the legal “no man’s land” in which FAS citizens living in the United States often find themselves: exercising their treaty right to live and work in the United States, yet subject to the whims of Congress in large part due to ambiguous, underinclusive, or unenforceable Compact provisions.

While the parties can amend any provision of the Compacts by mutual agreement at any time, this is uncommon, and the funding renewal negotiations thus present the only practical opportunity for FAS negotiators to push for the amendment of other Compact provisions. As the Compact renewal negotiations enter their final phases, accountability for past human rights abuses and protections to prevent future harm must be on the agenda.

Irradiated Islands, Billions in Unpaid Legal Claims, and No Remedy in Sight

The United States took control of the Micronesian region of the central Pacific – including what would become the FSM, Palau, and the Marshall Islands – from Japan during World War II. In 1947, after the U.S. military had already begun displacing thousands of people in the Marshall Islands to facilitate nuclear weapons testing and the construction of bases, the United Nations legitimized the United States’ colonization of the region by appointing the United States the administrator of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

The United States exposed the Marshallese people to the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima-sized explosions per day over the course of a 12-year period – detonating 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958. Marshallese living throughout the country between 1948 and 1970 demonstrated higher cancer rates attributable to radiation exposure from the nuclear testing, with cancer rates doubling in the most exposed areas. The Marshallese people that the U.S. military displaced to facilitate its testing program still cannot return to their home islands, as the radiation levels remain higher than Chernobyl and Fukushima.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States faced increased scrutiny for its nuclear testing program and its increasingly apparent mismanagement of the Trust Territory. Though the Trusteeship Agreement required the United States to promote the political and economic advancement of the Trust Territory toward self-government and independence, the U.S. officials responded to growing calls for independence and international pressure to decolonize by engaging in a concerted effort to undermine self-determination efforts and make the islands economically dependent on the United States. It was against this coercive historical backdrop that the three newly independent nations entered into their Compacts of Free Association with the United States.

To add insult to injury, in 1977, U.S. soldiers collected contaminated soil and debris from Enewetak Atoll and placed it under a concrete dome, called Runit Dome, which scientists and Marshallese officials are concerned is in danger of leaking due to rising sea levels. Also contained in the dome are debris from biological weapons tests and 130 tons of irradiated soil shipped from Nevada to the Marshall Islands – neither of which the United States disclosed until after they signed the 1986 Compact releasing the United States from legal liability for all claims related to the nuclear testing program and its lasting impacts.

The Compact established a Nuclear Claims Tribunal (NCT), provided that the U.S. government would place $150 million in a trust fund to pay for the NCT awards, and asserted that this constituted the full and final settlement of all claims arising from the nuclear testing. The NCT ultimately concluded that the United States should pay $2.3 billion in claims, yet the U.S. government had only paid out less than $4 million as of 2014. The Compact’s “full and final settlement” provision has prevented courts from exercising jurisdiction over the Marshallese people’s numerous attempts to compel the United States to pay the billions of dollars it owes to settle the claims.

The MOU recently signed between the U.S. and Marshallese negotiators includes a U.S. commitment to place $700 million into the Marshall Islands Compact Trust Fund, some of which the Marshallese government can use for nuclear compensation. While this constitutes a significant increase in funding for nuclear testing victims from prior funding commitments, it falls woefully short of the amount needed to satisfy outstanding NCT compensation awards.

Unenforceable Standards Allow History to Repeat Itself

The U.S. military forcibly displaced residents from over two dozen islands in the Marshall Islands to facilitate the construction and operation of its Ronald Reagan Missile Defense Site on Kwajalein Atoll. Many of these people were relocated to Ebeye, an overcrowded island located just three miles from the idyllic U.S. base on Kwajalein. On Ebeye, upwards of 10,000 people reside on 0.10 square miles of land, and many residents lack access to clean water, proper sanitation, and a stable electricity supply. In addition to the harm arising from displacement, the base on Kwajalein has leaked dangerous levels of the hazardous and slow-to-degrade chemicals polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the lagoon – rendering the fish on which Ebeye residents previously relied for sustenance unsafe to eat. The U.S. military’s seizure of farmable land and contamination of marine resources from the 1940s onward has heavily restricted the availability of affordable nutritious food, which has led to astronomical rates of diabetes and other non-communicable diseases in the Marshall Islands.

Though the FSM and Palau have not previously served as sites for bases or large-scale military facilities, the United States has announced plans to build two new military installations in the FAS: an over-the-horizon radar facility in Palau and a base in the FSM. These developments are likely just the beginning of a significant expansion of the U.S. military footprint in the region. The U.S. military’s unchecked environmental degradation and human rights violations in the Marshall Islands should serve as a warning for the FSM and Palau. The United States has exploited legal gray areas in order to evade liability for its conduct in the Marshall Islands, and without changes to the specificity and enforceability of certain Compact provisions, history is likely to repeat itself.

The Compact does not currently impose binding environmental protection standards on the U.S. military or contractors while operating in the FAS (with the exception of the obligation to prepare an environmental impact assessment, where applicable, according to the terms of the National Environmental Management Act). The Compact provides that the government of the United States must comply with “standards substantively similar” to those required by certain U.S. environmental laws, but the list does not include the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation & Liability Act (CERCLA), which governs PCB clean-ups.

