Transcripts For CSPAN3 Discussion On Climate Change Maritime Security Part 2 20240713

What that means now in the policy and the security space. Im excited to have an excellent panel to talk about that. Weve got heather conley, our vice president. We have john. We have sara glasser, the Deputy Director of secure fisheries and amy lair, the director of our human rights initiative. Thank you to the panel, and im going to sit down and be quiet and turn it over to my excellent panel, and well start off with heather. Thank you so much. Good morning, everyone. I think the arctic is the best place to talk about that intersection of climate stress and security. And in many ways the arctic is telling us, actually, both polar regions are telling us theyre under the most dramatic stress as the arctic certainly is warming two to three times faster than any place on the planet. And in many ways we are now dealing with a very new ocean. In fact, our former coast guard commandant called the arctic americas fourth coast. I thought that was a powerful way of thinking about it in part because Many Americans dont know the United States as an arctic nation to help bring it home to this is homeland security. We now have a new coast that requires our protection. And so that is what in many ways the nexus between the rapid diminishment of the arctic polar icecap is now creating new borders, new coasts to protect which is why we need enhanced coast guard presence. Certainly thats through enhanced ice breaker component. What we call a polar security cutter. But this was also required deep water ports. Greater maritime do main awareness because were now seeing an increase in commercial and human activity in the arctic. It is also this new ocean and the opportunities that this new ocean provides is really requiring a much more rethaukt, i would argue, about sovereignty in the arctic. And this is certainly the russian governments perspective, because they are now russia is now developing a very ambitious Economic Development plan for the Russian Arctic which not only includes the development of oil and Gas Resources in the Russian Arctic, but also the creation of a major transit route, the northern sea route. What were seeing is russia needing to enhance the protection of the northern sea route. Theyre reopening airfields. Theyre putting search and rescue Centers Across the northern sea route. And they are also making important changes to the structure and how they regulate the northern sea route. And, of course, what underpins all of this both the science and the environmental change that were seeing in the arctic as well as the economics, its all underpinned by science. Science is power in the arctic. Using traditional knowledge of the indigenous communities is power. And, of course, were trying to understand the Science Behind the extraordinary changes that we are seeing in the arctic. So im just going to touch on some of the key security issues. Its sort of the good, the bad, and the ugly, if you will. There is some very good things that are happening in the arctic to manage this nexus between climate stress and security. First and foremost, i think at this point the arctic is well governed. The United Nations convention of the law of the sea provides that maritime space with good legal frameworks for territorial waters, exclusive Economic Zones, as well as the high seas area around the north pole, the central arctic ocean, and one of the most important forms of monitoring and innovating is through the Arctic Council, the intergovernment forum that was created in 1996. It was birthed from an arctic Environmental Protection strategy that brings the 5 coastal states together. Russia, canada, norway, denmark, the kingdom of denmark via greenland at the center of the Arctic Council are the permanent participants. They have a seat at the table, because its their way of life that is so dramatically changing. But the Arctic Council has been sort of groaning under the changes both of the Climate Change and the new demands on it. Right now there are 20 plus observers to the Arctic Council. In 2013 china became a permanent observer to the Arctic Council. That would change the dynamic. Now the arctic is not just for the regional countries. It is now becoming a global issue, because what happens in the arctic impacts the Global Environment. And as chinas role became more and more apparent in the arctic and russia began to assert itself increasingly both militarily and economically in the arctic, now were at a point where were viewing the arctic through the lens of Great Power Competition. And that was certainly framed by secretary of state mike pompeo in finland in may of this year where he gave a real stem winder of a speech. Surprised some of us. Where it came from describing this very stark, Great Power Competition in the arctic. And so thats in some ways what were grappling with today. Chinas growing economic presence through infrastructure, through its participation in a variety of international organizations, and, of course, russias increased military presence. These are challenging how the u. S. Thinks about it. I always want to end with good news. So often in our line of work were just talking about challenges. I want to say the arctic has also demonstrated great resilience and governance innovation. When we needed to strengthen the maritime shipping code in the arctic, the International Maritime organization it took it a decade, created the polar code. It strengthens, demands, mandates that ships must be hardened for traversing the arctic. Weve created an International Search and rescue agreement, an International Oil spill and response agreement. Weve just recently negotiated a preemptive fisheries agreement for the central arctic ocean. There are no fish in the central arctic ocean. But this agreement puts a moratorium on that for 16 years until the science tells us that it could be okay if we needed to do that. We have innovations like the Arctic Coast Guard Forum what helps do the Oil Spill Response, and finally something weve been looking at is getting to that high seas challenge to protect the biodiversity beyond the national jurisdictions, beyond the exclusive Economic Zones. Thats targeting those high seas area. Fisheries, bio diversity, shipping, you know what . Its a little chi kaye yachtic right now. I dont think we have it all the right place. Im very worried about the military dimension. Im worried about chinas dual use infrastructure in the arctic, but im very heartened when i see innovation, pragmatic governance thats helping to protect the arctic. Want to end on a high note and looking forward to your questions. Thank you, heather. Thats great. Were going to turn now from the arctic to asia, and the pacific. And im going to turn to john. Thank you. So asia is very much a crucible for Climate Change and security. If you think about it, its got twothirds of the global population. Many of those are poor populations. They live coastally predominantly. They rely heavily on seafood for nutrition. Theres already over exploitation of the fishing resources, and that overexploitation is intensifytyf iing. The governments typically have low capacity to deal with those issues, and then these in Southeast Asia especially, these are the countries that are going to be hit hardest by Climate Change where some of the impacts will be felt the greatest. To talk about this and put this in context, i want to use indonesia as an example. Ill start with that and try to back up a little bit. Indonesia is the second largest fishing power in the world in terms of the amount of wild fish harvested. China is the first. Indonesia is second. Its a country that struggled with poverty and has about a 10 poverty rate. Of its 270 million people, 10 live below the poverty line which indonesia is about. 76 cents a day. The fishing is often referred to as a last resort occupation when agriculture and other jobs dont work out, you can just go fishing. And so many of these coastal communities depend upon fish for nutrition and for to climb out of poverty. And if you are not certain how important fisheries are to indonesia, google minister. Im sure youll pull up a photograph of the boats, the fishing boats that have illegally traversed into indonesia fishing waters that shes blown up. Its made her one of the most popular politicians in indonesia today. As an example of the role that fisheries play, i can tell you a little bit about a blue swimming crab fishery that edf works in there. Its the third most important export economic economically. Swimming crab. If you go to chesapeake and order a crab cake sandwich, local supply cant keep up. Chances are very good youre eating crab from indonesia and perhaps one from the java sea. 80 of the product there goes to the u. S. There are about 300 people in that fishery in terms of fishermen and supply chain workers there. And it brings in the country about 300 million u. S. Dollars. 300,000 people. 