Climate Change, Migration, and European Security
Abstract
This thesis examines the threat climate changeinduced migration (CCIM) poses to Europe. It emphasizes three key topics: (1) how climate changeinduced migration might affect European state security; (2) the strengths and weaknesses of different intergovernmental organizations in response; and(3) what a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) response would look like and cost. Lessons learned from prior migration events are combined with estimations of climate migration to produce actionable approximations of migration and migration routes. This thesis finds that millions of forced climate migrants will attempt to migrate to Europe over the next century: over 8 million by 2040, over14 million by 2070, and over 23 million by 2100. Additionally, this thesis finds that only NATO has the resources to ensure thorough coverage of migration routes and provide safety during migration at an approximate price tag of $12.2b a year. This thesis recommends early planning by NATO to respond to CCIM for two reasons. First, European states may fail under the weight of unmitigated CCIM. Second, European populist politicians may gain increased support with unmitigated CCIM. These politicians are overwhelmingly anti-European Union (EU), and some are pro-Russian. Increased populist presence in Europe could threaten EU existence and/or culminate with some European states being antiUnited States.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2020
- Accession Number
- AD1126602
Entities
People
- James D. Strunk
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School