The United States has engaged in some (insufficient) PCB remediation efforts on Kwajalein, though the Environmental Protection Agency stated that this was done as a good faith measure as opposed to a legal obligation. Further, when the United States’ lease on Kwajalein Atoll runs up, it is under no treaty obligation to return the land or water to a safe and usable state.

Per the terms of the Compact, the U.S. government and host nation governments separately negotiate environmental standards and other legal safeguards for the military bases, such as  Kwajalein. In addition to the dubious legal enforceability of the “standards” set forth in these subsidiary agreements, the FAS have little leverage in negotiating them: the Compact terms currently authorize the United States to establish bases throughout the FAS but do not provide the FAS a corresponding enforceable right to demand particular environmental, human rights, or labor standards for the bases.

The recent agreements to construct new bases and facilities in the FSM and Palau underscore the necessity of negotiating clear, legally enforceable terms governing environmental safety, environmental remediation obligations, and rights of persons that the new installations displace or otherwise harm.

It Is Not Too Late for a Rights-Respecting Compact, and It Is More Necessary Now Than Ever

The unchecked environmental destruction that the U.S. military has wrought in the Marshall Islands provides the clearest example of the necessity for the Compacts themselves to state enforceable legal rights and remedies, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. The U.S. is planning significant expansion of its military presence in the FAS. In the coming decades, it will be more imperative than ever that the Compacts provide enforceable rights and corresponding remedies for the islanders who will be displaced by new military facilities, for those whose rights to food, water, and a healthy environment are threatened or impacted by military operations, and for the workers employed on the bases.

The FAS, and in particular the Marshall Islands, are among the most vulnerable nations in the world to the impact of climate change. Not only is the United States the largest greenhouse gas emitter in history, but the U.S. military alone has a carbon footprint larger than many nations. As the climate crisis worsens – threatening islanders’ rights to health, food, water, housing, land, education, self-determination, and so much more – the Compacts must protect the civil, political, economic, and social rights of those FAS citizens who choose to migrate to the United States. As part of the renegotiated funding package, the U.S. government must provide funding, adaptation infrastructure, and technical support to assist the FAS in their climate adaptation and resilience efforts.

Though two of the three FAS have signed MOUs with the United States setting funding figures for the fiscal year 2024 and agreeing on a framework governing the remaining negotiations, Marshallese officials have emphasized that the MOUs are not a final agreement and there are still numerous issues to work out. Though the Compact renewal negotiations are far from a fair fight, the U.S. government’s stated desire to use these Compacts as a way to counteract Chinese influence in the Pacific provides the FAS negotiators with more leverage than they have had in past Compact negotiations. The FAS negotiators must seize this opportunity not only to obtain more equitable funding provisions but also to push for meaningful amendments to ensure real legal accountability and legal safeguards as they open their islands to increased U.S. military presence.

As for the United States, these negotiations provide a unique opportunity to right past wrongs, prevent future harm, and restore trust with key partners. Close allyship with the FAS can assist the United States in fulfilling its strategic foreign policy and defense objectives, but in its decades-long relationship with the FAS the United States has refused to fulfill the most basic requirement of allyship: accountability. It’s not too late to change course.

IMAGE: USS Apogon (SS-308), a submarine sunk during the Operation Crossroads nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. (via Getty Images)

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On the environmental justice front, COP27 culminated with an agreement to establish a dedicated fund for “loss and damage,” which signifies that the governments of vulnerable countries will no longer have to bear the cost for harms – both economic and non-economic – that they increasingly face from climate-change related disasters (such as droughts, floods, and hurricanes).

Although loss and damage will help many coastal communities, the evolution of the COP27 decision text over the span of the two-week climate negotiations diluted ocean ambition. The text started with seven paragraphs specific to the ocean, which included financing for ocean-climate action, and encouraged multilateral development banks to do the same. But the final decision text merely structured future ocean-climate dialogues. The Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan mentions oceans in two short paragraphs in Article 13, leaving ocean-climate action to national level goals such as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Under Article 4 of the Paris Agreement, countries agreed to submit and publish national plans every five years to show how they will meet the Paris Agreement’s goals.

The United States, still has an opportunity to bolster ocean action – and to do so in a manner that centers on justice for the communities that are most disproportionately affected by climate change and a decline in ocean health  – with the pending National Ocean Climate Action Plan, a precursor to guide the next U.S. NDC.

Creating Federal Policy to Promote Ocean Action

The current U.S. NDC aims to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52 percent to below 2005 levels by 2030. It recognizes “the importance of natural climate solutions,” and “the role of the broader suite of ocean-based climate solutions” and contains a U.S. commitment to enhance carbon sinks and support coastal resilience projects while pursuing “blue carbon” initiatives to increase carbon sequestration in its waterways. If fulfilled, these commitments would protect blue carbon ecosystems, such as salt marshes, resulting in climate mitigation and adaptation and biodiversity benefits.

In parallel with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), finalizing the National Ocean Climate Action Plan, which the White House is developing over the next two years, and updating the NDC will demonstrate that the Biden administration is serious about taking steps to protect natural spaces for communities, the climate, and biodiversity. The National Ocean Climate Action Plan can and should focus on the disproportionate impacts on environmental justice communities and the role of nature as a climate solution.

Harnessing the Power of Blue Carbon

Measures to address blue carbon – carbon trapped in coastal ecosystems, such as mangroves, salt marshes, and sea grasses – should rank among the immediate priorities as part of the new National Ocean Climate Action Plan. In that vein, climate justice must be at the forefront of any decisions involving coastal resiliency or nature-based solutions to climate change. These measures, discussed in detail below, must play a role across science, law, policy, and finance.

