What that means now in the policy and the security space. Im excited to have an excellent panel to talk about that. Weve got heather conley, our vice president. We have john. We have sara glasser, the Deputy Director of secure fisheries and amy lair, the director of our human rights initiative. Thank you to the panel, and im going to sit down and be quiet and turn it over to my excellent panel, and well start off with heather. Thank you so much. Good morning, everyone. I think the arctic is the best place to talk about that intersection of climate stress and security. And in many ways the arctic is telling us, actually, both polar regions are telling us theyre under the most dramatic stress as the arctic certainly is warming two to three times faster than any place on the planet. And in many ways we are now dealing with a very new ocean. In fact, our former coast guard commandant called the arctic americas fourth coast. I thought that was a powerful way of thinking about it in part because Many Americans dont know the United States as an arctic nation to help bring it home to this is homeland security. We now have a new coast that requires our protection. And so that is what in many ways the nexus between the rapid diminishment of the arctic polar icecap is now creating new borders, new coasts to protect which is why we need enhanced coast guard presence. Certainly thats through enhanced ice breaker component. What we call a polar security cutter. But this was also required deep water ports. Greater maritime do main awareness because were now seeing an increase in commercial and human activity in the arctic. It is also this new ocean and the opportunities that this new ocean provides is really requiring a much more rethaukt, i would argue, about sovereignty in the arctic. And this is certainly the russian governments perspective, because they are now russia is now developing a very ambitious Economic Development plan for the Russian Arctic which not only includes the development of oil and Gas Resources in the Russian Arctic, but also the creation of a major transit route, the northern sea route. What were seeing is russia needing to enhance the protection of the northern sea route. Theyre reopening airfields. Theyre putting search and rescue Centers Across the northern sea route. And they are also making important changes to the structure and how they regulate the northern sea route. And, of course, what underpins all of this both the science and the environmental change that were seeing in the arctic as well as the economics, its all underpinned by science. Science is power in the arctic. Using traditional knowledge of the indigenous communities is power. And, of course, were trying to understand the Science Behind the extraordinary changes that we are seeing in the arctic. So im just going to touch on some of the key security issues. Its sort of the good, the bad, and the ugly, if you will. There is some very good things that are happening in the arctic to manage this nexus between climate stress and security. First and foremost, i think at this point the arctic is well governed. The United Nations convention of the law of the sea provides that maritime space with good legal frameworks for territorial waters, exclusive Economic Zones, as well as the high seas area around the north pole, the central arctic ocean, and one of the most important forms of monitoring and innovating is through the Arctic Council, the intergovernment forum that was created in 1996. It was birthed from an arctic Environmental Protection strategy that brings the 5 coastal states together. Russia, canada, norway, denmark, the kingdom of denmark via greenland at the center of the Arctic Council are the permanent participants. They have a seat at the table, because its their way of life that is so dramatically changing. But the Arctic Council has been sort of groaning under the changes both of the Climate Change and the new demands on it. Right now there are 20 plus observers to the Arctic Council. In 2013 china became a permanent observer to the Arctic Council. That would change the dynamic. Now the arctic is not just for the regional countries. It is now becoming a global issue, because what happens in the arctic impacts the Global Environment. And as chinas role became more and more apparent in the arctic and russia began to assert itself increasingly both militarily and economically in the arctic, now were at a point where were viewing the arctic through the lens of Great Power Competition. And that was certainly framed by secretary of state mike pompeo in finland in may of this year where he gave a real stem winder of a speech. Surprised some of us. Where it came from describing this very stark, Great Power Competition in the arctic. And so thats in some ways what were grappling with today. Chinas growing economic presence through infrastructure, through its participation in a variety of international organizations, and, of course, russias increased military presence. These are challenging how the u. S. Thinks about it. I always want to end with good news. So often in our line of work were just talking about challenges. I want to say the arctic has also demonstrated great resilience and governance innovation. When we needed to strengthen the maritime shipping code in the arctic, the International Maritime organization it took it a decade, created the polar code. It strengthens, demands, mandates that ships must be hardened