Joint Hearing of the Intelligence Community Management Subcommittee of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming - National Security Implications of Global Climate Change

Statement

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Because of the international nature of intelligence, how would you gage the sharing of information between the U.S. and allied nations, particularly as it relates to this issue, climate change and security? The point I'm making is we obviously have to depend on other nations as we secure intelligence. Is that a free-flowing or is that a difficult proposition?

MR. BURROWS: In terms of this study, we did share the analysis with our common wealth partners and also solicit their comments and reactions to it at several different stages. We also have had also interaction with other services in other countries on this issue. So I can --

REP. CLEAVER: Are we perceived, as best as you can determine, as a 21st-century thinkers with regard to climate change? Are we perceived around the world, with our allies, as 21st-century thinkers?

MR. BURROWS: You're talking about the intelligence community.

REP. CLEAVER: Yes, yes.

MR. BURROWS: Certainly on this issue, I mean, they were very interested in our analysis, and for the most part shared and agreed with the conclusions of it.

REP. CLEAVER: What, any one of you, what is, do you believe, to be the greatest threat to national security caused by the effects of climate change?

MR. BURROWS: Well, I think as we -- as Dr. Fingar indicated in his remarks and we put in the statement for the record, it's -- the fact that it has this cascading effect on other problems. So it's really the confluence of climate change and the impacts in various parts of the world with what are already existing problems, and there is a long list of these that he mentioned in his statement -- you know, poverty, some marginal agricultural reduction to begin with migration issues and so on. So it's the -- actually the intersection of climate change with these others that is the most troublesome in terms of --

REP. CLEAVER: I read an article recently where the writer was talking about the problems we're going to have with water. They talked about the fact that Lake Meade in California would probably be bone-dry in 12 years, and they said there would probably be wars fought over water or conflicts fought over water: the Nile, the Jordan. Is that an exaggeration?

MR. BURROWS: It's an exaggeration in the sense that it's not inevitable. In fact, on water, these disputes have existed in some ways for some time. I mean, there we detail actually in the report some preexisting water problems. The key is if you have an institutional mechanism in place for sorting out water disputes. That then decreases the risk of a conflict happening.

So it's correct to say that these could be water -- who siphons off water, how much water, scarcity there is -- all of these factors increase the risk of tensions and conflict, but it's not, I don't think, fair to say that that conflict is inevitable just because you have these facts occurring.

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