Blue carbon ecosystems sequester, or store, carbon at significantly higher rates than terrestrial forests, but they are also under serious threat globally, largely from avoidable human activity. Because these ecosystems sequester carbon so effectively, their destruction contributes that much more to climate change, as that sequestered carbon is released into the atmosphere and natural climate adaptation solutions are lost. But if harnessed to their full potential, blue carbon ecosystems can demonstrate the power of the ocean and coastlines themselves as powerful agents in the ongoing fight against climate change, by safeguarding coastlines, communities, and biodiversity.

These ecosystems offer a potential triple benefit in the face of worsening climate change: first, they slow down storm surges near coastal communities; second, they sequester carbon at a high rate and mitigate the impact of human carbon emissions; and third, they provide critical habitats to conserve marine biodiversity. Beyond this triple benefit, the ecosystems cultivates a sustainable blue economy, which can support thriving fisheries and tourism, among other industries.

As a result, blue carbon is increasingly regarded as a climate, biodiversity, and community preparedness and response solution, and simply recognizing their value as carbon commodities would diminish the full potential these ecosystems can provide, if protected.

Supporting Biodiversity Commitments

The Ocean Climate Action Plan must align with biodiversity commitments. At the international level, minimizing climate action’s negative effects on biodiversity is included under Target Eight of the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. While the U.S. is not a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the international biodiversity commitments for oceans that stem from the Framework – including the “30×30 initiative” and minimizing ocean acidification’s impact on biodiversity – still apply to national issues. The 30×30 initiative aims to conserve 30 percent of land and oceans by 2030. Ocean acidification poses threats to the U.S. economy and indigenous communities, and climate impacts cannot be addressed without implementing biodiversity protections. President Biden has already committed to conserving 30×30 through the America the Beautiful initiative, but the administration should incorporate other international efforts, such as those addressing acidification and climate-biodiversity integration, to support coastal communities, blue economies, and more effectively address climate change.

To operationalize blue carbon measures with biodiversity in mind it is essential to: invest in scientific research and data collection, establish a law and policy framework enabling the adoption of blue carbon measures, and create robust, equitable financing mechanisms. The intersection of these three elements needs to center on climate justice. First, the scientific research performed should be designed collaboratively with local stakeholders using traditional ecological knowledge to best preserve ecosystem health. Second, this science should be used as a foundation for policymaking that supports blue carbon, with a special focus on avoiding mitigation-related climate injustices like “green gentrification,” displacement of local communities, or the diversion of essential resources. Finally, any financial support for blue carbon must advance climate justice.

There is a need for the distribution of coastal resilience funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. The administration should focus on nature-based adaptation solutions such as restoring wetlands and dune habitat, and protecting natural structures that mitigate the impacts of increased storms, rising seas, and flooding. These projects can provide demonstrable action and ocean-climate solutions for the public to observe in coastal communities, and would go a long way toward solidifying popular support for the IRA by providing financially stable jobs and tangible, visible benefits for taxpayers.

Restoring Damaged Wetlands

The United States should prioritize conserving and guarding existing wetlands to protect these valuable carbon sinks and prevent the release of their sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. Many wetlands and blue carbon ecosystems have already been disrupted, but it is not too late and the United States can reverse some of the damage by prioritizing the restoration and expansion of damaged or destroyed wetlands. Establishing protective mechanisms aimed specifically at coastal wetlands restoration, in keeping with the America the Beautiful Initiative and international biodiversity goals, could have significant positive effects on sequestration over time.

Centering Climate Solutions Around Local Stakeholders

As with just scientific research, just policymaking and effective resiliency planning must involve local stakeholders.The growing recognition of environmental justice includes various subcategories such as climate justice and ocean justice. Beyond this emergence and gaining momentum within the United States, this year’s COP27 was the first COP to host a Climate Justice Pavilion. However, translating recognition to action that ensures actual justice requires directly addressing disproportionate impacts with policymaking.

Socially vulnerable communities are disproportionately impacted by climate change. These communities often face the greatest hurdles in adapting to climate-related disasters. Both federal and state legislative reforms are increasingly integrating social vulnerability into decisions about where to allocate climate adaptation and clean energy funding. The Biden administration should work to develop waterfronts and coastlines that acknowledge the legacy of disproportionate impacts and make the intersection of land and sea truly accessible, resilient, and inclusive in both urban and rural areas. Such a policy should reinforce the Justice40 Initiative goal that “40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened,” by stating that adaptation preparedness funding is allocated accordingly.

Clear definitions, developed in partnership with underserved and coastal communities, will provide much-needed clarity and allow those communities to set expectations, create plans, and implement funding opportunities in an equitable and just manner. Though subject to much critique, California’s cap-and-trade program demonstrates the role of law and policy levers in promoting the equity and inclusion of underserved communities. It does so by defining the communities based on certain criteria (for instance, geographic, socioeconomic, public health, environmental hazard), and then requires that a portion of the funding derived from the cap-and-trade program go to projects in, or benefiting, the communities.

