Webinar: Peace, Conflict, and the Scale of the Climate Risk Landscape

Originally aired September 14, 2015

The opening session in SSF’s five-part Global Climate Security webinar series — co-hosted with ASU’s Global Security Initiative — examines climate risk and security on all fronts: from risk assessment (impacts on governance, economic vitality, and national and international security) to potential solutions (risk management, policy, and technical). Climate risks have the potential to affect every natural and social system, harming populations, disrupting economies, and contributing directly or indirectly to conflicts within and across borders.

Speakers

Dr. Nadya T. Bliss (Moderator)

Director, Global Security Initiative, Arizona State University

Dr. Nadya T. Bliss is the Director of ASU’s Global Security Initiative and was the founding Group Leader of MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Computing and Analytics Group. GSI is ASU’s university-wide hub addressing emerging global challenges — including climate risks, cyber security, and human security — through multi-disciplinary research and cross-mission collaboration among the defense, development, and diplomacy communities.

Christine Parthemore

Senior Research and Policy Fellow, Center for Climate and Security; Director for Climate and Food Security, Center for American Progress

Christine Parthemore is a Senior Research and Policy Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security, focusing on climate issues related to global health security and nuclear energy. She served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs from 2011 to 2015, managing over $3 billion per year in research, acquisition, and international partnership programs. She is an Adjunct Professor in the Global Security Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Joshua Busby

Associate Professor of Public Affairs, UT Austin; Crook Distinguished Scholar, Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law

Dr. Joshua Busby is an Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and the Crook Distinguished Scholar at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law, where he leads research on Climate Change and African Political Stability. He is principal investigator on a Minerva Initiative-funded project on Complex Emergencies and Political Stability in Asia and has authored major studies on climate change, national security, and energy policy for the Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings, and the German Marshall Fund.

Dr. Marc Levy

Deputy Director, Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University’s Earth Institute

Dr. Marc Levy is Deputy Director of CIESIN at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he teaches environmental security in the School of International and Public Affairs and directs a new educational initiative on Environment, Peace and Security. A political scientist specializing in the human dimensions of global change, he is known for work on environmental security, global governance, and sustainable development metrics. He was a Lead Author on the IPCC AR5 chapter on Human Security and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on climate change’s social and political impacts.