300 million. That keeps these people just above that poverty line but only hovering just above it. They remain very vulnerable. Climate change. Impacts will be very serious for communities like these. Obviously Sea Level Rise. Some of these communities are not just coastal. There is a fishing village that we work with that is literally built on a sand bar about ten kilometers from shore with sticks sort of put down in the sand and theres a platform, and women and children but mostly fishermen are there, and they live there year around so they can get further access to the fishery. Obviously Sea Level Rise is going to be extremely extremely challen challenging. But the losses in productivity that you heard about in the first panel, we heard globally the earth, you know, global fish production may decline by about 4 or so. But regionally, losses and the developing tropics in places like indonesia could decline by as much as 50 . And thats both because of the loss in fundamental productivity that the previous speakers talked about and also because of fish migrating to cooler waters and polar, north and south. So this is, of course, potentially catastrophic for these poor communities that are hovering on the poverty line. And this generates a this will create potentially a downward spiral. If theres a loss of catch, the logical response for most communities is to then fish harder. That, then, makes these fisheries even more vulnerable to Climate Change. Theres a very interesting link to understand here. Its talked about in the report. Overfished fisheries are more vulnerable to Climate Change, and Climate Change will have a negative impact on fisheries. The communities that experience drops in catches will then make their own resources more vulnerable by overfishing. The government in many of these places have little capacity to control that. And so these communities have the potential to spiral downward. Another response to declining catches will be for fishermen to go further and further abroad. Already many indonesian fishermen go right up to the border of the eez of australia and fish along the line, because australias fisheries are fairly well managed and indonesian fisherman get the benefit over the border. Chinese have done the same thing. Theyve increased the number and power of distant water fleet boats. This, of course, creates huge challenges in asia where the eezs are packed in so tightly that it will create a lot of potential for tensions to grow among countries. So turning to solutions, what can we do about this . The number one solution, of course, is to mitigate Climate Change to reduce Carbon Pollution and Global Warming pollution, number one, since were on a ocean theme. Number two i would say is to promote low carbon energy, wind energy, wave energy, perhaps thermal water imagery as well. Solutions that promote blue carbon, its the report tal taltalks speaks well to the issue of man groves, sea grasses. Theres also the carbon found in increasing fish stocks. Reviving them to historic levels. There was a paper by economists that estimated that if i could replenish whale populations alone to create fish levels, thats two giga tons of carbon. You can eat more fish. Beef is about 20 times more emissions per gram of protein in a life cycle analysis than seafood. Okay. But critically as we heard in the last panel, we cannot just mitigate. We also need to adapt and manage. This is an urgent issue because of the link between fisheries abundance in resiliency. Its urgent we put in place good Fisheries Management in the countries that lack it. So this is a Food Security issue. Number one, we need to build capacity in these countries that dont have the skills, finances or expertise or experience to put in place management. Number two, we need to strengthen International Agreements because as the fish migrate, the countries that host fish that are leaving have every incentive to fish those populations down before they get across the border, and the countries that might receive the fish are not going to want to that happen. There really needs to be what we know again and again from observing fisheries around the world when theres unmanaged competition, it leads to a decline in the fish population. There really needs to be a new effort to strength thing the International Agreements. There are many International Agreements on fisheries. Almost none of them contain climate provisions. And lastly, we need to develop solutions for some of these local communities. Like aqua culture, blue carbon and perhaps Energy Solutions as well. There needs to be new Solutions Like that that can provide any kind of nutrition for the communities. There is hope. There are good examples. Whit earlier mentioned the u. S. Fisheries are one of the best managed in the world. Its one of the greatest conservation Success Stories that i think almost no one has heard of is the turn around in u. S. Fisheries. Management really can tleed to fisheries rebounding. Its not just the u. S. Australia, new zealand, and others, there are good examples around the world of solutions that can work to rebuild fish populations. In asia theres some hope as well. Japan, last december passed the most significant reforms to the fishing laws since world war ii. And even china has now been implementing dramatic reforms to control overfishing and overexploitation of culture and the domestic waters. Theres a lot happening. If countries gather together, i think, and promote aid to the countries to build capacity, and can share their experiences, can share their experts, their technical expertise, and most importantly, share their financial resources, i think theres hope to avoid the worst of Climate Change for these countries in Southeast Asia. Excellent. Thank you. Sir, maybe you can talk about the indo pacific and maybe east africa. Yes. Thank you. Im taking primarily about africa and the indian ocean. I think john provided an excellent transition into what is happening in countries around africa and the adaptive capacity that needs to be built. I agree completely, that in countries that are facing the most extreme impacts from Global Warming and Climate Change, their physical consumption of resources is not the driving factor. And so theres a real mismatch between the drivers of Climate Change and those in the world who will face the greatest impacts. In the new special report, it makes it quite clear by showing that the greatest impacts are going to be in the tropical latitudes. Arctics as well. When we talk about the number of people who live in given areas, the tropics are facing a disproportionate impact from Climate Change compared to other parts of the world. And so some of the mid latitude regions. We wanted to give three examples of recent impacts of Climate Change that are happening in africa. The first was Tropical Cyclone aday. It was essentially the Hurricane Dorian of east africa. It happened in march of 2019. Over 1300 people were killed in mozambique and areas around it. Currently they estimate over 2 billion worth of damage. And those type of events are made worse as we know by Climate Change. But they destroy the resilience of communities there. Weve talked about ecological resilience, but Community Resilience is important. Thats something we have a greater ability to impact. The second example is whats happening in lake chad in Central Africa between chad and nigeria. That lake has lost 90 of its water volume over the past 15 years. Now, thats not solely due to Climate Change and warming. Its also due to irrigation and other factors. But that illustrates the complexity of the problems were facing. The way that we deal with lands creates positive feedbacks that make the impacts of climate warming even worse. And in the area of lake chad in particular, the changes that are being seen in fishing communities and different agricultural communities that rely on rain fed water and the lake for irrigation have created such levels of poverty Food Insecurity and livelihood insecurity that this area is now becoming a bit of a recruitment or breeding ground for violent extremism. Theres not one direct line between Climate Change and violent extremism or poverty and violent extremism. But the areas are innately connected. The third is the ongoing drought in the horn of africa. Its a terrestrial impact, but given the monsoon seasons and the amount of up welling in somalia, the drought that has been happening thereetjw. Past several years that has resulted in the displacement of millions of people internally, and has recently put millions of children at risk from drought impacts is made worse by climate warming. So this is what africa and the indian ocean are facing right now as a consequence of carbon emissions. So part b of the special report looks specifically at the projected risks for people and eco systems. And one thing that is incredibly valuable that the ippc report does is puts level of confidence around things. And i wish that those of us who look at the human impacts could be as confident in what we think the impacts will be as the people who study the physics and biology. Unfortunately its not a simple math equation. Theres a lot lower levels of confidence around what we expect those impacts to be on communities. But thats where the opportunity exists. And thats because we have the ability to impact through governance and policy changes, the way that human beings through their own free will make changes in relation to their own behavior. That being said, i want to put a pin in that and say it cannot be it must be incumbent on those of us in countries to not rely on developing countries to fix our problems. We need to enavailable them and provide technical expertise, but it cannot be on developing countries in africa throughout the tropical indo pacific to fix the problems that weve created. So i think there are three primary mechanisms that i see in africa and the indian linking Climate Change. The first is direct competition for finite and mobile resources. Several speakers have touched nicely with good examples of the movement of fish, the changes in eezs. There was a great question from the audience about eez boundaries. These boundaries will change slightly, but with Sea Level Rise. But in