Any policy should also encourage comprehensive preparedness planning, rather than parcel-by-parcel planning. That type of forward-looking planning requires consideration of the socio-ecological services associated with nature-based solutions when determining how to increase access to waterfronts and coastlines, and will ensure resilience to impacts from climate change. Together, centering on local stakeholders, and prioritizing nature-based solutions in planning, will make for a National Ocean Climate Action Plan that can be put to good use for communities and the ocean, in a changing climate.

IMAGE: Seagrass is seen near the Strait of Messina off the coast of Scilla, Italy, on Aug. 26, 2022. (Photo by Alessandro Rota via Getty Images)

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The visit – with stops in Senegal, Zambia, and South Africa – comes on the heels of the recent White House Africa Leaders Summit and the administration’s commitment to invest more than $55 billion in the continent over the next three years.

President Joe Biden’s pledge to increase support to Africa must include resources to combat the climate crisis. Africa is home to 6 of 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change, and many African countries are consistently sustaining serious impacts, from severe drought to coastal erosion. But a lack of resources is preventing urgent action. Some estimates show that climate adaptation alone will require upwards of $50 billion per year by 2050, far more than the $11 billion spent in 2020.

Meanwhile, energy poverty in Africa is a huge concern, with only half the population outside of North Africa having access to electricity. While programs like South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Partnership are critical to transition high-emitting countries away from coal, the needs of various African nations differ dramatically. U.S. support must recognize specific country- and regional-level climate needs and help address broader financing gaps on a continent already facing severe financial hardship. 

Last month’s failure by Congress to even come close to Biden’s pledge of $11.4 billion per year in climate finance may be an unfavorable precursor to this trip. But Yellen has other important levers to use. Not least, it is crucial that the Treasury Department shape and drive the growing momentum toward modernizing and reforming the multilateral development banks (MDBs), institutions that are squandering their potential to more meaningfully help countries mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Africa as Central to Reshaping Global Institutions

Yellen, many of her African counterparts, and the African Union (AU) have been outspoken in calls for MDB reform, including to their priorities, financial models, operations, and governance structures. Indeed, Africa needs to be central to the debate on reshaping global institutions. Yellen’s travel will provide the opportunity to elevate consultation with African leaders, including Senegal President Macky Sall, who is also chair of the AU. At the summit, the administration pledged to “work to realize greater and long overdue African representation in international institutions,” including by supporting an African Union seat in the G20. Yellen should think even bigger and take action to ensure the international financial system better serves the African people, as their leaders have been demanding.

For one thing, this visit should be a springboard for closer strategizing on how to use the upcoming Spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to catalyze the ambitious action needed. As one example, the Treasury Department could concretely expand African economic leadership by backing a third chair for sub-Saharan Africa on the IMF’s Executive Board, an influential decision-making body with direct impact on the global economy and especially developing and emerging economies. Africa represents more than 15 percent of the world’s population (projected to increase to 25 percent by 2050), but the continent currently holds less than 5 percent of the voting shares on the IMF Board. The United States, by contrast, holds 16.5 percent of the vote with less than a third of that population. The additional chair for sub-Saharan Africa would provide a significant step towards broader reforms needed at the Fund, and is supported by the developing country-led “Group of 24.” However, backing from the United States is make-or-break since major decisions at the IMF require 85 percent support.

The Biden administration’s Africa strategy has rightly focused on the need to support democracy and good governance in Africa. But these goals are hampered by multiple crises, including the effects of strangling debt. Sovereign debt on the continent is a serious concern, with African countries representing the vast majority of those categorized by the IMF as already in debt distress or at high risk.

How to resolve unsustainable burdens of sovereign debt is a longstanding conundrum that took center stage with the 1990s “Jubilee” movement and is now again coming to the forefront. Post-pandemic, the situation has reached crisis levels, with inflation pushing up the cost of borrowing for poorer countries. The resulting government spending cuts to service that debt have been devastating, especially for women and girls, who bear the brunt of reduced public services and crumbling infrastructure.

“Do Better” on Debt Relief

Current debt relief mechanisms are deeply inadequate. The Zambian case is particularly stark: the government spends four times as much on debt repayments as it does on healthcare.  Zambia is one of very few countries (all African) to apply to restructure debt under the G20’s Common Framework; but movement on negotiation with creditors has been glacial, with no restructuring yet agreed after more than a year.

Yellen has acknowledged that the G20 must “do better” on debt relief, including in the case of Zambia. Now, she should use her trip to lay out a vision for swifter, more far-reaching, and transparent debt relief for debt-burdened countries in Africa and beyond. The United States should use its considerable leverage to bring private creditors to the negotiation table.

The IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings will be an opportunity to reactivate momentum towards a new allocation of Special Drawing Rights, as another tool to give indebted countries some breathing room. SDRs are a form of unconditional and relatively immediate financing to grant countries more liquidity, in the form of a claim on the IMF’s reserves that can be used according to a country’s needs and incur very low rates of interest. A historic new issuance was made in August 2021 in response to the pandemic, providing a much-needed injection of finance for many countries. Those emergency conditions are still with us, especially for many indebted African countries. One critique is that SDRs are a blunt and badly targeted tool, as they are assigned according to a country’s IMF quota share; but, there are channels for redistributing the SDRs that can be built upon.

Yellen’s trip is a welcome chance to push the reset button on U.S.-Africa relations in ways that protect African economies facing the specter of “poly-crises” during these extraordinary times.

(Editor’s note: This article has been updated to remove a line about the timing of the last visit by a Treasury secretary to Africa. The timeframe is unclear.)

