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Energy, Security, and the Arctic: Keys to America’S Competitiveness

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Energy, Security, and the Arctic: Keys to America’S Competitiveness ENERGY, SECURITY, AND THE ARCTIC: KEYS TO AMERICA’S COMPETITIVENESS Essays on Energy Policy May 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS Director’s Note ................................................................................................................... 2 Essays ............................................................................................................................... 3 The Changing Arctic: Challenges for Security, Governance, Climate, and Trade or “What Happens in the Arctic doesn’t Stay in the Arctic” Sherri Goodman ........................................................................................................... 4 Disruptive Geopolitics and the Arctic Geir Westgaard .......................................................................................................... 16 The Changing Ocean: Energy and its Impact on the Blue Economy S.K. Avery ................................................................................................................. 26 The Changing Ocean: Energy and its Impact on the Blue Economy Michael Conathan ...................................................................................................... 31 Geopolitics of Energy: Expanding America’s Global Competitiveness and Economic Vitality Amy Myers Jaffe ........................................................................................................ 46 Geopolitics of Energy Security and Climate Change Sarah Ladislaw .......................................................................................................... 54 Climate Change as a National Security Issue Ray Mabus ................................................................................................................ 60 Energy Technology Innovation Leadership in the 21st Century Hal Harvey, Jeffrey Rissman, and Sonia Aggarwal ......................................................... 64 Resilience in the Post-COVID-19 World: A Key to America’s Future Leonardo Martinez-Diaz .............................................................................................. 75 Proposed Conference Agenda ............................................................................................ 83 1 DIRECTOR’S NOTE This report includes essays that were prepared by scholars who had planned to participate in our congressional conference on energy policy issues, which was to have been held in Iceland the last week of May, 2020. Regrettably, uncertainties related to the coronavirus pandemic did not allow us to convene at this time. Nonetheless, we are proud to present the impressive and substantial work prepared by our scholars, and trust that it will contribute to the policy dialogue. Even though our convening was derailed, the issues themselves will not go away and these policy analyses provide a significant contribution for congressional consideration. We had assembled a Republican majority of 23 Members of Congress to convene on these issues, as expressed on the included agenda. We hope we will still be able to convene and continue these policy discussions at a future date once the situation with the pandemic permits. Dan Glickman Executive Director Aspen Institute Congressional Program 2 ESSAYS 3 THE CHANGING ARCTIC: CHALLENGES FOR SECURITY, GOVERNANCE, CLIMATE, AND TRADE OR “WHAT HAPPENS IN THE ARCTIC DOESN’T STAY IN THE ARCTIC” Sherri Goodman Senior Fellow, Polar Institute and Environmental Change and Security Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars What’s happening is the Arctic today agricultural regions, have all Americans is the clearest evidence of how rising feeling the effects of Arctic climate change. temperatures, melting sea ice and My Bottom Line Up Front is: collapsing permafrost are reshaping the security landscape in which the U.S. Coast 1. ClimAte chAnGe is a threAt Guard, and our military forces, now multiplier, reshApinG the operate. The opening of a new ocean is strAteGic operAtinG environment occurring within our lifetimes, and most for the Coast Guard in the dramatically within the last two decades. Arctic, And Around the world. The Arctic Ocean is now an increasingly 2. In the Arctic, A chAnGinG climAte accessible, navigable, maritime border for is emboldeninG our competitors the U.S. The Arctic region is warming at 2-3 and adversaries (RussiA and times the global average, according to the ChinA), creAtinG new risks And latest report from the Intergovernmental complicatinG nAviGAtinG Panel on Climate Change. And what conditions for the CoAst GuArd happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the and our militAry. Arctic. Greenland’s ice storage keeps our coastal cities, like Miami and Houston, 3. We hAve A "Responsibility to