Plan(et) A: Addressing the Climate Crisis

Abstract

Plan(et) A:Addressing the Climate Crisis The SAIS Review Editorial Board Human-driven climate change poses a continual and existential threat to our planet. This crisis disproportionately impacts developing nations and indigenous populations and inhibits human and economic development around the world. Annually, climate change-induced extreme weather events take thousands of lives, displace millions, and destabilize governments. These challenges have reached new heights in recent years as historic flooding in Nigeria and Pakistan uprooted tens of millions; devastating wildfires engulfed Greece, Italy, and Spain; and melting glaciers precipitously elevated global sea levels, threatening to erase coastal populations and small island nations. Less than two years ago marked the end of the world's warmest decade on record. From widespread economic insecurity to exacerbated military conflicts, the climate crisis poses intersectional, unabating threats to world peace and stability. Despite these momentous challenges set before our generation, the editors of the SAIS Review of International Affairs remain optimistic. Our optimism is abundant as Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) enters its 80th year and a new building at 555 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, DC during the Summer of 2023. Writing for the SAIS Review in Autumn 1963, SAIS Professor Paul Linebarger characterized the creation of our school twenty years prior as persisting on "the basis of nothing but a little money, a lot of hope, and enormous talent." In the six decades since his writing, SAIS has cultivated countless students prepared to meet the United States' and the world's most pressing challenges, outlined each year in the pages of the SAIS Review. This edition of the SAIS Review of International Affairs has the bittersweet distinction of being the last edition published from our office in 1619 Massachusetts Avenue, and the first dedicated entirely to assessing the impacts of climate change and practical policy solutions to address its root causes. Plan(et) A: Addressing the Climate Crisis explores the intersectionality of climate change with major global trends and challenges including energy, financial systems, governance, injustice, and state sovereignty. The issue begins with Anne Andreassen and Connemara Doran, who analyze the negative impact of climate change on electrical grid resilience using the 2021 Texas polar vortex as a case study, weather data, and data on [End Page 1] mixed sources of electricity generation. The authors determine that resilience is a global challenge because it is local: each climate-induced crisis provides lessons for averting disaster elsewhere. They explain that officials must address local resilience gaps to avoid using natural gas as a "bridge fuel" in the transition to renewable forms of electricity generation. While the transition to nonfossil fuels is ongoing and necessary to address the impacts of climate change, interdependence on different energy sources may exacerbate resilience gaps in electrical grids. The Texas polar vortex and other intense weather events linked to global warming highlight the need to address local resilience gaps to manage the impact of climate-induced energy crises. The next two works address country- and region-specific concerns and opportunities related to combating climate change. Wilder Alejandro Sánchez writes about the need for Kazakhstan to implement a comprehensive domestic green strategy and a green multivector foreign policy. The Central Asian state has faced environmental challenges with greater frequency in recent years. A severe drought in the summer of 2021 gravely impaired agricultural industries throughout the country. Kazakhstan, known for its steppe, will struggle to keep its terrain green in the long term. Sánchez argues that Kazakhstan can and will be able to protect its land and waters through sound "green" policies, which will require leadership, foresight, and collaboration with allies. Nitya Labh highlights the existential and legal threats of climate change for Pacific Island states and peoples. She outlines how climate change disproportionately affects small island developing states (SIDS), including Vanuatu and its Pacific Island neighbors. The author explains that Pacific SIDS confront sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and extreme weather events, which threaten their existence; sovereignty; and legal, economic, and cultural survival. Labh assesses that international maritime law insufficiently safeguards small island states from the harsh impacts of climate change, despite strides taken through the...