africa around there are 12 different maritime disputes over exclusive Economic Zone boundaries from the shoreline out to 200 nautical miles. In Southeast Asia they overlap a lot. In africa theres a lot of contention. The eez boundaries are the definition of where governance over the Marine Resources for a given country belongs to the domain of the given country. The country can choose to ale sufficient access to oil exploration, mineral explorations, fisheries exploitation and governments in africa earn a lot of revenue by selling some of the rights. The access to the resources is going to change under scenarios of warming. My colleagues have done research on what causes conflict. Oftentimes violent conflict over fish. And its direct access to the resource coupled with and made worse by declining fish populations and unclear maritime boundaries. Not just maritime but also the boundaries that exist in inland oceans. Or in inland waters. So the second primary mechanism linking Climate Change to conflict is changes in food and livelihood security and several of our speakers have talked about that. I want to dig in more on what we mean by Food Security in relation to Marine Resources. Food security is defined as the predictable and reliable access to affordable and nutritional forms of food. Three key words. Predictable so people can plan their lives and livelihoods. Affordable, and nutritious. And seafood is some of the most nutritious food that we have. Low in fats. High in omega3s and high in micronutrients important for Childhood Development and brain development. When youre talking about nutrition at a childs level, youre talking about setting the stage for generations of people to come. And access to seafood, and i would agree with john that there are ways to increase seafood consumption without destroying the eco systems we have. It has to do with choosing what type of fish we eat and reducing some of the global trade around it. That level of Food Security is extremely important to over 2 billion people in the world. 1 billion people reply on seafood as their number one form of protein. Most of the people live in developing economies. And rely on subsistence and small fishing. A few people on a canoe. The third and final mechanism is the widening gap of socioeconomic inequality across the world. Some call it north south gap. Its replicated at the local level, state and federal level when you have concentration of wealth in different communities. Often times away from coastal communities. And at the global level in the accumulation of wealth in northern and developed countries. As Climate Change effects food and livelihood security youll see a widening gap. All the sudden the governance and security implications driven by resource questions do not become solutions that are resource based any longer. T really a social justice issue, i think. So i liked what you said about the good, bad, and ugly, and i also didnt want to end on a bad note. I see good things happening with maritime awareness and maritime governor naanc governance. Thats the recognition of regulating distant Water Fishing nations and keeping track of fishing done by large scale industrial fleets in the waters of countries that rely on fisheries for Food Security and small scale subsistence consumption. Theres one theres been ratified by enough countries. If you look at african and Southeast Asian countries and in south asia, theres a high rate of ratification by those countries because they know that having control over their ports and understanding the transparency behind fishing, fisheries moving around the Global Economy is so important to what theyre doing. So i would say the port state measures agreement right now needs some more aadopters to really have a global impact, but thats one thing i think we can have some hope about. The bad is lack of data in small Scale Fisheries around the world. Earlier we saw fantastic data from the gulf of maine. We dont have the data sets for most of the worlds fisheries. We dont know where the fish are. How big they are. How theyre reproducing and how much are being caught. And so in terms of Capacity Building, simply providing avenues and funding for Data Collection at a species level for fish is so very important for developing countries just to be able to track whats happening. We dont know what we we cant manage what we dont know. And the third thing ill say is the ugly. And that is the zbloebl subsidies for fisheries and fisheries fuel. Theres a speaker tomorrow at the World Trade Organization trying to lobby for reduction in fuel for fisheries. The reason most of us can afford to eat the seafood in the United States is because of government subsidizing the cost of catching the fish in the first place. And so that i think is something we absolutely need to address. And to end on a positive note, what i see changing in africa and throughout the Pacific Ocean is the awareness of the youth on Climate Change and Climate Impacts. Its not its not just scandinavian youth. Theyre doing a fantastic job, but across africa you see a large awareness of the problem by youth, and a focus on local solutions that involve communities and indigenous knowledge. Thats something the report focussed on and also the empowerment of women and the inclusion of women in fisheries and Maritime Security issues as a means of changing the conversation and some of the paradigms around economic exploitation of Marine Resources. Thank you. Excellent. Thats a great transition to amy who is going to talk a little bit about the adaptation and how it looks from a developing states perspective. So im really happy to be here today partly because i have like historically rather oddly the human rights and environm t environmental communities have operated separately even though we have a lot to offer to each other. I guess im thinking about this in terms of i think the science provides the what. The human rights provides the how. So ill talk a little bit more about what i mean. And first ill talk about very briefly what are the human rights impacts of Climate Change. I think people have covered it pretty well without using the word human rights but also what can human rights tell us about mitigation and adaptation . So just on the impacts and human rights. Right to food. Right to livelihood. Impacts on fisheries. These are huge these are drivers of conflict, conflict itself breeds more human rights problems. This is all pretty dproen from a human rights perspective. Relocation. Migration. Also ways enormous human rights concerns. This is intuitive. The rights of Indigenous Peoples are also a particular concern. Theyre some of the first impacted groups and they tend to be some of the most vulnerable because they have no Political Representation usually in their own countries. Theyre a small segment of the population. But im not going to focus on the problems because we all know what they are basically. I really want to talk about what human rights might contribute to solutions and this will pick up on what other people have said using different language. One piece is if we want governments to feel urgent about addressing Climate Change, we really need to double down on democracy rule of law, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly so that populations that are affected can actually pressure their governments. So in a way to me this calls for doubling down on what, lets say the u. S. Government already does a lot of, supporting better governance around the world. Thats pretty easy. We sort of know how to do that, even if its not perfect. I also think i want to pick up on something i think i heard in the last panel which is that sometimes communities themselves can help us solve problems. So, for example, if we really respected the land rights, the Traditional Land rights of people in the congo basin or in malaysia or indonesia, wed be protecting people lands. People have lived in their environments without destroying them for a long time and they know how to do that. So its one of these areas where theres a marriage between protecting really important carbon syncs and protecting peoples rights. What can we learn about adaptation . So what my particular expertise is in the nexus of business and human rights. Weve learned a lot over the past few decades about what happens when you try to engineer a big National Project from the top. It doesnt go very well. So theres been a lot of time and energy spent on, for example, in context of mining. How do you actually carry out a project like that with the genuine input from communities affected. And why would you want that . Well, first i think heather alluded to this indirectly. Groups like Indigenous Peoples are understand the impacts better, and they may have ideas on how to mitigate them that wouldnt occur to us this. Thats not just true for Indigenous Peoples. Thats true for communities around the world. The other reason is i think it will suggest that it helps get Community Buy in. If youre having people to change how they make their living, fish, or otherwise earn their daily bread, youve got to have them believe in what youre asking them to do. And they have to be part of coming up with the solution or they wont do it. And in the worst case scenario, it leads to conflict. We have a lot of experience. My call is when were coming up with International Frameworks or national frameworks, making sure that approach is embedded. I see bits and pieces. Some of the major Climate Change adaptation funds have environmental and social policies. Im not sure how well thats implemented. This isnt easy stuff, but it