On Wednesday, Barbara Boxer and John Kerry introduced the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, the long-awaited Senate version of the climate change bill that squeaked through the House in June. With the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen just nine weeks away, U.S. legislative action will be a key to successful global negotiations. Particularly, investment in international adaptation – the multilateral assistance to developing countries in order to withstand the impacts of climate change – is widely expected to be one of the central elements of the looming debate in Copenhagen. Whereas climate change mitigation policies aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation seeks to lessen the vulnerability and enhance the resilience of the most at-risk countries through disaster management and infrastructure capacity-building. Kerry has called international adaptation “part of the glue” holding together hopes of reaching a new global treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. Still, investment in adaptation – at both the domestic and international levels – has been continuously overlooked.

The international security crises associated with climate change are dramatic and self-perpetuating. Drought, rising sea levels, and resource scarcity will lead to disease, mass migration, and political instability, ultimately causing fragile states to collapse into failed states. These cascading effects are intensified with the Earth’s population projected to reach nine billion by 2050. And in a cruel twist of irony, the most devastating effects will be felt in parts of the world that are least responsible for global climate change, specifically Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

In North Africa, subsistence farming will suffer a 20-40% reduction in crop yield due to prolonged drought and desertification. Drought will hit the Middle East hard as well, a region that is already home to 6% of the world’s population but just 2% of the Earth’s water supply. And with 60% of the Middle East’s bodies of water lying trans-boundary, the stage is set for conflict. As John Kerry said, “a demographic boom and a shrinking water supply will only tighten the squeeze on a region that doesn’t need another reason to disagree violently.”

In South Asia, the Indus river system, running from India through Kashmir and into Pakistan, may become seasonal as a result of the melting Siachen Glacier, thereby destroying the region’s agriculture and threatening the livelihood of 75% of Pakistan’s 160 million people.

Bangladesh is perhaps the most classic example of the devastation that climate change will cause. A sea level rise of one meter, as is expected in coming decades, will displace 20 million people in low-lying coastal areas of the South Asian country. Salt water intrusion will have further indirect impacts by crippling the rice crops. The Minister of Disaster Management, Dr. Muhammed Abdur Razzaque, has pleaded, to no avail, for $5 billion over the next five years from the international community to develop coastal defense mechanisms similar to those in the Netherlands, although that sum would still almost certainly amount to just a fraction of what Bangladesh needs.

All told, there will be about 200 million environmentally displaced people (EDPs) by 2050, mostly in areas of the world that are already among the most politically unstable. Needless to say, the importance – and cost – of adapting to these changes is enormous. Estimated funding needs range from $9-20 billion per year from 2010-2020 according to ClimateWorks’ Project Catalyst to as much as $40–170 billion annually, according to the most recent estimate by the UNFCCC. Preliminary results of the World Bank’s Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change (EACC) study – the “most in-depth analysis of the economics of adaptation to climate change to date” – estimates costs in the order of $75-100 billion per year from 2010-2050.

The U.S. would likely be called on to provide about 25% of the global total under an international agreement, based on existing international institutions and funding efforts. This figure is also roughly proportionate to the U.S. share of historical global emissions since the beginning of the industrial era (the U.S. has emitted about 90-95 billion metric tons of carbon since 1800). But Waxman-Markey allocates just 1% of the allowances from 2012 to 2021 under its cap-and-trade scheme toward international adaptation efforts. This translates to about $700-900 million per year. Even by the most modest funding projections, the numbers fall far short. This prompted an unusual coalition of environmental and faith-based NGOs to write a letter addressed to Senators Kerry and Lugar urging them to dedicate at least an additional 2% of allowances for international adaptation (which would raise the total investment to 3%). Yet the Boxer-Kerry bill is, so far, silent on precisely how much would be allocated to international adaptation.

If the U.S. delegation arrives in Copenhagen without a clear commitment to adaptation it would present a major setback for an international treaty. Copenhagen is not the end of the road for global climate change negotiations, but it is a crucial chance for real progress. With 50,000 delegates from 190 nations expected in Copenhagen, inability to make substantial strides would be a disastrous missed opportunity, especially when considering the Kyoto deal took eight years to finish and the Copenhagen negotiations are less than a year old. If a new international framework is not ratified by 2012, Kyoto will fall away without a successor agreement. If the Senate does not take strong action now, it would reduce U.S. leverage and send a poor message to the international community. Ambassador John Bruton, head of the European Commission Delegation to the United States, warned that inaction “would open the United States to the charge that it does not take its international commitments seriously, and that these commitments will always take second place to domestic politics.” He added, “the United States emits 25 percent of all the greenhouse gases that the Conference is trying to reduce. Is the US Senate really expecting all the other countries to make a serious effort on climate change at the Copenhagen Conference in the absence of a clear commitment from the United States?”

Now is the time for decisive action on the domestic front. A successful global treaty will be built around a core of strong U.S. legislation that, in particular, addresses the unavoidable needs of international adaptation. And the pressure is on from the international community. The U.S. never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but both China and India did. Yesterday, India’s environment minister called the Senate bill a “measly” effort. A recent poll from WorldPublicOpinion.org found that the U.S. public ranked dead last out of 19 countries when asked how high a priority should be placed on addressing climate change. The developing world needs a powerful and convincing signal of commitment from the United States. If the U.S. arrives in Copenhagen dragging its feet, it will forfeit the credibility needed to play a leadership role in the negotiations.

Above all, climate change must be treated not as a national security issue or as a regional security issue, but as a human security issue. Instability in any part of the world is a threat to the United States. The longer the U.S. and the world delays action on international adaptation, the deeper the hole we will find ourselves in when we inevitably start to climb out.

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