Worldwide Emerging Environmental Issues Affecting the U.S. Military. Summarizing Environmental Security Monthly Scanning July 2007 - December 2007

摘要

The purpose of the monthly scanning reports is to assess worldwide environment-related events in order to identify and analyze issues that might trigger future international environmental regulations and/or modifications to the existing ones with potential implications for the miliraty. Environmental security continues to move up on national, regional, and international agendas due to increasing scientific evidence of climate change, extreme weather events, the number and intensity of natural disasters, pollution, potentials for pandemics, and nuclear-biological-chemical threats. The Army Strategy on the Environment reflects this new direction. Calls for improving international environmental governance are increasing. The technological ability to identify environmental threats and crimes is becoming cost-effective through new sensors and communications. The UN Security Council, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and other international bodies are paying increased attention to problems of environmental security. Environmental damages that people and organizations got away with in the past are less likely to escape detection and punishment in the future. Environmental diplomacy is increasingly being used to support conflict prevention efforts and to build international confidence, while human security is gaining recognition in both military and diplomatic circles. Environmental security is a link between the two. The Millennium Project defines environmental security as environmental viability for life support, with three sub-elements: preventing or repairing military damage to the environment, preventing or responding to environmentally caused conflicts, and protecting the environment due to its inherent moral value. This summarizing paper presents the events and emerging environmental security related issues identified since July 2007, organized around this definition.