IMAGE: U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (L) meets with President of Zambia Hakainde Hichilema during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit on December 15, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Summit brought together heads of state, government officials, business leaders, and civil society to strengthen ties between the U.S. and Africa. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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For a vast portion of humanity, the impending threats issued by climate change are already tangible rather than looming potentials. As the sea levels rise, biodiversity rapidly declines, and poverty and displacement ensue, it is worth reiterating that those least responsible for climate change are the worst affected by its cataclysms. This fact is emphasized by an article from Generation Climate Europe, which found the “top 10% of global emitters (771 million individuals) were responsible for about 48% of global CO2 emissions, while the bottom 50% (3.8 billion individuals) were responsible for almost 12% of all emissions” in 2019. Climate change is an all-encompassing issue, yet its impacts and suffering are distributed unevenly and without proportion to culpability. Climate justice in the global South is a pressing matter and one that should not be discarded to the “backburner” of our global priorities. While climate justice was taken at least somewhat seriously at the United Nations COP27 conference, little effort seems to have been made to change the business-as-usual approach to addressing climate change, which inherently furthers climate injustice in the global South.

Inequalities of the Past and Plight of the Global South

The climate crisis is an inevitable consequence of the Western development model: actions governed by a social order that has historically prioritized a growth paradigm. Climate change, and the uncertainty it entails, is the challenge of our time. Yet, its origins can be traced back through the centuries, expressing it as a problem of patterns. Within this context, even actions during colonialism sowed the seeds of the climate crisis, which have noticeably bloomed over the past 50 to 60 years. Important regional and adaptive practices were disregarded and scrubbed from westernized history as colonialism established extractivist relationships and dependence on the global South. During this era, colonial powers effectively reorganized the world’s social order, predicating it on southern subservience to the global North, thereby transforming the flow of energy and resources through an unsustainable and unequal global system. 

In the wake of the globalization project in the 1980s, predatory lending by the global North left global South countries spending significant portions of their GDPs on loan servicing rather than crucial infrastructure, public health, and social services investments that could have increased climate resilience (see Fantu Cheru’s analysis in the African context). Relatedly, neoliberal measures, as Adrian Parr argues, are ineffective responses to the challenges climate change presents. Instead, in this era, western export manufacturing was relocated to global South countries as a means to avoid higher expenses and environmental regulations. Global financial institutions and corporations used their extraordinary powers to manipulate the rules of the game, privileging corporate control and shrinking the power of Southern states. The adverse long-term effects of this world order, including extreme inequality, are numerous, impacting the health, economies, and environments of many marginalized communities. Current approaches to climate change are unjust and disproportionately harm the global South, mirroring the same inequalities of the past. 

Many countries in the global South are already suffering the impacts of climate change, especially those located near tropical areas and associated worsening tropical storms. For example, India suffered historic heat waves this past spring, and Pakistan suffered historic flooding. Pakistan, to be noted, contributes less than one percent of greenhouse gas emissions while being one of the countries most affected by climate change.

Similarly, northern Kenya is facing prolonged droughts, which leave rural areas with greater chances of starvation, and parts of Bangladesh are now underwater due to extreme rain, destroying many homes. Bangladesh’s southwest region is home to more than 18 million people and is no more than seven feet above sea level. Bangladesh is thus described as “ground zero” for climate change. Bangladesh and other countries in similar geographical locations urgently need a climate response, as their coastal position makes them increasingly vulnerable to rising sea levels.

Although some of the increased vulnerability of global South countries is due to their geographic location, the legacy of colonialism and the structural adjustment policies (SAPs) of the globalization project have also greatly contributed to their current vulnerability. The push for climate justice is therefore intertwined with a push for social justice in the global South. Put differently, climate justice is needed to address the disparity between global South and North nations.

Business as Usual and Agricultural Injustice

The COP27 conference has included the unprecedented yet long-overdue creation of a fund to address climate justice in the face of increasing climate-driven catastrophes. This fund, despite issues, could signal an important shift in global perception of the fight against climate change. Although world leaders at COP27 once again emphasized collective actions to achieve climate goals, their reliance mainly on a business-as-usual approach contradicts their commitment to climate justice issues. To be specific, fossil fuels still comprise around 85 percent of global energy. Even so, Philip McMichael and Heloise Weber note that the fossil fuel industry receives up to $1 trillion in annual subsidies, which is over $100 trillion of unburned carbon, and over $10 trillion for the fossil fuel sector’s infrastructure. On the other hand, in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, one million square kilometers of forest have been cut down or burned since 1978 at a rate of almost 10,000 acres a day.  Forests in Brazil, Africa, and Indonesia are destroyed for resources, contributing to carbon emissions, as well as degrading fundamental ecosystems that play a critical role in reducing the level of atmospheric carbon.

Additionally, the impact of the business-as-usual approach is reflected in the most dominant institutional adaptation activities in the global South. For context, the global South depends heavily on farming and agriculture, and climate change is causing many different native crops to yield a much lower number than they normally would. Rising heat is also an issue for a great variety of crops, and has wiped out many yields over the past decade because of the horrific droughts and minimal water. 

