Since the conclusion of last year’s UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, doubt surrounding the efficacy of the multilateral negotiating process had been steadily gaining momentum, and the criticism was set to explode in the event of failure in Cancun. Last December, after two years of unrealistically ambitious expectations, the Copenhagen Accord was cobbled together in the eleventh hour by President Obama and a handful of other heads of state, putting an end to a disappointing two weeks of controversy, chaos, and finger-pointing. The New York Times’ Andrew Revkin described watching events play out in Copenhagen to be “like witnessing the derailment of a slow freight train on a curve that could be seen to be too sharp well ahead of time.” By all accounts, the mood at this year’s conference at Cancun’s Moon Palace resort was much more cooperative, and the resulting set of decisions, the Cancun Agreements, is being lauded as a sensible and balanced compromise, albeit an imperfect one. Nevertheless, support for a move away from the UN process in favor of a bottom-up approach based on national policies and bilateral engagement will surely continue, and deservedly so. The Cancun Agreements can serve as the blueprint for an eventual legally-binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol. But there is still much progress to be made – and a wide gap to be bridged between stated commitments and scientifically-recommended action – that will require simultaneous action on several diplomatic tracks.

Even if the Cancun conference had not produced such an unexpectedly favorable result, the UN process deserves to be preserved. The all-inclusive forum is likely the best means of addressing certain issues affecting many of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries, particularly adaptation, clean energy technology transfer, and deforestation. Furthermore, the perception that success hinges on the adoption of a legally-binding treaty is false. It is important not to downplay the ability of “soft law” political agreements to produce tangible results. Besides, without the political will in the U.S. Senate, any internationally-binding treaty would be irrelevant, and the woes of New START should shed any lingering hope that a climate change treaty stands a chance of Senate ratification in the foreseeable future. And even in the absence of legislation, the U.S. has the capacity, through federal regulation and aggressive state and local initiatives, to come very close to meeting its short-term emissions reduction commitments (17% reduction below 2005 levels by 2020). At that point, it is not unreasonable to envision the emergence of the political will for strong legislative action, especially if successful state or regional efforts present a sound model for a national initiative.

Still, it is important not to overlook the shortcomings of the UN negotiating process, and to seek more appropriate avenues for progress where they exist. Despite the success in Cancun, other bilateral and multilateral efforts like the G20 and the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate should play a larger role in climate diplomacy. Climate change is a multifaceted problem, and climate diplomacy requires a creative multi-pronged approach. But perhaps the best way to improve the process is by, as Revkin explains, “shifting from climate-centric diplomacy to a slate of efforts aimed at advancing the human condition in ways that limit climate-related risks.” Climate and energy policy would benefit from a conceptual shift away from a concentration on carbon reduction toward one on green growth. It is much less constructive to focus on ways to ensure “equitable access to the world’s carbon space,” in the words of Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, than to focus on ways to foster long-term low-carbon growth.

Regardless of the future course of UN negotiations, the U.S.-China relationship will continue to be the key to any long-term solution, and there is still a substantial “trust deficit” to overcome. But the ostensible staring contest on climate change action between the world’s two largest emitters is quickly becoming a specious perception. China plans to institute a carbon trading market in its next five-year plan this March, which will make its carbon intensity reduction pledge a binding domestic policy. More importantly, China and the EU continue to outpace the U.S. in clean energy investment by a wide margin, which should have already prompted what Energy Secretary Steven Chu has called the United States’ “Sputnik moment.” Clean energy investment over the next ten years is projected to be as large as $2.3 trillion, according to a report released this month by the Pew Environment Group. In 2009, China’s clean energy investments nearly doubled that of the U.S. – a trend that, if continued, will severely impede the United States’ ability to compete for jobs and export markets in the 21st century economy. The climate change crisis is already being conceptualized around the world as a clean energy opportunity. As the notion of a global “tragedy of the commons” slowly evaporates, a global “clean energy race” is rising in its place. And the U.S. is running the risk of being left all alone at the starting gate.

