Year
2011
Abstract
The National Intelligence Council has published a series of recent reports on national and human security impacts of global climate change. These studies predict that violent storms, pandemics, drought, food instability (both in terms of scarcity and affordability), economic disruption, and large-scale refugee problems could destabilize regions and increase their vulnerability to terrorism and conflict. Despite the extensive research conducted to date, an issue that has not received much attention is the intersection of climate change with nuclear nonproliferation. In some cases, the effects of climate change may cause significant nuclear security concerns. For instance, rising sea levels and extreme weather events can create situations where nuclear installations become more vulnerable to insider sabotage, attack or deterioration. Illicit access by employees or outsiders could occur during disruptions caused by floods, storms, widespread outages and station blackouts, resulting in nuclear theft, sabotage or a nuclear accident. A need exists to understand climate-related threats that may apply to all nuclear facilities and infrastructure, as well as site-specific threats in regions that may be particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events and sea level rise. Potential areas where resiliency support for nuclear facility infrastructure would be useful include cyber security, illicit trafficking prevention, and physical protection. Furthermore, an opportunity exists for the nonproliferation community to offer technology and policy lessons learned that could be applied to development and application of verification mechanisms for a global climate change treaty. This paper will explore these intersections between climate change and nonproliferation and consider some possible steps for using nonproliferation lessons learned to mitigate the global climate change security threat.