In addition to the ill effects of the climate crisis, the ways in which dominant institutions develop strategies to adapt exacerbate food and water scarcity. Kasia Paprocki (2021) in her Threatening Dystopias: The Global Politics of Climate Change Adaptation in Bangladesh discusses how elites and rich countries use the rural poor of the global South, particularly in Bangladesh, as pawns to experiment with adaptations to climate change. One such example is the development of the shrimp aquaculture sector. In the face of threats posed by climate change in Bangladesh, the invention of the shrimp exports industry “is seen as critical to the expansion of ‘non-crop agriculture,’ which the World Bank regards as a more productive sector and therefore necessary to the growth of Bangladesh’s economy.” Yet, vast communities of farmers and other rural inhabitants have historically depended on rice agriculture. As certain actors within the development regime intervene and push the transition to shrimp aquaculture, the livelihoods that rely on rice agriculture are threatened and ultimately dispossessed.

Furthermore, increased soil salinity is a major consequence of the shrimp aquaculture industry, which compounds the environmental degradation brought forth by climate change. Industrial agriculture, which uses 80 percent of arable land while feeding only 30 percent of the population, serves the affluent global minority with huge purchasing power, not the population in dire need. Thus, agricultural justice should be a characteristic of climate justice to provide security for the majority of Earth’s inhabitants.

Effective Climate Action Is Just

Effective climate action is and should center on the voices of the historically marginalized people, including indigenous peoples, who best know the land they have lived on for countless generations. For example, an International Institute for Environment and Development report shows that public participatory monitoring in Semarang, Indonesia, has emphasized a “localized understanding of needs.” Such a localized understanding of vulnerability has proven to be successful in improving the adaptive capacity of local communities facing threats posed by climate change. This understanding is necessary worldwide, and climate justice can amplify the voices teaching this worldview. Top-down adaptation in the name of assisting local communities seems to only inflame their problems, as evident in Bangladesh’s shrimp industry, for there is a clear lack of understanding of the community itself or its needs. 

The global South faces a multitude of social injustices that are further exposed and exacerbated by climate change. Major carbon emitters should take accountability for their actions and the harm they have done to the planet. If measures are taken to tend to the global South countries, lessening the injustices they experience, then not only will the people of the global South and the global North reap the benefits, but planetary health will improve too. Moreover, if the conference in Egypt was held to build on previous accomplishments and lay the groundwork for future ambition to address the global challenge of climate change successfully, then global leaders must act swiftly and justly. While the fund created at COP27 is commendable, it will not address all of these issues or accomplish all of these possibilities, but it is a vital part of the nascent movement for climate justice. Actions taken in accordance with the current global order will most likely result in the same outcomes: environmental decay and humanitarian crises. Climate justice will not occur overnight, but it requires a reexamination of the global order to effectively deal with the crisis and injustice unleashed by climate change worldwide.

IMAGE: In this picture taken on September 27, 2022, internally displaced flood-affected people wade through a flooded area in Dadu district of Sindh province. (Photo by RIZWAN TABASSUM/AFP via Getty Images)

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While 2022 saw its share of challenges and change, it was also a year of coming together, and we at Just Security are enormously appreciative of the way our community continues to grow. In 2022, five new Editors joined the team of thought leaders on Just Security’s Editorial Board, and existing Editorial Board members Matiangai Sirleaf and Rebecca Hamilton took on new roles as Executive Editors. New and returning authors contributed cutting-edge analysis, including authors bringing crucial perspectives from places around the world impacted by U.S. foreign policy. This year also saw the launch of the Just Security Podcast. And in 2022, an increasing number of articles have been made available in translation.

Readers, of course, are at the heart of Just Security’s work. On behalf of our entire Just Security team, we would like to express our gratitude to readers for turning to us for coverage and analysis for another year. If Just Security‘s work is meaningful to you, we also invite you to support Just Security with a year-end tax deductible donation of any size.

Democracy and Anti-Authoritarianism

Heading into 2023, we naturally expect that democracy and authoritarianism will continue to feature prominently in the headlines. From questions of accountability and election protection in the United States, to the movement for democracy and rights in Iran, to global authoritarianism trends that intersect with other issues on our pages, these challenges will continue to drive big-picture questions about the future of the global order.

At Just Security, authors have named and assessed the risks of democratic backsliding while also leading the way on solutions-oriented analysis. Here’s a selection of some of what’s appeared in Just Security in the past year:

• Expert analysis of authoritarianism and democracy from leading thinkers around the globe, analyzing global and regional trends and shining a spotlight on countries where democracy is at risk or under threat (from Bosnia, to Haiti, to Tunisia, to Hungary, to name just a few).
• Solutions-oriented series, including The Good Governance Papers: A 2022 “Report Card” Update (building on a previous series focused on “actionable legislative and administrative proposals to restore and promote non-partisan principles of good government, public integrity, and the rule of law”) and our Series on Solutions to Democratic Backsliding.
• Rigorous analysis of issues related to the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, with an emphasis on the connection to rule-of-law and democratic institutions, and a January 6 Clearinghouse, updated on an ongoing basis (including a new permanent repository of all deposition transcripts).

Russia’s War Against Ukraine

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine will undoubtedly remain in the headlines in 2023, with the one-year mark of Russia’s full-scale invasion approaching on Feb. 24. President Zelenskyy said in his Dec. 21 speech to a joint session of Congress, “Next year will be a turning point, I know it.” Specific issues to follow in the coming year include developments in war crimes documentation, the application of international humanitarian law, and civilian protection; international justice, reparations, and accountability; and geopolitical consequences of the war for the global order – often, indeed, in ways that intersect with the issues of authoritarianism and democracy discussed above.