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Over the past week, Taliban militants in western Pakistan have bombed and set fire to dozens of tankers carrying oil to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The seemingly daily trend of attacks on NATO fuel supply convoys has been ongoing since Pakistan closed a key border crossing in retaliation to a U.S. helicopter strike within its airspace. This recent surge in violence highlights the increasingly precarious reliance on fossil fuels as the single most critical strategic linchpin of U.S. military success. With the soaring costs – in both dollars and lives – of the military’s dependence on oil becoming ever more apparent, there has never been a more urgent time to accelerate the transition to renewable energy use on the battlefield.

Even before the recent wave of attacks, a study by the Army Environmental Policy Institute found that for every 24 fuel convoys to Iraq or Afghanistan, one soldier or civilian involved in the transport was killed. On top of the risk, the economic costs of the military’s dependence on oil are staggering. Although the military purchases gasoline at a relatively cheap price, transporting a gallon of fuel to a forward operating base can cost up to $400. Moreover, the sheer scale of the military’s energy expenses ($20 billion in 2008) leaves it particularly vulnerable to oil price volatility, as just a $10 uptick in the price of a barrel of oil costs the Department of Defense about $1.3 billion. These factors, in addition to the strategic challenges and indirect costs associated with importing foreign-produced oil rather than using American-made renewables, make the military’s current energy practices dangerous, inefficient, and ultimately unsustainable.

Although the Pentagon has taken strong strides in developing and deploying clean energy technologies, it still has plenty of untapped potential. In a report released in July, the CNA Military Advisory Board suggested that increased collaboration between DOD, DOE, and the private sector can spur the innovation necessary to make renewable energy technology more viable in the military. In FY 2010, DOD received $80.5 billion in funding for research and development alone – more than the entire operating budget of nearly any other government agency. A reallocation of some R&D funding from weapons systems to energy innovation would likely increase long-term U.S. national security significantly.

The military is also uniquely positioned to be a catalyst for economy-wide clean and renewable energy development, creating markets and driving down costs as its technological innovations are adapted for civilian use. The military has a long history of pioneering technologies that later found wide commercial success, from nuclear power to GPS systems to the Internet. As the nation’s largest single consumer of energy – accounting for roughly three quarters of the entire U.S. government’s energy usage – the impact of DOD’s investments could ripple throughout the economy. With the current legislative stalemate in the Senate, the military just might be the best vehicle to propel the U.S. economy toward a clean energy future.

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Days before the Senate dispersed for its August recess, Harry Reid announced that a vote would not be held on a “bare minimum” energy-only bill, just weeks after the Senate gave up on comprehensive climate and energy legislation. The inability of the Senate to gain any traction on even the most modest of energy bills in the wake of one of the most devastating environmental disasters in history is a clear indicator that there is still a long road ahead toward a strong U.S. climate change policy. There is no better time to reexamine the debate, and the debate begins with the science.

The science of climate change is sound but complex. Climate change will affect different parts of the planet in very different ways, and it is impossible to precisely quantify the physical impacts on Earth’s surface, let alone the social, political, and economic implications of those physical impacts. But ‘uncertainty’ in climate models – the expected variability in data – is too often mistaken for uncertainty about the science itself, and the well-funded lobbyists wishing to cast doubt on the science have made an almost effortless practice of manipulating the statistics and skewing the facts. Still, much of the public’s misunderstanding about climate change persists because of serious flaws in messaging by the science community to counter the misinformation. In many ways, the purpose of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is to bridge this communication gap with the public. But with recent polling suggesting that the U.S. public increasingly perceives climate change as a very low-priority issue, the IPCC – and the science community as a whole – needs to overhaul its communication strategy.

The IPCC’s communication problems have spurred plenty of controversy in the past. Last month, IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri sent an ill-conceived letter to the scientists participating in the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), advising them to “keep a distance from the media.” The letter was widely criticized by scientists for seemingly encouraging a “bunker mentality.” In recent months, questions have also swirled around the validity of conclusions reached in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), particularly concerning the projected timeframe for the melting of Himalayan glaciers. Although a review by The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency found “no errors” that would impact any of the report’s 32 main conclusions, the agency did raise a concern that “the foundation for some of these conclusions could have been made more transparent.” But while the IPCC’s transparency may need improvement, its process does not. The IPCC has always had a very meticulous assessment process. The AR4 Summary for Policymakers was “approved line-by-line by all WMO and UN member governments” in a thorough three-day conference that was open to members of the media. And yet, due largely to its uncoordinated communication strategy, the IPCC has been unable to allay widespread criticism of its process. Even Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, has requested an independent review of the IPCC due for release next week.