for traversing the arctic. Weve created an International Search and rescue agreement, an International Oil spill and response agreement. Weve just recently negotiated a preemptive fisheries agreement for the central arctic ocean. There are no fish in the central arctic ocean. But this agreement puts a moratorium on that for 16 years until the science tells us that it could be okay if we needed to do that. We have innovations like the Arctic Coast Guard Forum what helps do the Oil Spill Response, and finally something weve been looking at is getting to that high seas challenge to protect the biodiversity beyond the national jurisdictions, beyond the exclusive Economic Zones. Thats targeting those high seas area. Fisheries, bio diversity, shipping, you know what . Its a little chi kaye yachtic right now. I dont think we have it all the right place. Im very worried about the military dimension. Im worried about chinas dual use infrastructure in the arctic, but im very heartened when i see innovation, pragmatic governance thats helping to protect the arctic. Want to end on a high note and looking forward to your questions. Thank you, heather. Thats great. Were going to turn now from the arctic to asia, and the pacific. And im going to turn to john. Thank you. So asia is very much a crucible for Climate Change and security. If you think about it, its got twothirds of the global population. Many of those are poor populations. They live coastally predominantly. They rely heavily on seafood for nutrition. Theres already over exploitation of the fishing resources, and that overexploitation is intensifytyf iing. The governments typically have low capacity to deal with those issues, and then these in Southeast Asia especially, these are the countries that are going to be hit hardest by Climate Change where some of the impacts will be felt the greatest. To talk about this and put this in context, i want to use indonesia as an example. Ill start with that and try to back up a little bit. Indonesia is the second largest fishing power in the world in terms of the amount of wild fish harvested. China is the first. Indonesia is second. Its a country that struggled with poverty and has about a 10 poverty rate. Of its 270 million people, 10 live below the poverty line which indonesia is about. 76 cents a day. The fishing is often referred to as a last resort occupation when agriculture and other jobs dont work out, you can just go fishing. And so many of these coastal communities depend upon fish for nutrition and for to climb out of poverty. And if you are not certain how important fisheries are to indonesia, google minister. Im sure youll pull up a photograph of the boats, the fishing boats that have illegally traversed into indonesia fishing waters that shes blown up. Its made her one of the most popular politicians in indonesia today. As an example of the role that fisheries play, i can tell you a little bit about a blue swimming crab fishery that edf works in there. Its the third most important export economic economically. Swimming crab. If you go to chesapeake and order a crab cake sandwich, local supply cant keep up. Chances are very good youre eating crab from indonesia and perhaps one from the java sea. 80 of the product there goes to the u. S. There are about 300 people in that fishery in terms of fishermen and supply chain workers there. And it brings in the country about 300 million u. S. Dollars. 300,000 people. 300 million. That keeps these people just above that poverty line but only hovering just above it. They remain very vulnerable. Climate change. Impacts will be very serious for communities like these. Obviously Sea Level Rise. Some of these communities are not just coastal. There is a fishing village that we work with that is literally built on a sand bar about ten kilometers from shore with sticks sort of put down in the sand and theres a platform, and women and children but mostly fishermen are there, and they live there year around so they can get further access to the fishery. Obviously Sea Level Rise is going to be extremely extremely challen challenging. But the losses in productivity that you heard about in the first panel, we heard globally the earth, you know, global fish production may decline by about 4 or so. But regionally, losses and the developing tropics in places like indonesia could decline by as much as 50 . And thats both because of the loss in fundamental productivity that the previous speakers talked about and also because of fish migrating to cooler waters and polar, north and south. So this is, of course, potentially catastrophic for these poor communities that are hovering on the poverty line. And this generates a this will create potentially a downward spiral. If theres a loss of catch, the logical response for most communities is to then fish harder. That, then, makes these fisheries even more vulnerable to Climate Change. Theres a very interesting link to understand here. Its talked about in the report. Overfished fisheries are more vulnerable to Climate Change, and Climate Change will have a negative impact on fisheries. The communities that experience drops in catches will then make their own resources more vulnerable by overfishing. The government in many of these places have little capacity to control that. And so these communities have the potential to spiral downward. Another response to declining catches will be for fishermen to go further and further abroad. Already