Earlier this year, Just Security launched a Russia-Ukraine War Archive, collecting and cataloging the articles we publish on these topics – now approaching 300, with many articles available in Ukrainian. Among these articles:

• Ukrainian authors and interviewees contributed powerful personal perspectives and rigorous analysis, in articles including Justice for the Crime of Aggression Today, Deterrence for the Aggressive Wars of Tomorrow: A Ukrainian Perspective,  ‘The Hour These Hostilities Began’: Ukrainians Mobilize to Document War Crimes, Mariupol and the Origins and Avenues of Ukraine’s Transitional Justice Process, Transitional Justice in Ukraine: Guidance to Policymakers, Ukrainian Journalists Are Winning the “Information War” Russia Is Waging Against Ukraine, But They Need Help, Ukraine’s Constitutional Constraints: How to Achieve Accountability for the Crime of Aggression, Ukraine May Mark a Turning Point in Documenting War Crimes, and Insight from Ukraine: Revitalizing Belief in International Law.
• Authors involved in high-level policy discussions launched and rigorously worked through ideas for accountability, reparations, reconstruction, and justice. Such projects include an article Launching an International Claims Commission for Ukraine (followed by Historic UNGA Resolution Calls for Ukraine Reparations), a multi-part series on The Case for Creating a Special Tribunal to Prosecute the Crime of Aggression Committed Against Ukraine, The Absolute Clarity of International Legal Practice’s Rejection of Immunity Before International Criminal Courts, Extend US Leadership on Ukraine to Post-War Reconstruction Too, and more.
• Resources tracking Russia’s Eliminationist Rhetoric Against Ukraine and Countries’ Statements Calling Russian Action in Ukraine “Genocide”.
• A “What You Need to Know” series co-organized with the Reiss Center on Law and Security, presenting brief, digestible Q&As with leading experts on some of the key legal issues presented by Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Content Moderation and Other Tech Policy Issues

Twitter’s ownership change grabbed headlines in 2022, and while the legal and policy implications of some of the company’s actions will undoubtedly play an important part in tech policy conversations in 2023, the recent drama also highlights broader, ongoing conversations about content moderation and platform governance, as social media companies otherwise seek to balance their role as widely used public forums with efforts to combat disinformation (including adversarial nation-state information operations) and prevent the spread of hate speech.

Expect content moderation to continue to feature prominently in 2023. On Just Security’s pages, expert authors have engaged with cutting-edge legal questions on governing content moderation – what our Editorial Board member (and Meta Oversight Board member) Julie Owono has termed the emerging “lex platformia” – and often inject a much-needed global perspective into tech policy conversations. More broadly, the struggle between authoritarian and democratic states for control over the structure of internet governance will be a pressing issue to watch in 2023.

Also on our radar in the tech policy world: artificial intelligence and cyber. New technologies and other developments in these domains present urgent questions at the intersection of regulation and ethics, privacy and cybersecurity, surveillance and encryption, counterterrorism, defense policy, and more.

Climate Change

The importance of climate change will only grow in 2023 – both as a critical national security issue on its own and intersecting with other questions of national and international defense, equity and justice, rule of law, and more. Themes to watch include mitigation and adaptation strategies; the intersection of climate change with geopolitics and conflict/peacebuilding; and legal options for holding climate contributors accountable, such as small island states’ efforts at the United Nations and International Court of Justice.

Some key resources from Just Security’s pages:

• In recognition of climate change’s centrality to national security analysis, we launched a Climate Archive cataloging our coverage in easy-to-access (and rapidly-growing) categories such as energy security, geopolitics, human rights, and migration and displacement.
• Tracking COP27: Notable Moments and Key Themes followed the climate negotiations and outcomes, and expert authors analyzed COP27 proceedings, including importantly what comes next.

Just Security’s climate coverage will continue to expand in 2023 and beyond, with voices from the most-affected communities and countries playing a central role.

* * *

In the final few days of 2022, we turn again to an expression of thanks – to our amazing colleagues who help produce Just Security, to our authors who fill the pages with their minds and hearts, and to our readers for trusting in our work and analysis. Next year will mark Just Security’s 10 year anniversary. We begin it with deep appreciation for all who brought us to this point.

IMAGES (top left to bottom right): Tunisian protesters raise placards on July 22, 2022, during a demonstration along Habib Bourguiba avenue in the capital Tunis, against their president and the upcoming July 25 constitutional referendum (Photo by FETHI BELAID/AFP via Getty Images); A woman with a Ukrainian flag stands outside the International Criminal Court of Justice (ICJ) or Peace Palace on the first day of hearings on March 7, 2022 in The Hague The Netherlands (Photo by Michel Porro/Getty Images); On September 28, 2022, an internally displaced flood-affected family sits outside their tent at a makeshift tent camp in Jamshoro district of Sindh province (Photo by Rizwan Tabassum/AFP via Getty Images); The Twitter account of Elon Musk is displayed on a smartphone with a Twitter logo in the background on November 21, 2022. (Photo by Nathan Stirk/Getty Images) 

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As developing countries battle against severe weather, rising sea levels, and droughts, China’s emissions are exacerbating these challenges. With more greenhouse gas emissions than the United States, the European Union, and Japan combined, China isa major perpetrator of the climate change crisis. Up to this point, China has been an ally of the developing world, but it now refuses to help pay for the damages caused by its emissions. This creates an opportunity for the United States and its allies to exercise leadership by providing a credible alternative to developing countries that is good for the climate, democracy, and human rights.