above water. Changing weather patterns in PrepAre And Prevent” for the lower 48 states, from the polar vortex chAnGinG Arctic conditions And creating extreme weather events to the CoAst GuArd needs to disruptive storms that wreak havoc in prime enhAnce its operAtinG capAbilities in the Arctic, from 4 additional ice breakinG, to per decAde (during the satellite era improved domain AwAreness from 1979 to 2018), changes are likely (mappinG And chArtinG), unprecedented in at least 1,000 years. communications And reseArch The Arctic’s older, thicker sea ice, capAbilities1 which acts as a bastion against melting of other sea ice, has almost completely 4. Leadership on Arctic security is disappeared. Only about 10% of sea ice essentiAl to AmericA’s overAll is at least five years old. security And strAteGic interests and must be a whole of U.S. • Ice sheets And GlAciers Are losinG government And pArtnership ice Around the world. Between 2006 effort includinG Allies, and 2015, Greenland’s ice sheet lost communities, privAte sector, 278 gigatons (Gt) of mass per year. and others, that serves to Antarctica’s ice sheet lost 155 Gt per underGird the rules-based order year, and glaciers around the world and support Arctic resilience. (beyond Greenland and Antarctica) lost 220 Gt a year. Combined, the ice loss ___________________________________ between Greenland, Antarctica and #1: ClimAte chAnGe is A threAt other glaciers not part of ice sheets was multiplier, reshApinG the strAteGic 653 Gt per year. For context, a single operAtinG environment for the CoAst gigaton of water would fill GuArd And US militAry in the Arctic, about 400,000 Olympic pools.3. and around the world • The Arctic hAs wArmed more thAn The recent IPCC Special Report on double the globAl AverAge in the Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing last two decAdes. During the winters Climate found that climate change is of 2016 and 2018, surface temperatures evident in the furthest reaches of the globe in the central Arctic were 6 degrees from the highest mountain peaks to the Centigrade (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) 2 deepest oceans. Greenland is now melting above the 1981-2010 average. from the top down. Here are the key Arctic • From 2007 to 2016, permAfrost findings that shape the strategic operating temperAtures increAsed by About environment for the Coast Guard and others operating in the region: 0.3 degrees C (0.5 degrees F), A record level of wArminG for • “Arctic seA ice extent in September permAfrost. Warming of permafrost (when seA ice extent is At its can be a ticking time bomb. Arctic and minimum) hAs declined About 13% boreal permafrost contains 1440-1600 1 Werrell, Caitlin and Francesco Femia. “The Responsibility to Prepare and Prevent.” The Center for Climate and Security. October 2019. https://climateandsecurity.org/2019/01/31/interview-with-sherri- goodman-a-responsibility-to-prepare/ 2 Maddox, Marisol. “Two Divergent Paths for Our Planet Revealed in New IPCC Report on Oceans and Cryosphere.” New Security Beat. November 18, 2019. https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2019/11/divergent-paths-planet-revealed-ipcc-report-oceans- cryosphere/ 3 Walbolt, Kristen. “10 things: All about ice.” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. March 28. 2018. https://sealevel.nasa.gov/news/114/10-things-all-about-ice 5 Gt of carbon. When it melts, that carbon global interest in valuable energy, mineral is emitted into the atmosphere, fueling resources, and access to shipping routes. more warming.”4 The retreating and thinning of Arctic ice has given rise to exponential growth in Arctic communities have already economic and military activities, including experienced disruptions to their freshwater shipping, resource extraction, and other supply, infrastructure, transportation, commerce. The Coast Guard Strategic tourism and cultural traditions, due to a Outlook stresses that: “The Arctic maritime melting cryosphere. Many species domain will continue to open and increased dependent on cold temperatures, ice, and activity will create more demand for Coast snow are at risk, with some facing Guard services. Near-term variability will extinction. These changes will worsen as result in a dynamic operating environment warming continues. that exposes mariners and Arctic Indeed, the Coast Guard’s Strategic communities to unpredictable levels of risk.” Outlook identifies that “the warming of the Rapid Arctic change is feeding into China’s Arctic has led to longer and larger windows and Russia’s strategic ambitions, both of reduced ice conditions,” and that “from regionally and globally. 2006 to 2018, satellite imagery observed As I stated in an article in Foreign the 12 lowest Arctic ice extents on record.” Policy, “China has large ambitions ___________________________________ throughout the Arctic.”5 This includes the #2: In the Arctic, A chAnGinG climAte is advancement
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