many indonesian fishermen go right up to the border of the eez of australia and fish along the line, because australias fisheries are fairly well managed and indonesian fisherman get the benefit over the border. Chinese have done the same thing. Theyve increased the number and power of distant water fleet boats. This, of course, creates huge challenges in asia where the eezs are packed in so tightly that it will create a lot of potential for tensions to grow among countries. So turning to solutions, what can we do about this . The number one solution, of course, is to mitigate Climate Change to reduce Carbon Pollution and Global Warming pollution, number one, since were on a ocean theme. Number two i would say is to promote low carbon energy, wind energy, wave energy, perhaps thermal water imagery as well. Solutions that promote blue carbon, its the report tal taltalks speaks well to the issue of man groves, sea grasses. Theres also the carbon found in increasing fish stocks. Reviving them to historic levels. There was a paper by economists that estimated that if i could replenish whale populations alone to create fish levels, thats two giga tons of carbon. You can eat more fish. Beef is about 20 times more emissions per gram of protein in a life cycle analysis than seafood. Okay. But critically as we heard in the last panel, we cannot just mitigate. We also need to adapt and manage. This is an urgent issue because of the link between fisheries abundance in resiliency. Its urgent we put in place good Fisheries Management in the countries that lack it. So this is a Food Security issue. Number one, we need to build capacity in these countries that dont have the skills, finances or expertise or experience to put in place management. Number two, we need to strengthen International Agreements because as the fish migrate, the countries that host fish that are leaving have every incentive to fish those populations down before they get across the border, and the countries that might receive the fish are not going to want to that happen. There really needs to be what we know again and again from observing fisheries around the world when theres unmanaged competition, it leads to a decline in the fish population. There really needs to be a new effort to strength thing the International Agreements. There are many International Agreements on fisheries. Almost none of them contain climate provisions. And lastly, we need to develop solutions for some of these local communities. Like aqua culture, blue carbon and perhaps Energy Solutions as well. There needs to be new Solutions Like that that can provide any kind of nutrition for the communities. There is hope. There are good examples. Whit earlier mentioned the u. S. Fisheries are one of the best managed in the world. Its one of the greatest conservation Success Stories that i think almost no one has heard of is the turn around in u. S. Fisheries. Management really can tleed to fisheries rebounding. Its not just the u. S. Australia, new zealand, and others, there are good examples around the world of solutions that can work to rebuild fish populations. In asia theres some hope as well. Japan, last december passed the most significant reforms to the fishing laws since world war ii. And even china has now been implementing dramatic reforms to control overfishing and overexploitation of culture and the domestic waters. Theres a lot happening. If countries gather together, i think, and promote aid to the countries to build capacity, and can share their experiences, can share their experts, their technical expertise, and most importantly, share their financial resources, i think theres hope to avoid the worst of Climate Change for these countries in Southeast Asia. Excellent. Thank you. Sir, maybe you can talk about the indo pacific and maybe east africa. Yes. Thank you. Im taking primarily about africa and the indian ocean. I think john provided an excellent transition into what is happening in countries around africa and the adaptive capacity that needs to be built. I agree completely, that in countries that are facing the most extreme impacts from Global Warming and Climate Change, their physical consumption of resources is not the driving factor. And so theres a real mismatch between the drivers of Climate Change and those in the world who will face the greatest impacts. In the new special report, it makes it quite clear by showing that the greatest impacts are going to be in the tropical latitudes. Arctics as well. When we talk about the number of people who live in given areas, the tropics are facing a disproportionate impact from Climate Change compared to other parts of the world. And so some of the mid latitude regions. We wanted to give three examples of recent impacts of Climate Change that are happening in africa. The first was Tropical Cyclone aday. It was essentially the Hurricane Dorian of east africa. It happened in march of 2019. Over 1300 people were killed in mozambique and areas around it. Currently they estimate over 2 billion worth of damage. And those type of events are made worse as we know by Climate Change. But they destroy the resilience of communities there. Weve talked about ecological resilience, but Community Resilience is important. Thats something we have a greater ability to impact. The second example is whats happening in lake chad in Central Africa between chad and nigeria. That lake has lost 90 of its water volume over the past 15 years.