Climate change and the arms race are common challenges facing humanity today. These two challenges may seem like two different issues, but they are intrinsically linked. Both addressing climate change and promoting arms control require adhering to the basic philosophy of building a community with a shared future for mankind, and at the research level, the two disciplines are also directly related. Taking three issues as examples, this paper introduces the relationship between climate change and arms control, two key areas of global governance.
The impact of partisan politics in the United States on its arms control and climate policy
As the sole superpower, the United States plays a crucial role in global governance. After the end of the Cold War, the US arms control policy was influenced by partisan politics and showed a wavering feature, and the Democratic Party relied more heavily on arms control, while the Republican Party was more skeptical of arms control. U.S. climate change policy also exhibits almost identical features.
For example, the Clinton Administration of the United States actively participated in the negotiations on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and took the lead in signing the Treaty, and the Clinton Administration actively supported the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol.
The George W. Bush Administration, on the other hand, was skeptical of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol. The Obama administration has been actively involved in negotiations and reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on resolving iran's nuclear issue and the Paris Agreement to curb climate change. The Trump administration withdrew from both treaties.
At present, the Biden administration has returned to the Paris Agreement and is trying to return to the Iranian nuclear agreement. In the U.S. Congress, the tendency of bipartisan members is also very obvious. Combining the issues of climate and arms control and examining the impact of partisan politics in the United States can help to systematically understand and predict the relevance of U.S. policy in the two areas of climate and arms control.
Potential linkages between CO2 capture and storage technology and strategic stability
Combating climate change will drive large-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies, and many governments have developed plans. In addition to the deployment of CCS technology will play an important role in mitigating climate change, the large-scale carbon storage site it forms also has important global strategic security implications and values.
This is because carbon storage addresses in various countries store huge amounts of carbon dioxide, and once the military strategic objectives of one of the major powers are subjected to nuclear attack (including nuclear retaliation), the carbon storage addresses of that country and other countries may be at risk of serious disturbance.
In an extreme case, if the United States or Russia deploys its ICB Silos or other important strategic targets near large-scale carbon storage sites, one of the countries attacking these strategic targets is likely to result in a global release of carbon sequestrations, with huge and irreversible consequences.
Therefore, the potential correlation between CCS technology and strategic stability will have a new deterrent and deterrent effect on the use of nuclear weapons, and will also change the assessment of operational readiness, operational targeting, and operational consequences by strategic parties, thereby changing the assessment of war interests by decision makers. In the process of site selection for large-scale deployment of CCS technology, fully consider its strategic security value, design an optimized plan to deal with climate change and promote joint international arms control actions, can reduce the demand for retaliatory nuclear weapons in those countries that implement defensive nuclear strategies (such as the mainland) without affecting the deterrent effect, so that large-scale deployment of CCS technology to cope with climate change can also play a positive role in global strategic security and stability.
Carbon emissions verification and arms control verification
Global climate governance requires countries to report data on important emissions facilities or emission reduction projects to be authentic, and building this trust relationship between countries often requires detailed verification of these important emission facilities or emission reduction projects.
In the context of the increasing international cooperation on emission reduction in the future, how to carry out verification work in a rational and effective manner will become a key challenge. This is because many important emission facilities or emission reduction projects have important strategic, military or commercial value in their own right, and it will be difficult for the owner of the project or facility to accept unrestricted open verification from the international community or external agencies. This new challenge in the field of climate governance is essentially an old problem in the field of strategic security.
In the process of implementing international arms control treaties, it is also necessary to ensure the compliance of States parties in the form of international verification, and military installations that are the subject of verification are usually related to national security and highly confidential. Therefore, in the process of verification, certain measures need to be taken to shield as much sensitive information as possible that does not affect the verification results under the condition of ensuring that the verification results are not distorted. In recent years, researchers at Princeton University and other institutions have advocated clever cryptography mechanisms to ensure that the verification results are true while ensuring information security.
The team of Yao Zhizhi and Zhang Xiliang of Tsinghua University is also carrying out research on the design of cryptographic systems for international carbon trading to ensure the safety and credibility of carbon emission data verification. Therefore, carbon emission verification has a very similar background and needs to arms control verification, and policymakers and experts involved in climate governance can learn from the existing research results of arms control.
The above three research cases show the similarities and relevance of arms control issues and climate change response research at the political, strategic and technical levels. Promoting academic exchanges and cooperation in these two fields can not only achieve new academic gains, but also gain new understanding in policy research, which is of great significance.
Disclaimer: This article is transferred from World Knowledge, the original author Zhang Da Li Bin. The content of the article is the personal views of the original author, this public account reprint is only to share and convey different views, if you have any objections, welcome to contact us!
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Transferred from 丨 World Knowledge
Author 丨 Zhang Da Li Bin
Editor 丨 Zheng Shi
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