has to be part of it. We dont get where we need to be if we dont have Community Buy in and intelligence. Thats a challenge. We have to think big. Its a big problem. Big solutions. And we have to think locally. And we have to do both. Thanks. Kplenlt. Thank you. Appreciate it. So that was a really great i think translation of some of the impacts we heard in the first panel and how it looks like in the real world. And i want to take a minute to think about the idea that we picked up in the first panel of the Dynamic World and how we adapt to it. Take a little bit of what i think sara and amy were touching on at the end. And im going to throw out a quick general question to the panel and all of you can weigh in as you see fit. How are our multilateral institutions gravppling with ths challenge and are they up to the task . You can take it in if you want regionally, speak about the council, for example. Southeast asia. East africa. Are there are they beginning to deal with the challenge . Are they ready for the challenge . What kinds of steps do we need to take to improve upon them . I think we heard a little bit from amy. Ill leave it to you. Ill start again. Pull on the comments at the arctic counsel. My own view is the Arctic Council is straining enormously. In many ways the International Community is putting a lot of burden on a structure that wasnt designed to carry all of that burden. The Arctic Council is, again, an intergovernment al forum that deals on consensus. It produces some Climate Impact assessments and maritime shipping assessments that are extraordinary. I dont think they get much play, but theyre an incredible value. The six working groups that work on a wide variety of issues, they do important work. But its very isolated. Its not wellknown. But theres a lot of things now that are happening in the arctic that the Arctic Council isnt designed to do. And so, again, whats happening is things are being built around the Arctic Council. So the innovations that i mentioned to you, the search and rescue agreement, the Oil Spill Response and International Science agreement, it uses the framework of the Arctic Council is the eight members, but then the Arctic Council itself has nothing to do with the implementation of those agreements. The arctic kocouncil members can of course, they fail to approve a declaration after the Arctic Council ministerial in may, but all the members can say yes, this is a great impact, but im not going to do anything nationally to produce the Climate Impacts. The russian government isnt reducing gas flaring in the arctic. So its nice. Its lovely. But its not moving the needle. And so what i see happening right now, particularly on the security part of the conversation, the Arctic Council is prohibited to deal with security. So we cant have that conversation there. Structures that are being created the arctic economic council, the Arctic Coast Guard Forum. I see this duct tape apparatus that were trying to respond to the innovation which i think is fantastic and important and theyre moving for diplomacy at lightning speed to get some of these things negotiated, but it doesnt have a home. It doesnt have an organizational framework, and what concerns me is that it has all these piece and parts that arent managed within a framework and that allows countries either regionally or globally to perhaps manage all of that chaos for their own purposes. And i think we have to be very cognizant of it. I think we need a lot of rethinking of the characteristic governing structure that there is no political will. Everyone is very frightened to do any change. And so i think were going to be stuck with Arctic Council thats going to be less and less efficacious, if you will, in what we need it to do in the future. John, as sara was talking about her different modes of conflict arising from climate, she talked about direct competition, resources and food chain security. All these things really just sounded like a witchs brew that described Southeast Asia. And ill sort of kinds of impacts coming together in that part of the world in a dire way. What do you think about the ability of existing International Institutions in agreements and that part of the world to kind of grapple with this challenge . So i think its important to look at all three levels. I think that are needed. You have the Community Level that was talked about that are super important. You really need Community Buyin. You have action at the National Level thats important. And your question is focussed on the international. With regard international. With regard to the International Sphere in asia, i guess ive got two examples that are still evolving and hopefully you can evolve and the conversation will evolve with the urgency of the issue. One example is in japan, where japan took this dramatic step of really undertaking this top to bottom reform of how it manages its domestic fisheries and they did this even when it was part of the discussion with the Significant Impact on japanese fisheries is right outside the ez from russia with china and other, but the officials said we have to do what we can do first and well have a greater agency with the moral authority to come to the International Realm to argue the case that there needs to be regional agreements. Another example is well see how that conversation goes now. Another example is in the western central Pacific Ocean so the International Institution is the western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and they are now grappling with the impact of Climate Change where the Pacific Island countries, some of which are the poorest in the world depend on tuna, one of the most valuable fisheries resources in the world. The center of gravity of those fisheries under a Climate Change is forecast to shift in those islands where they can control, so they are grappling right now with this question of how do you allocate quota . How did you how do you do it based on history. Will the right to fish attach remain with those originally or will they migrate out to the open sea where other countries can have more and can sort of harvest them more on their own without the control of the countries and thats the conversation right now within the Fisheries Commission. Its robust and well see how it plays out. Sarah, what are your thoughts . You mentioned opportunities for optimism. How do you see that playing out on a more regional scale. In multilateral institutions . Yeah. Well, similar to what john just said, the same kind of conversation is happening with the Tuna Commission around the catch allocation of the most tuna and fish industries. In the indian oceans there is distant Water Fishing nations and china, taiwan and the eu fleet which is primarily france and the indian ocean and to be a part of the regional Fisheries Management organization, you do not have to be a country whose shoreline touches the waters of that commission and you can simply have a presence as a fleet and voluntarily own the organization and that gives you rights and responsibilities so the same conversation is happening right now and theyre sort of two competing proposals right now to how to allocate those valuable tuna fisheries and one proposal being forwarded by the European Union and the other proposal by the coastal states, and those are its a consortium of some of the smaller countries in the tropical Pacific Ocean, im sorry, the indian ocean and so, i dont know what the state of those conversation is, but its mirroring whats happening in Southeast Asia and thats very interesting that these states are exerting a little bit more influence and Decision Making authority over their own resources and not just simply selling them off to other countries who and keep in mind the other countries who are coming in are efficient and for the most part their fishing methods and theyre targeting a few of these valuable commercial species that have global trade. Theyre not necessarily coming in very close to coastal waters and damaging coral reef habitat and that sort of thing and im talking about fleets that for the most part stay out of International Waters although not exclusively and there are two Regional Security agreements at least two that im more familiar with and one is the djibouti code of conduct which is north africa, east africa and the middle east and both of these are Regional Security frameworks that deal with the maritime space, and to my knowledge, Climate Change is really only dealt with when it deals with blue economy issues, but because these are security frameworks they mostly deal with issues in west africa and east africa piracy, human smuggling, drug smuggling a lot of which takes place on fishing boats and so i dont know i honestly dont know how theyre set to incorporate issues of Climate Change especially with Marine Resources. Lastly, amy, before we turn it to the audience. You talked about local solutions and that caught my ear with the lands report, the special report on lands came out in august, was there a great panel and bob watson joined us for that and we also had the director of Global Environment facility on the panel and she spoke about just that. The idea that oftentimes we would talk about these global comm commitments whether its paris or other agreements, but those goals are often being implemented on regional, local scales and really, were talking about communitylevel action and can you talk about the pathway for success and that kind of work . Sure. This isnt a problem thats new. Thats the good news is weve had challenges in implementing largescale projects at the national and local level