Understanding China

Since coming to power, Xi Jinping has sought to restore China to what he believes is its rightful position on the world stage. To that end, Beijing is expanding its sphere of influence in the Global South with the intention of building a world order in which China leads in designing and setting the rules. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has helped Xi achieve these aims.

Militarily, the BRI has enabled China to expand its overseas military presence. With the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, its first overseas base in Djibouti, and a strategic airstrip only a few thousand kilometers from Hawaii, Beijing is using projects of questionable commercial value to expand its global footprint. China’s economic connections in Africa will additionally provide it access to the continent’s growing middle class – a potential source of demand for Chinese industry over the coming decades. China is also making political demands a condition for assistance. During the pandemic, African leaders were prodded to publicly declare their gratitude for shipments of Chinese vaccines and personal protective equipment, and China reportedly has promised aid in return for support at the United Nations (U.N.). Perhaps partly as a result, in June 2021, no African country backed a statement critical of China at the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. Rather, more than 30 African countries signed a counterstatement in defense of China.

This transactional approach, however, is beginning to show cracks. Last spring, China sent its Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, to the South Pacific to discuss a trade and security communique with 10 island nations. Wang’s efforts failed. Pacific Islands states told Wang Yi that they wanted to work with China on their own priorities — climate change and COVID-19 recovery. A couple of weeks later at the Shangri-La Defense Dialogue, Fiji’s Minister of Defense Inia Seruiratu said, “The single greatest threat to our very existence is climate change. It threatens our very hopes and dreams of prosperity.”

China is not entirely deaf to the concerns of island nations, but so far, its efforts have fallen short. Beijing has put in place a 2060 carbon neutrality target; however, if China’s emissions trajectory does not decline well before its 2060 carbon neutrality target, it will further destabilize the climate and increase climate-related security and economic risks, most acutely in the Global South.

An Opportunity for U.S. Leadership

Leveraging the gap left by China’s current inward focus at COP27 and unwillingness to take concrete steps to support developing nations requires the United States to move quickly and efficiently. The United States should now undertake additional domestic reforms to build its credibility as a leader on climate action, offer a credible alternative to China’s investment model, and set new rules for the net-zero century. If successful, this approach will impede China’s ability to build alliances in the developing world and increase pressure on China to adjust its climate policies.

Build Credibility

Recently, the United States has put real weight behind its words on climate action. On June 6, 2022,U.S. President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act for clean technology production, which will accelerate the manufacturing of clean energy technologies. Earlier this year, the U.S. Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which will help reduce emissions by decarbonizing industrial processes, creating American jobs to develop and build clean technology, and funding U.S. emissions reduction plans.

By reducing its own emissions, the United States can demonstrate that it is a serious partner for developing countries. By assisting developing countries through the energy transition, the United States can further show these countries the long-term value of working with a country that truly supports freedom of choice, open standards, and commercial responsibility.

Build Viable Alternatives

One of China’s greatest advantages has been its reliance on industrial policy to unify national goals with market ambitions. To provide developing countries an alternative to China, the United States must refocus its public-private partnerships when it comes to supply chain diversification, overseas financing, and clean technology exports.

The United States and its partners recently announced the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), which is committed to building responsible critical mineral supply chains to support economic prosperity and climate objectives. Policymakers should expand MSP to include countries in the Global South and advocate for local value chains rather than China’s extractive approach, which does not invest in local economies through the development of local processing and refinement capabilities.

Additionally, policymakers must unlock private financing opportunities for the Global South. Using guarantees, the Development Finance Corporation (DFC) can mitigate the risk of projects and leverage external resources beyond the lending capacity of the institution. This makes maximum use of public financing and unlocks private capital needed for clean energy projects. Currently, DFC is prohibited from supporting investments in certain economies, namely the Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, Chile, and Panama, among others. A change in these rules would give DFC the authority to work in more countries of strategic interest.

The United States should also develop a clean technology commercial export strategy that fast-tracks packages of public and private financing and American-manufactured clean technology. Such a strategy should clearly identify countries ripe for investment, technology options, and financing mechanisms. This step would support a growing domestic industrial base with international demand, give countries the tools to sustainably grow their economies, and allow the United States to compete with China on clean technology.

Build the Rules for the Net-Zero Century

The United States and its allies should work to promote open and transparent rules that level the playing field for the evolving global economic order. China has been very active in international fora that set the rules and standards for climate action, such as through the China Standards 2035 plan. This plan details China’s increasing roles in setting standards for emerging technologies, including clean technologies. To counter China’s influence in these fora, the United States should work to establish open and transparent rules for clean energy, supply chains, and how carbon content of traded goods and services will be measured.

China’s economy is in trouble and its Global South strategy is showing cracks. The United States has a strategic opportunity to expand its climate diplomacy with the developing world, while pressuring China to cut its own emissions. To succeed, the United States must do something it hasn’t done well in recent years: show-up for partners globally, in a reliable and credible way. Otherwise, China will.

IMAGE: A worker uses a torch to cut steel pipes near the coal-powered Datang International Zhangjiakou Power Station at Zhangjiakou, one of the host cities for the 2022 Winter Olympics, in China’s northern Hebei province. (Photo by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images)

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