David Ropeik, a risk communication consultant, offered the following perspective on the science community’s apparent communication gap in an exchange with Andrew Revkin of The New York Times:

“The passionate debate over why people don’t seem to “get” science is the newest chapter in an old discussion. Are people too stupid? Is our education system failing? Do scientists not “get” people, or communicate poorly? It’s time to move past those rather tired questions, because they are predicated on the assumption that there is an “It” to “Get”… some ideal truth that perfect reason can reach, if only the communication gap were bridged and “the facts” were made clear. That fails to acknowledge, as Drs. Jasanoff and Brulle have noted, that human perception of facts is not just a fact-based process. It is an affective mix of fact and feeling. We JUDGE facts. We INTERPRET facts. We run facts through our values and instincts and life circumstances and a host of other affective lenses that produce our beliefs. The gap isn’t scientists from Mars and people from Venus. It’s the gap between people from the mythical land we’ll call Rationalia ignoring evidence of how the real people of Earth actually behave.”

As journalist Chris Mooney has pointed out, polling shows that political ideology weighs heavier on an individual’s views about climate change than education level. Better educated Republicans are actually less likely to accept climate science than those who are less educated, while the correlation among Democrats is reversed. This appears to support Ropeik’s conclusion that information is not simply evaluated in a fact-based way, but rather that climate science is interpreted, first and foremost, in a “politically driven” way. To engage the public at a more “human” level, the IPCC and the wider climate science community needs to call on social scientists and communication experts to drive its messaging strategy, contributing to what American University School of Communication Professor Matthew Nisbet has called “a cultural shift in how leaders in U.S. science view public engagement.”

For many, climate change is just an abstract concept – a hazy set of possible scenarios that will play out gradually and often subtly in the all-too-distant future. In a sense, climate change will always be abstract, often guided just as much by faith as by tangible evidence because it is impossible to definitively attribute any specific environmental event to rising temperatures (the recent flooding in Pakistan, for example). But it is important to approach the issue in new and creative ways to make the theoretical more practical. Some skeptics will likely remain intransigent regardless of how irrefutable the evidence becomes. But when climate change is presented as a public health issue, as a national security issue, or as a moral issue, the message appeals to a much broader audience that would otherwise be unwilling, for purely political reasons, to accept the scientific consensus. The leap from science to policy will always be difficult because politics inevitably gets in the way. But if communication experts take on the challenge of overcoming the political obstacles with new messaging techniques and perspectives, climate change can eventually rise from a bottom-tier issue in the public’s eyes and real policy solutions can finally begin to take shape.

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Just a few years ago, conventional wisdom held that Google would be the vanguard of Internet freedom in China, transforming the way information flows throughout the historically closed society. But while the rapid expansion of the Internet in China has indeed served as a vital medium for political activism, Beijing has essentially kept pace with its extensive surveillance network to silence “cyber dissidents” and with its use of the Web as a pro-government propaganda machine to steer public opinion. At first glance, it appears that China’s censorship practices warrant a strong U.S. policy and a thorough condemnation from the Obama administration. But as Emily Parker, the Arthur Ross Fellow at the Asia Society, explains, U.S. technological innovation – not U.S. policy – is likely the most capable, effective, and politically sensible tool for chipping away at China’s Great Firewall.

Since Google’s departure, the Chinese government has taken action to tighten its grip on the Internet. Earlier this month, China quietly acknowledged the creation of a new “Internet news coordination bureau,” officially responsible for “guidance, coordination and other work related to the construction and management of Web culture.” And just this week, China’s legislature proposed an amendment to the Law on Guarding State Secrets that would require telecommunications companies to “detect, report and delete” leaks of “state secrets,” broadly defined by the government as “information concerning national security and interests that, if released, would harm the country’s security and interests.” These measures are just the latest pieces fastened to a massive regulatory system, much to the chagrin of the international human rights community and many of China’s 400 million Internet users.