for a long time and so weve learned something. I think you can look at standards with the ioc performance standards and theyre not perfect. Theyre pretty good. Implementing it is a different question, do we not effectively is challenging and it covers both just having an environmental social Management System in the first place that the ifc lends to and it also has specific chapters on land rights and resettlement and Indigenous Peoples and labor rights and other aspects of the Environmental Impact and what ive seen so far and sorry, just to add to that, the ioc also has governance around that and they have experts to help that their clients dont know if they dont know how. They have a grievance mechanism thats independent and raises problems when they arent people normal people can bring complaints when the standards arent followed. What im seeing in some of the adaptation funds is theyre picking up some of this with a very light touch and that can be strengthened and that can be if a government wants to access that funding then they have to start developing this capacity, and we probably also need to be financially supporting that capacity. This isnt easy, and for a lot of countries that have topdown cult u cultures, thats a different way of doing things. And thats something thats adaptation across the board and again, there are stuff that you can pick up off the shelf in terms of the standards would be with the governance. I want to talk about one other area that theres been one progress on having frameworks, but probably needs more and thats migration. So people that are migrating because of either sudden onset or Climate Change arent considered refugees under International Law and so are migration frameworks are solely evolving and there is orderly and regular migration that was finalized in 2018. It does talk about Climate Change, maybe not as much as it should. It doesnt solve the problem, but there is some progress in that area, and i think thats going to be a key issue to get our brains and our political willpower around going forward. Something that some are thinking. Thank you very much, audience, if you have some questions. Microphones . Lets do the first panel and well take three at one time and we have one here. Do we have a second . And one in the back there. So lets go with those two. Thank you very much. Michael swarren. My question is for mike and sarah and i appreciate the impact at the Community Levels with indonesia and asia broadly and africa, mozambique, somalia. I am interested to know what is being done in the Community Levels with the most affected communities to address and anticipate the impacts of climatedriven risk and to mitigate the chances for driver of conflict, and im partly leading this question for sarah because im aware of your work in somalia. At the Community Level where people can be drawn into criminality, violence, extremism and conflict, what can be done with those communities that are most at risk and at the front lines. Thank you. Well just get it a little bit. Hi. Im monica medina. I know a lot of you. My question is about technology, and the use of electronic monitoring and electronic reporting systems and whether youre seeing an uptick in that anywhere else. Can you hold your sorry. Can you hear me . The question is about electronic monitoring and electronic reporting as a way to better manage fisheries in the face of Climate Change. I wonder if youre seeing an uptick in that anywhere else . I know there are some efforts here in the u. S. And theyre sort of in fits and starts. I think this is the case globally, as well, but im interested in knowing if any of you are aware of any places where its really going well . Do we have a third . Lets get one here in the middle. Thank you very much. A wonderful presentation. I was wondering if you could speak to the role of the International Financial institutions, for example, world bank or Asian Development bank with respect to the Capacity Building in place such as africa or asia. Thank you. So weve got one on Community Level Risk Mitigation and that ties in to some of the International Funding work, and then weve got another question on uptick electronic monitoring and advanced purchase of fishery management as a way to climate management and ill just throw it to you guys and wants to dive in. Thank you, michael, for your question. I think to answer the question of what is happening at the Community Level. I think that question is difficult to answer briefly and it has to do with the impacts of the community are and the capacity and knowledge of the community. In the horn of africa in particular the largest impacts of Climate Change are terrestrial, agriculture impacts and drought. So most of the Capacity Building and community, i wouldnt even say theres community Risk Mitigation right now. Theres simply survival thats happening. I would say that in the maritime realm, though, probably the greatest amount of Capacity Development is happening in Data Collection, and the very basic approach is the stock assessment that happens through Regional Cooperation with some of these larger scale levels. I dont want in a lot of communities that have already been impacted by Climate Change or that are regularly struggling with issues of food and income insecurity they may be decoupled from Climate Change, and im want sure that Risk Mitigation is something that is even where we are right now. I think its more thinking about ways to improve Resource Management that incorporates Climate Change at some level or at some regional level. Its not a great answer to your question, but you know, to work at the Community Level, i think you really need to have support from the federal and state governments when relevant to enable communities to both bring problems to the federal and National Levels for solutions and so im seeing a lot of that sort of level of Community Education and Environmental Education around the impacts of Climate Change. Youre seeing a lot of Community Level mobilization as the awareness building thats happening right now, oh, but i did want to actually address here, points about violent extremism or recruitment into criminal activity and while that can happen and we do see some of those things happening, i also think that the issue is so much more complex than just Climate Change causing food and lively hood insecurity causing security into violent extremist groups and its a much more complex issue and in the area of the horn of africa there have been a lot of linkages with the rise of piracy 15 years ago and the changes in the Marine Fisheries and a lot of times, the story that gets told in the media is not nearly as simple or been thone that we would like and simply solving these problems will not address the issues around the globe with violent extremism. Just a quick answer to complement. So i think there are three things that are happening and theres more to be done, but one is more skientsific informatici in the water and second is planning and planning for the future. What are these resources going to look like in the future and how can communities plan for that. Finally, to amys point is governance and selfempowerment. So as an example, some of the work that we did with the fishery and they had never really reached out to the stakeholders before in these communities and organized them and so we help them do that and one of the things they did with that was the government announced that it was opening and this is the provintial government and they heard from the fishermen and building governments like that is a critical way to give people an outlet to shape their own futures. Really quick on the technology. Obviously, you mentioned in the u. S. There is a let of emphasis on improving monitoring which is improving not just for the science and to understand whats happening in the water and to be able to set and base management decisions on and to improve accountability because every fisherman will tell you they dont want to catch the fish and they dont want to sit around and let you catch the last fish. There is a lot of as a commons issue, there is a lot of importance placed on knowing that everyone else and the community as a whole is abiding by the same rule. So the u. S. Is testing a lot of those. Theyll dust off the records from three years earlier of where the fish are and how much there is and you just cant manage stocks that are shifting rapidly these days. China has realized that accountability and enforcement is a system and theyre taking steps to do that, too, and im sure some of you heard the efforts of the fishing watch that uses satellite data and indonesia signed up and there are a number of other countries that signed up to part near with this ngo to make it transparent. Ill Say Something very quickly on technology in the arctic and it will be transform tiff and it is very limited infrastructure and to understand the terrestrial environment and also to continue to monitor maritime. We also again, how they connect community. The Arctic Council has enhanced with the most indigenous communities and this is telemedicine and this is Online Education and this is awareness of bringing their observations and just on the tracking, as well. And thats why this mandatory code is so important because it now has to track vessels have to have ais. Hopefully theres mechanisms because we are seeing certainly anecdotal instances of fishing stocks moving north for cooler waters as the polarized receipts and the water is warm and the plankton changes and we will see Fishing Vessels increasingly in higher and higher latitudes making sure