National Security Implications of Climate Change

Jul 13, 2017 | John Campbell
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Climate change certainly has direct implications for the security of the United States, which other participants are exploring this afternoon.  But, we Americans must also be concerned about the security of our close diplomatic partners. If our partners’ security is undermined, so too is our own, even if only indirectly. Here, I would like to look at Nigeria as a case study, where climate change is already having a negative impact on the security of a close partner of the United States.

Arguably, Nigeria is the African state of greatest strategic importance to the United States. It is home to about 20 percent of the people living in Africa south of the Sahara. It has a population of more than 200 hundred million, and it is already considerably larger than the Russian Federation. The population is growing rapidly. It has increased by 17.35 percent over the past five years, far faster than the growth of Nigeria’s economy and the development of basic infrastructure. Some agencies estimate that by mid-century, Nigeria’s population will be about 450 million, displacing the United States as the third most populous country in the world.