But the Great Firewall is far from impenetrable. In fact, web-savvy citizens can circumvent it fairly easily through channels that exist beyond the government’s control like proxy servers or, more efficiently, virtual private networks (VPNs) – indispensible because they make foreign e-commerce possible. However, widespread unfettered access to “sensitive” information, like Google was expected to bring, remains elusive. But where Google Diplomacy failed, Parker believes that Twitter Diplomacy could succeed. While access to social networking sites remains blocked, an element of Twitter’s design called an open Application Programming Interface (API) allows coders to set up feeds that can be accessed at different URLs, which the government must stamp out one by one. This feature is especially significant since, according to Parker, the main objective of China’s censorship efforts is not to limit freedom of expression, but rather freedom of assembly through the use of the Internet as an “organizational tool”. And if the Twitter-driven escalation of the opposition protests in Iran last summer is any indication of the power of social networking sites to spur political action, Beijing’s recent censorship expansion should come as no surprise.

Increased access to VPNs and advancements in social networking allow Chinese citizens, themselves, to dissolve the Great Firewall from within. As Parker says, “what’s important is that these are fundamentally technological approaches, not overtly political ones.” It is important to remember that the U.S. and China have a complex, delicate, and deeply interdependent relationship, so if Internet freedom is to become a central political issue in China it must not be a result of direct U.S. political involvement. Such an approach would almost certainly provoke a nationalist backlash while lending credibility to Chinese government claims of American “imposition of value systems”.

Like many social and economic trends in China today, the natural appetite for freedom of information is converging with the incompatible constraints of a repressive government. Eventually, this convergence may reach a tipping point, and if it does, a stronger society will probably emerge. But if the United States hopes to play a role in nudging China toward that tipping point, it will most likely do so from Silicon Valley, not from Washington.

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On Wednesday, President Obama announced a proposal to lift the long-standing ban on offshore oil and natural gas drilling off much of the south Atlantic and north Alaskan coasts, as well as parts of the Gulf of Mexico. The announcement has drawn the ire of critics across the political spectrum. Some on the left are outraged by Obama’s “betrayal” of his environmentalist base, and some on the right have called the extent of new offshore access insufficient. In reality, the policy he outlined will do very little to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and it will have no effect on oil prices in the foreseeable future. And Obama knows it. From the administration’s perspective, this announcement is about one thing: building support in the Senate for comprehensive climate change and energy legislation.

Studies have shown that offshore drilling will have very little impact on domestic oil prices. In fact, not a drop of new oil from this proposal would be seen for at least seven years, and the modest uptick in production and negligible price dip would not even be felt for two decades. Offshore drilling’s impact on real prices pales in comparison to that which could result from sound financial regulatory reform to curb speculation in commodity futures exchanges, or from putting a stop to the supply manipulation routinely practiced by OPEC in response to the artificially rising demand.

Nevertheless, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham – who is expected to introduce a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by John Kerry and Joe Lieberman within the next month – has insisted that offshore drilling be part of the energy equation of the future. Obama’s announcement on Wednesday follows similar concessions in recent months to conservative nuclear and coal interests. The administration’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request included $36 billion for the nuclear loan guarantee program and the stimulus bill included $3.8 billion for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) research and development.

With an otherwise small chance of success for a Senate bill resembling the House version that passed last summer, these were concessions that Obama knew he simply had to make. Comprehensive climate change and energy legislation can not pass on a strictly party-line basis. The most recent analysis of the prospects for legislation in the Senate by Environment and Energy Daily lists 41 “yes” or “likely yes” voters – with Graham being the sole Republican – and 30 “fence sitters”, consisting of 19 Democrats and 11 Republicans. But last August, a group of 10 moderate Democrats from mostly Midwest coal-dependent states said in a letter to Obama that they would not support a bill that limits greenhouse gas emissions unless American industries are protected from competition by countries that do not adopt similar standards. And just last week, a separate group of 10 coastal Democrats wrote a letter to Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham to insist that they would not support a bill that “greatly expands” offshore drilling. With so many competing interests within the Democratic Party, Republican support will be not just important, but necessary.