we understand both the Fishing Vessels as well as the scientific vessels and not all is science, my friends and we have to understand who and what are operating in the arctic. Technology will have to be transform tiff to how we monitor the arctic in the future. Im afraid we have to stop there so we did get to the final conversation. I want to once again thank this panel. It was an excellent conversation. I very much appreciate it. [ applause ] we were talking about how the high seas are lawless, and it shows up in the exploitation of fishing stocks. It shows up in the transportation of illegal goods. It shows up in in piracy. It shows up in the Logistics Movement of really bad people. This is all part of this landscape, and so we wanted to do something to bring the security together to say we have a shared interest in solving this problem, and i am so very grateful today that John Richardson has chosen to be with us as kind of the keynote speaker. John is, of course, has just stepped down from being the chief of Naval Operations and he worked in every bit of this and every part of his professional career and certainly the last four years when he was a cno, focusing on this very question and its a unique opportunity for us. So with you, with your warm applause welcome to the stage John Richardson and former chief of Naval Operation . [ applause ] i really appreciate it. It is great to be back here, by the way. I know youre familiar with our humble abode here. I think this is a wonderful way to cap off whats been a very stimulating couple of panels this morning. I think, for me, what has really kind of hit home is this idea of a more competitive world and a more Dynamic World and one that needs to be more adaptive in lots and lots of different ways. We talked about, obviously in the panel grim impacts from climate and we talked in the second panel about how these changes are going to translate in specific places around the globe with instability. Opening arctic, food stress and the tropics and lots of opportunities for challenge. We talk about how theyre translated into threats, but threat, of course, can take a lot of different forms. They can be acute and strategic and i wanted to open by just getting your thoughts on what kinds of climaterelated threats most concern you, the acute or strategic . I guess if you asked me today is the acute threats and if you asked me tomorrow its the strategic threats, so i think that they have sometimes constructive way of interfering with each other and sometimes not so helpful where the acute can really occupy all of your time and resources and all of your attention and sort of cause you to maybe neglect some of the longer term, strategic things and i think with respect to the ocean and Climate Change its been particularly vulnerable to that kind of a dynamic because those acute challenges that are here ask now, right in front of us of the 10meter targets, if you will, are very vivid and some of these other things. Theyre just now becoming well known and well agreed upon to the vast majority of people. The ocean is out of sight, out of mind, and even here in the United States and other nations that we talk about who have been maritime nation, if you will, since their birth theres kind of this sea blindness that arises that we just dont realize maybe on a daytoday basis, an acute basis how much we depend on the seas and the ocean for our posterity and livelihood and security and then on top of that, you know, this Climate Change dynamic is becoming more visible, i suppose, and its not as visible as some of those things capturing the headlines and we have to almost force ourselves, discipline ourselves to see the appropriate time and attention on this and particularly now, i think, theres a really growing sense of urgency and the facts that that the dynamics that are happening it may be irreversible if we dont act soon. Driving ourselves to take action, looking back across the various Strategic Security documents over the last decade or so and you can go back in the 2010 and the review, and the climate took up a whole chapter within that review. In 2014, it was sprinkled throughout, perhaps with the less dedicated focus and today its absent for political reasons and the National Security strategy, but i guess, my question to you is a little bit of with the view of driving us to action, and how important from a historic standpoint and maybe from the mind of the pentagon are these documents in terms of driving action and in terms of allowing the u. S. Security community to adapt better to the threats that are going to be facing . Im kind of a believer in the importance of strategy and kind of getting back to our first question, and a wellcrafted strategy and a wellcommunicated strategy allows us to do is to make sure that while some part of the organization may be captivated by the here and now, there is another part of the organization that can get after these things and so i think it really is important that a strategic document mention these sorts of challenges and maybe even threats. Having said that, i dont know if you think about the elements of national power, right . Im not sure that the military dimension of Natural Power is the primary focal point to address the challenges of Climate Change, and certainly will have an impact and an implication for the security environment, but if we look at this primarily through a military dimension len, i think we can really distort the solution and arrive at approaches that are selflimiting, maybe, and so when youre talking about from the earlier panels and when youre talking about challenges that are much more fundamental, Food Security and thats a much broader challenge than the military can solve. This takes a whole national approach, if not an international approach and the comments about the institutions tuned to arise to this challenge, i think are fundamental types of questions and from a security standpoint, ive spent a lot of my time trying to highlight the importance of the oceans and i know im preaching to the converted here that the oceans, theyre under a lot of stress, you know, just separate from the Climate Change stress. The shipping and the ocean has increased by 400 in the last 25 years which is an astounding increase and the sea bed infrastructure getting at Natural Resources or whether we are talking about intercontinental communications and 99 of the internet rides on those cables so the sea bed is becoming almost a domain unto itself and mega cities are moving, and theyre growing in number and most of them are coming up on the shoreline. So theres just a tremendous amount of stress already on our oceans and now you overlay that with this stress and challenge of Climate Change. It really sort of begs for a supra type of an approach that would incorporate certainly the military dimension of national power, but must be broader than that. Sticking with the idea of institutions and we talked about this way the dynamic nature of the world is stressing what is a world thats built on static norms and static institutions. So were kind of creating gaps, if you will, and cracks in the established mode of governance for the world and lots of mischief can happen in those cracks and it seems that that is the dynamism in the world today that provide extra opportunities for high conflict and gray zone conflict and other regions in the world that you worry about that kind of stress the most. Well, i think that the earlier panels touched a lot on the regional dynamics that are at play here and in each of those reggons and we do a lot of talk among chiefs of navy and chiefs of coast guard and it really as the earlier panels highlighted, where you sit is where you stand and you know, in the gulf of guinea, boy, as someone said theyre kind of focused on the survival and the basics of the domain awareness and just being able to somewhat govern that space in the slightest manner and you know, and more developed country, of course, theyve got a pretty secure means of governing their territorial waters and their exclusive Economic Zones and thats not the case everywhere, and so these institutions have got to one size necessarily wont fit all. It does give rise to these seams and i think a lot of our institutions and particularly the ones i was wrestling with in the navy they are well, theyre highly structured. Theyre theyre fundamentally built to handle linear problems and phase zero, phase one, phase two, and i think they operate with regional boundaries and this Climate Change challenge is going to impose a great stress on those institutions and its nonlinear happening simultaneously and it is truly global. And we talked about the importance of the science, and i think its also, history would tell us that we have to approach this with a deep sense of humility in terms of how much we can understand and absorb and measure a thousand times before we cut once on this thing because we can end up doing more harm than good if we dont do it right. When we launched this program in january. The senator whitehouse had remarks that i often turn to with the compliments and resentments and how we are running the risk right now of engendering conflicts and resentments around the world through actions or lack of actions on climate, but it that are similar opportunities to mitigate those confluence of resentments and that there is an idea that American Leadership is as in most things, indispensable in this area and beyond mitigation and im thinking about adaptations and alliances and partnerships. I will ask you in working more daptive in the face of space and