Comprehensive climate change and energy legislation will be a heavy lift, and the end result will be far from perfect. But if Obama’s wink-and-nod to the oil lobby frames the debate in his favor and bridges the political divide on comprehensive legislation, then this is a price that proponents of a strong and lasting climate change solution should be more than willing to pay.

With this latest concession, Obama has shown a willingness to slight a major portion of his political base for the sake of bipartisan support for comprehensive climate change and energy policy. In an op-ed co-authored by Kerry and Graham in The New York Times, the two Senators acknowledged that “this process requires honest give-and-take and genuine bipartisanship.” Now it’s time for those who support a broad ‘all-of-the-above’ package of energy solutions to come to the table and help shape legislation that will put a price on carbon and lead America toward a clean, secure, and independent energy future.

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By almost any standard, the outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last week fell well short of its increasingly humble expectations. Copenhagen was considered pivotal because the “Bali Roadmap” laid out in 2007 circled this meeting on the calendar as the conclusion of the negotiating period which was to create a legally-binding post-Kyoto agreement. But by the beginning of the conference, the goal had been reduced to just establishing a politically-binding framework that would set the world on a course toward reaching a comprehensive international agreement in 2010.

Modest yet politically significant emissions reduction pledges by the US, China, and others prior to the conference contributed to a mood of cautious optimism at the outset of the two-week summit. But on just the second day, the massive rift between developed and developing countries was exposed with the leak of the so-called “Danish text” – drawn up by delegates from Denmark, Australia, the UK, and the US – which would allegedly place most of the power in the hands of developed countries at the expense of developing countries. The text was dismissed by the executive secretary of the UNFCCC, Yvo de Boer, as just an “informal” draft. But China quickly fired back with its own draft text, flipping the blame and the burden onto wealthy countries. A day later, delegates from the US and China traded barbs as the US State Department Envoy Todd Stern told reporters that “there’s no way to solve this problem by giving the major developing countries a pass,” to which Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei responded that Stern either “lacks common sense” or is “extremely irresponsible”.

The controversy stirred up in the first few days served as a precursor for the deep division between rich and poor countries that would plague the remainder of the negotiations. The next week was remarkably unproductive. Countless controversial draft texts fluttered around the Bella Center amid a walkout by African countries and thousands of angry rioters – impatient with the lack of progress – taking to the streets. With the looming arrival of over a hundred heads of state, the symbolic dichotomy of rich vs. poor countries had grown ever clearer and was threatening to derail the negotiations.

On the second to last day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a substantial overture, committing the US to help build a $100 billion annual fund by 2020, contingent upon an international verification system to monitor emissions cuts. But China insisted that it would not submit to any international monitoring, calling such a system “intrusive” and an infringement on its sovereignty. With the world leaders due to arrive the next day, the US and China had reached an impasse. On the eve of the summit’s conclusion, the high-level representatives worked round-the-clock until 5 am to produce a draft text for the heads of state. Three hours later, Air Force One touched down in Copenhagen and President Obama was presented with the two and a half page draft agreement. At the Friday morning plenary, Obama reiterated the need for an international verification system, declaring that “without such accountability, any agreement would be empty words on a page.” Evidently, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao took offense, boycotting a pair of crucial negotiation sessions, instead sending his Vice Foreign Minister. A frustrated Obama reportedly said that “it would be nice to negotiate with somebody who can make political decisions.”

Obama finally managed to meet with Wen and, as time expired, the US, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa struck a mild deal to snatch the conference from the grip of complete catastrophe. Obama called the Copenhagen Accord a “meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough” but admitted its glaring deficiencies, citing the inability to overcome a “fundamental deadlock in perspectives.” The agreement is woefully inadequate, having stripped nearly all of the substance from the early morning draft. The Copenhagen Accord includes a three-year, $30 billion “jump-start” financing system for developing countries and an aspirational $100 billion per year Copenhagen Green Climate Fund to take effect in 2020. But it does not include explicit goals for near or long term emissions reduction targets, nor does it include a commitment to a sound international verification system. Most disappointingly, the Copenhagen Accord dropped the previously agreed upon timeline for sealing a legally-binding international treaty by the late 2010 COP16 meeting in Mexico City.

The US arrived in Copenhagen considered by most to be the main obstructionist to a global deal, but there is little doubt that the Chinese took home that ignominious prize. The tireless attempts by each side to cast the other as the villain may have doomed the negotiations long before the Obama-Wen showdown on the final day. Still, there is plenty of blame to go around, not the least of which should be placed on the US Senate for failing to pass legislation prior to Copenhagen. There were also flaws in the structure of the conference itself, as it was poorly organized and even more poorly executed. In the end, Copenhagen will likely be remembered as one small step in the right direction. But there remains a very long road ahead toward breaking the stalemate between the world’s rich and poor. Next stop: Mexico.

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As President Obama prepares to announce his new strategy for Afghanistan in his address to the world tonight from West Point, it’s worth shedding light on a source of instability that will not be remedied by simply putting more boots on the ground. According to UNICEF, just 28% of Afghan adults are literate, ranking Afghanistan among the most illiterate countries in the world. It is not difficult to draw a correlation between a dearth of basic education and an inclination toward religious extremism. But illiteracy also breeds instability by fundamentally obstructing the flow of information, producing an environment susceptible to a “war of communication”.

This is the quandary the U.S. finds itself in with the Taliban. Every day, the Taliban floods Afghanistan with anti-American propaganda, making messaging with the Afghan people an unmanageable task because we are constantly competing with misinformation. Thomas Friedman calls this collection of propaganda “The Narrative”, writing in a recent op-ed:

“The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand ‘American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy’ to keep Muslims down.”

Afghanistan’s culture of ignorance is a major reason why “The Narrative” has been able to take such strong hold of a substantial portion of its population. Gen. McChrystal has stressed that victory will require “aggressive actions to win the important battle of perception.” But is altering the perception of an illiterate public even feasible?

How do we ensure that the Afghan public receives truly unbiased information? More importantly, how can the average Afghan person differentiate between credible and incredible information? Success in Afghanistan would require the launch of a massive public relations campaign, but such a strategy seems futile given the current state of Afghan society. Success will hinge on a transformation of Afghanistan’s society at a very fundamental level, and that transformation begins with education.

The number of schools in Afghanistan has grown steadily since the U.S. invasion to about 10,000, despite the Taliban’s ongoing trek across the country burning schools to the ground. Nicholas Kristof writes that “for the cost of a single additional soldier stationed in Afghanistan for one year, we could build roughly 20 schools there.” The Washington Post reports that Obama will send an additional 34,000 soldiers, pushing the total U.S. troop level just past 100,000. Yet the 2010 budget request for U.S. assistance to Afghanistan includes just $95 million for education.

In the months leading up to this evening’s announcement, the bulk of the nation’s focus has been on the number of troops Obama plans to deploy. But it will take much more than a troop surge to “fix” Afghanistan. It will take massive investments toward better governance, a healthy economy, adequate security, and perhaps most importantly, a stable and effective education system. The U.S. needs a comprehensive – and costly – social-political-military strategy to be successful in Afghanistan. Lee Hamilton concluded a recent commentary by posing the question: “Is this type of war really the best use of American power and resources in today’s world?” Is this type of war worth it in a religiously and ethnically divided, illiterate, impoverished, geopolitical black hole rife with corruption? Hopefully Obama has taken all of these factors into account because merely injecting more troops into Afghanistan will do very little to win McChrystal’s underlying “battle of perception”. If we are to win the hackneyed yet all-important “hearts and minds” we had better shift more attention to education, or risk letting a false perception become reality in the eyes of the Afghan people.