climate. It is absolutely essential if were going have a seat at the table. If this future is going to sort of come out the way that bee would like it for the health and prosperity of our nation and for our future generations and america is, i would argue still optimally poised to lead and we have the network of allies and partners is under stress, as well and particularly in the maritime dimension, things tend to go pretty well and this is one area where the military dimension can play a stabilizing role and a little bit biased because we share a lot of cultures and norms, you know, just that are that Transcend National boundaries, right . And i would argue that first among equals are navy to navy types of things and you go into International Waters. You have to operate in meaningful ways and you have to put together plans and operate and be safe and be productive and so, not just to take this analogy and navy to navy, coast guard to coast guard and it can be the stabilizing keel as we move forward into the future for this ship of state that will allow economic winds to blow. We want to come out and sort of relatively close to on track when these winds abate, and keeping that alliance and Partnership Structure together is really perhaps one of the most critical roles the militaries can play to get us through this. Thank you. I am happy to turn to the audience now and take questions and weve had some folks. Lets go one, tw, and do woe have a third . In front. Im john morton with the gis software company. Im curious, admiral you were serving as cno when both the paris climate accords were signed by president obama in 2016 and then when President Trump withdraw the United States from that agreement. How did you and or general dunn ford viewed the role of military best advice in terms of the security parameters of either being in that document or removing us from that document . Yeah. Go ahead. No, you. I can speak for myself, and it went back to what i said at the end of the question which was. I saw my role in bringing the maritime dimension of power and bringing them together and saying hey, look, these alliances and the partnerships that we have despite what may be happening and despite how you interpret that, lets make sure we keep exercising together. We keep up with personal exchanges and we keep inviting each other to other school, you know . All of those things that create sort of a deep and meaningful relationship that is founded on sort of the common principles that and Common Ground that our two nations can find and that was the primary emphasis that i took, anyway, to make sure that we did as much good to keep the partnerships as strong as possible. Hello, quick question for you, sir. Is there a way to introduce fishing as a mission for the navy and have it actually included into the ndaa as maritime safe has been trying to do and can that then be used in cooperation for other navys . This fishing topic comes up with the regional maritime conferences that i had the privilege of attending because as the earlier panel said it is so fundamentally important to the prosperity of so much of the world. Having said that, and to my mind, its really about aug are onities. What are the span of authorities that are given to navys and thats widely varying, and in our nations, Law Enforcement and the sorts of fishery enforcement all authorities come with the coast guard and we partner together particularly with information sharing. Those authorities are united in one maritime body and so again, i would go to the authoritieses, right . Those nations or those institutions who have the Proper Authority to do that type of fishery enforcement are the ones that should be doing it and that share varies from state to state where the nave demri a role in sharing information and were out there on the high seas and we have overhead types of capabilities and we dont have pretty good awareness and we can focus where we need to be. And so by taking a look at our Information Exchange agreement, we can do a lot of good to enable those institutions with the proper authorities to respond to potential violations. Someone mentioned this is also a rich area also for technology and the infusion of Technology Ask someone mentioned ais, and i know there are others and what are the rules and norms and how are they informed with a particular ship squawking on ais and how are we supposed to respond to that and its different from what we observe it to be doing and the good guys are pretty much complying, but those arent the folks that were after. The other ones are harder to see and maybe taking a more exquisite type of technology to detect it and then sharing that with the Law Enforcement authorities and they can respond to it. Theres one here. Hows it going . Alexanders office. Weve seen this year that the navy has pushed back a little bit from their Climate Research and climate studies and recently the task force on Climate Change has shut down this year. My question for you is what is the navy doing to compensate for that, and that we might be seen for the cno to pursue and then kind of also the same rell am as what do you think is the near future for the use of the navy in the arctic . Well, i think that you would find if you would just look at the data that the navys been more involved in the arctic in the last two, three or four years since the end of the cold war and just examples that weve thrown around and we sent the Carrier Strike group that is north of the Arctic Circle in november of 2018, and you know, i mean, its tough operating out there as you all know. And we had to kind of crack open some old books who hadnt been up there since 1991 with that type of a force element and so what we found in that much has changed in the last 20 or so years, its still cold as hell and the seas are very, very rough and we had to get our sea legs back in terms of doing that. Bring baseball bat, right . That was one of the lessons because theres nothing like a Louisville Slugger to smash the ice off of your radar and everything else. Some things remain fairly primitive. Weve done a number of exercises in alaska, right . And so this is one of one of our gems as a nation in the arctic region, and in fact, we just concluded one up there that involved a pretty sophisticated operation with the navy and marine corps. Weve got, despite the recent trends in headlines that the navy has steady ocean and science and, and it would reinvigorate what i saw a slipping and Competitive Edge in Ocean Research and we stood up Task Force Ocean which was an academic effort primarily focused on those really bright stars in the academy that are doing Ocean Research. Infusion of resources to make sure they we stay on the front end of this and not only for the competitive dimension that we stay competitive, as well. Other questions . I stunned them into silence. One in the back, monica. Ill ask again. I love this topic. Thanks for being here. A great discussion. Im sorry. Sorry. Ill get closer. Thank so much, admiral, for being here. A great discussion, whit and thanks for letting me ask a second question. My question for you is, admiral. You called Climate Change a challenge and repeatedly referred to it as a challenge, but is it more than that . When you look at u. S. Military installations that have been severely impacted by it and when you think of it as not only a threat multiplier and the communities and our shores, and is that, you know, is calling it a challenge not enough . And is there another threat that is exist earn as other people refer to it . Just curious how you rank it. Its a bit of semantics, i suppose, and i guess in my mind a challenge or a threat and thats not meant to prioritize in terms of their importance and its the nature of it and i would say that something that is threatening you and has kind of a deliberate approach towards harming you, right . One thing about the its just going to happen, right . In fact, thats one of the scariest things about it. It has no the science will just take over here, and this is the sense of urgency and some of these bigger forces and the scientific dynamic that governs deep coastal regions and i dont mean by calling it a challenge to lessen the impact of that and particularly along our coasts, you know, and it wont surprise you that the navy is present mostly along our coast and its got a lot of impact on our bases and our infrastructure and all of those thing, but its sort of one its like in those really the scarier movies where it is moving without a conscience through and manifesting itself on the environment. This is Climate Change, you know . Its almost spookier than a threat that has a deliberate i want elect thats after us. Its just its just happening to us, and we have to just deal with it. We cant convince it not to threaten us, right . This is something thats a challenge thats super urgence and thats how i see it anyway. So i took very much to heart that this is not necessarily a military threat inasmuch as its something that is sparking an acute military conflict, and its hard to say navy and go deal with this challenge. Go fight that hurricane, but that doesnt mean that there isnt a lot of opportunity for the services to engage and to work, and i think i want to go back to that point that we talked about the leadership and your point about navy to navy, maritime to maritime, and the most fruitful and grounded and solid and honest conversations that we have with our international partners. Theres a report just out by the climate and Security Group which is the association of retired Security Officials as the things are