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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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Three months ago, at the conclusion of the fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, anti-American leftist leaders across Latin America were optimistically embracing President Obama’s commitment to a new “spirit of cooperation” with the region. But soon after the onset of the Honduran political crisis, what was heralded as a “renewed partnership of the Americas” appeared to be quickly unraveling. Less than an hour after the Honduran army descended on the presidential residency and whisked Manuel Zelaya away to Costa Rica in his pajamas, Hugo Chávez was already accusing the “Yankee empire” of having a hand in the ouster. Later that same day, Obama issued the following statement:

“I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya. As the Organization of American States did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference.”

Obama’s response was carefully worded. In calling for all actors to adhere to democratic norms and the rule of law, he made thinly veiled indictments of both the ousted president and the de facto government. But the administration’s main objective must be to ensure the security and wellbeing of the Honduran people – who are now faced with restricted trade, suspended aid, and deepening isolation – and that goal will be most easily reached through compromise. The precision of Obama’s language has made his position on two aspects of the crisis very clear – that both sides are partially at fault and that the conflict must conclude with a peacefully negotiated agreement.

The Honduran crisis comes as a sudden reminder of the fragility of Latin America’s original banana republic. Seventy percent of the population is mired in poverty, making Honduras the poorest of the 18 countries studied in a 2008 UN report on poverty and social exclusion in Latin America. Zelaya seemed committed to reversing this trend by shaping policies to close the gap between the rich and the poor, most notably with a substantial minimum wage increase. But while his social programs were viewed favorably by most, his steady drift to the left concerned the country’s conservative elite, especially as he began to align himself more and more with Chávez’s authoritarian socialist bloc. The tension boiled over when Zelaya – blatantly defying the ruling of Congress and the Supreme Court – planned to hold a referendum for a constitutional convention in an attempt to lift presidential term limits. Acting fully in accordance with the Honduran Constitution, the Supreme Court ordered the army to arrest Zelaya. In this respect, the grievances against Zelaya are valid. In fact, if the military had simply arrested Zelaya and allowed him to await trial in a Honduran prison, its actions would have been constitutional and (presumably) internationally justifiable. But by forcing him into exile, the interim government and its leader, Roberto Micheletti, broke the law and have thus lost legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. Even the Honduran army has since acknowledged that Zelaya’s expulsion was illegal.

Obama’s measured response to the crisis recognized the two sides’ shared culpability and also made it clear that the U.S. would not take a dominant role in the negotiations. So, falling into stride with the rest of the OAS, he called on Costa Rican President Oscar Arias – a Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his role in ending Central American civil wars – to mediate the talks. But on Wednesday, the negotiations were postponed yet again and the two sides remain locked in a stalemate. Arias’ proposed seven-point plan, which Zelaya approved, would establish a national unity government and grant amnesty for all political crimes. The sticking point was Arias’ insistence – in accordance with the demands of the international community – that Zelaya be reinstated until his term ends in January, even if with “significantly limited powers.” Micheletti’s interim government called any plan that would reinstate the deposed President “unacceptable.” Zelaya has pledged to return to Tegucigalpa this Friday despite Micheletti’s standing threat to arrest him upon his arrival. When the military prevented a Venezuelan-provided plane with Zelaya on board from landing on July 5th, at least one protester was killed and dozens were injured. Another attempt would almost certainly incite more bloodshed, which Arias fears could eventually escalate into a civil war.

Ultimately, all sides must act in the best interest of the Honduran people. In the end, the most peaceful – and most likely – outcome will be very similar to Arias’ proposed resolution, including the establishment of a unity government with some degree of reduced presidential powers. Zelaya will be permitted to serve out the remainder of his term and then step down. Both sides will be granted amnesty and Honduras will emerge a more robust democracy.

Perhaps the bigger picture is the new role being played by the U.S. in the hemisphere. Obama’s engaged yet distanced approach has proven his commitment to work multilaterally with the hemisphere. The Latin left has even begun to differentiate between this cooperative U.S. President and the “empire” he stands before. Chávez recanted his initial accusation, calling Obama “more like a prisoner of the empire.” Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, one of Chávez’s most loyal minions, has claimed “I believe U.S. intelligence didn’t tell Obama they were planning a coup.” Obama’s even-handed approach has exhibited the balance of confidence and humility required of the U.S. in a ‘unimultipolar’ world. The U.S. has become just one of many voices in a region it has long dominated, often at the expense of Latin Americans. A peacefully mediated resolution brokered by the OAS will be a victory not just for Honduras or for U.S.-Latin American relations, but also for the long-term advancement of democracy in a region where it has all too often been just out of reach.

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But there is a flipside to this coin. Our collective security is now in more danger than ever for the very same reason the cyber revolution is such an amazing achievement – we are all interconnected. Virtually every aspect of our lives has an uninterruptable link to the cyber world. Our electricity, water, oil, telecommunications, banking, public transportation, air traffic control, and defense systems all rely on computer networks. “For all these reasons,” President Obama has said, “it’s now clear this cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.”

The international threat posed by cyber warfare is not hypothetical – it is very real and, more importantly, it is already upon us. South Korea has reported that its military computer networks now receive an average of 95,000 attempted cyber attacks daily. Israel recently admitted that it suffered a “massive” cyber attack during the Gaza military offensive in January. In April 2007, Estonia endured a prolonged siege of the websites for its parliament, banks, ministries, and police. This “Estonian Cyberwar” was carried out by Russian nationalist hackers during a heated confrontation over the relocation of The Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, a prominent Soviet-era monument. Similarly, in the days leading up to the Russia-Georgia conflict last July, many Georgian government web sites were paralyzed by cyber attacks. China and Russia have long been suspected of backing a large ring of state-sponsored cyber warfare, and Israel, India, Pakistan, and the United States have all allegedly launched offensive attacks as well. And now, in the midst of Iran’s post-election upheaval, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi has accused Western media outlets, particularly CNN and BBC, of facilitating the barrage of cyber attacks on various Iranian government web sites.

The US has not been impervious to its share of cyber attacks either. In April, The Wall Street Journal reported a breach (believed to be carried out by Chinese hackers) of the Pentagon’s largest weapons program – the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter stealth aircraft. In fact, the Department of Defense detected 360 million attempted cyber attacks on its networks last year and the Pentagon has reportedly spent $100 million just to repair the damage incurred in the past six months. Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, has said “I’d like to say that our networks are secure, but that would not be correct.”

Clearly, President Obama’s recent announcement of a comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy was long overdue. The plan calls for the appointment of a White House Cyber Security Coordinator to oversee the government’s protection of all private sector networks. The strategy also includes the creation of a military Cyber Command to defend the Pentagon’s computer networks and to unify the cyber security effort across the armed services.

But with Obama expected to announce the identity of his “cyber czar” any day now, and with the DOD just having put the finishing touches on its Cyber Command, there remains many areas of contention. The struggle for control of the White House office has prompted a bitter turf war across many departments, although for now a tentative compromise has been reached between the NSA and the National Economic Council. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates finally signed off on the Cyber Command after weeks of indecision among concerns that it will represent “the militarization of cyberspace”. Critics have expressed fear that the DOD and NSA will dominate other federal agencies’ cyber security responsibilities. Rod Beckstrom, former chief of the Homeland Security Department’s National Cyber Security Center, resigned in March, citing his fear that the growing reliance on the NSA poses “threats to our democratic processes.” Indeed, the most daunting task of all may be striking a balance between ensuring security and protecting privacy.

And so the questions abound. How should cyber security control be distributed across federal agencies? Will cyber attacks become the new weapon of choice for terrorists? Is this destined to become the next great revolution in modern warfare? Has cyber war attained that status already? What would it mean for America’s military dominance if a handful of computer geeks are soon able to rival an army? What steps, if any, can be taken to ensure our security without infringing on civil liberties?

For now, the questions vastly outnumber the answers. There seem to be just two certainties – that the cyber war environment is rapidly evolving, and that we are unprepared to face its potential challenges. As Obama has said, “America’s economic prosperity in the 21st century will depend on cyber security.” Yet for far too long, the cyber security effort has lagged well behind this unique and unprecedented threat. The administration has taken a positive stride toward safeguarding the nation’s networks, but the controversy and debate rages on. Hopefully, these measures represent the first step toward a responsible, coordinated, and robust security strategy for an unpredictable future. Only time will tell.

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