called and they called for the establishment of a National Security directive addressing Climate Response and they go into the details of what that would look like. They particularly call out developing the Regional Security plans with the partners and allies and i want to close that out to you on your thoughts about how you might make Something Like that happen and we know whats Strategic Planning and what that might look like and what might be useful and to deal with a particular environment and using that is something we can strengthenous. What does this mean to the panel and just as other people talked about in the other panels and where there are security challenges and security threat, those are real threats, tensions and now again, i dont mean to be too keen, but you turn the temperature up on that it makes it harder, more pressure, more stress. So when youre talking about defending and governing International Boundaries even at sea and the fact that the source is outside of the International Boundary and that in and of itself raises a security challenge of the most fundamental nature to a nation, and i think that this idea of a National Security directive and if you look at the people who put that report together, very broad and distinguished and very thoughtful people from a wide variety of National Security, right . Not just military, but some of the other places. So i think this type of an approach is really valuable and it would be not so much, and the department of the defense would play a supporting rel, so this is not at the Security Council level other but all of theel ams of national you poor, and there are some aspect of this that will be highly regional and the regional aspects of the directive, i think are very useful and raps the most challenging would be what are those truly Global Dimensions and trance pacific things that need to be addressed and when you think about, you know, the timeframes to bring these sorts of structures together and it took about a decade to get ratified, right . We talked about the some of the agreements in the arctic again about a decade to get these things brought together and agreed to and signed. I dont know that we have a decade left before some of these things become and the momentum builds to the point that it will be very difficult, if not impossible to turn them back. So theres a sense of urgency that it will have to come to this International Dimension that is going to be unprecedented in a way to get these agreements together in a time thats relevant. John with the cor sor shum leadership. Another retired ceo admiral watkins. He stated that Ocean Science and Ocean Research in this nation and spread across the confusing number of agencies at the federal, state and local levels and the public is crying out for data and information in a way that can help them make meaningful decisions. My question in looking at this federal structure of Ocean Science and research with the ocean as you did, how far have we come this that 15 years and how far do we have to go especially when you add in the importance of Climate Change and the fact that the clock is rubbing out here as you mentioned with some of these areas. I think we could always do better, john. In terms of sharing data. Even just inside the navy and some of the labs and the efforts inside the navy so that we can really move forward in a meaningful way and eliminate duplication in a meaningful way and its not any better when you expand the annpperture and they try to unify that and give it a focus so that it is a gathering point particularly as it related to Ocean Science, and we can do some trem end owsley meaningful work and if you think of our coulding of the ocean in the last 15 years its been remarkable what thats done. One of the things im going to do in the near future is im going out to Scripps Institution of oceanography and im going to speak at this event that is honoring the legacy of walter monk which is one of these epic oceanographers and walter monk spans his entire life time, and heres someone that did wave analysis to support landings in world war ii all of the way up to understanding what will happen if we detonate an atomic weapon all over the ocean and the ocean responds to that. He was, i think, a prophet in terms of ringing the bell on Climate Change with some of his experiments and so in the spirit of walter monk this is what oceans strove to do and what will continue to occupy my passions in retirement, this is one of those things. We have to get more coherent in our approach to that and make that data more available. Hi. I work for the u. S. Navy. How do you bring ocean issues to the forefront of booms mind when theyre bigger and more pressing issues such as sanctions or Something Like that and make it more relevant so that people care and want to look more into the issue . I think we cant assume that everybody has as vivid an understanding of how important the oceans are. Most people, it doesnt enter their mand at all, and so, again, i dont have to be too convincing in this group and whether youre speaking before the pta chamber of commerce, you know, watching your kids soccer game and manufacture it might be. I think that weve got to use all of those venues to heighten awareness of the ocean and weve got to do it in ways that really are tangible to peoples understanding and if we talk about two degrees of temperature change, i mean, thats not going to captivate it. If we talk about twothirds of our economy, you know, is coupled with the ocean. Two out of every three jobs is somehow related to the ocean, 99 you know, we start to get to something that is a little more tangible and then what is the threat to that, right . The 99 of the world runs on cables and we can reconstitute, and we start to discuss this, and a narrative starts to form, i suppose, and were predisposed to understand the narrative storylines and what is the narrative storyline that we need to create in terms of the importance of the ocean to us as a nation and to us as a people and where does Climate Change come into that . Weve been all over the map in term was is it really happening . Are people really causing it . You know, all of those things and maybe we can converge and we certainly can do better. We have the technology and the intelligence to just build systems that are better. Theyre more sustainable and they impact the environment less and we can do that in a commercially profitable way and there are all sorts of opportunities here if we can kind of unite on a narrative way forward, and so dont miss an opportunity to talk about that. When we leave go forth and preach to all nations about this and the importance of what we talked about here. Sometimes it gets a little too insular and we need kind of a broader a praeppreciation and i needs to puncture through the urgent headlines that were getting on our twitter feeds and everything else, right . So that is a wonderful note to close on. Thank you very much. [ applause ] thank you all for coming and joining us here today. Please stay in touch, stay in contact and have a great day. This week were featuring American History tv programs in prime time as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight historian dan albert in his book, are we there yet the american automobile past, present and driverless, he chronicles history of u. S. Autos and argues against driverless cars. Watch that tonight beginning on cspan3. Well show you book tv programs in prime time to show you whats available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight well show you some of the indepth guests with Joanne Freeman and journalist naomi klein. Watch those programs tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern over on cspan2. President trump holds another Campaign Rally tonight, this time in lake charles, louisiana, live at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org or listen live on the cspan radio app. A new cspan ipsos poll shows half of americans are confident that the 2020 president ial election will be open and fair. There is a gap on the question, 72 of republicans are confident in the system. Only 39 of the democrats share that belief and 58 of americans think that foreign governments are among the threats to the system while only 41 of republicans share in that concern. More than threequarters of democrats and over half of independents believe foreign governments may interfere with u. S. Elections. 31 of people believe that the federal government has done enough to protect elections from foreign interference. 54 of republicans report having a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in federal efforts. Only 16 of democrats and just over a quarter of independents agree. You can find the results including whether americans think president ial candidates should be required to release their tax returns and whether citizens should be required to show a government i. D. To vote at cspan. Org. Campaign 2020, watch our live coverage of the president ial candidates on the campaign trail and make up your own mind. Cspans campaign 2020, your unfiltered view of politics. , in, a discussion on russiaukraine relations and the role of the west. Speakers include david cramer, a former assistant secretary of state during the george w. Bush administration. He talks about the russiaukraine conflict and the impeachment inquiry of President Trump, russia sanctions and u. S. Military aid to ukraine. From the Johns Hopkins school of international study, this is an hour and 15 minutes. Id like to welcome everybody to the russiayoure asia seminar. We do it every two