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A Storm Brewing

Adapting to environmental change is as important as preventing it. Chris Abbott looksat the challenges Britains police forces face in dealing with the task.

Climate change is riding high on both domestic and international agendas as countries begin

to wake up to the huge environmental challenges they will face during the course of thiscentury.

While this attention is laudable, less effort is being focused on the inevitable impact thatclimate change will have on global and domestic security issues, and there has been littleserious examination of what impact climate change may have on policing. There seems to besome doubt in the British police service that climate change is of direct relevance to its work,other than an acknowledgement of the need to cut forces carbon emissions.

This is not true of all law enforcement agencies. Those in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji arestarting to take a particular interest in this issue. In a speech in Adelaide last year, MickKeelty, the Australian Police commissioner, argued that climate change could be thiscenturys most serious security issue; even more demanding than the current threat from

international terrorism.

This is not surprising given that the countries of this region are already experiencing theeffects of increasing temperatures and rising sea levels. It is now time for forces in Britain tostart thinking through the likely consequences of global environmental change.

The police service may be called on to enforce regulations in carbon trading and investigatecorruption or fraud in such a system. Another role may involve greater overseas deployment,supporting the armed forces in humanitarian interventions and stabilisation and disaster reliefoperations.

By examining relevant trends in policing and criminality, with reference to the predictedconsequences of climate change, we can draw some conclusions about the potential impact it

may have on policing in Britain. Three trends will be of particular significance over the comingdecades: extreme weather events, environmental refugees and civil unrest.

Extreme weather forecast

Although the impact of global warming on extreme weather events in northern Europe is stilldifficult to assess, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - a scientific body set upby the UN to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity - is predictingchanges in wind patterns that are likely to lead to more intense tropical storms and stormsurges, which in conjunction with heavy rainfall and sea-level rises, are expected to causesevere flooding. At the same time, as temperatures rise we will experience warmer days andnights and more heat waves.

With a large number of Britains towns, cities and ports located on coastlines or in river-valleyareas, there is a clear threat from rising sea levels and extreme weather events.

Storms and flooding will have an increasing impact on population centres, and one onlyneeds to remember the impact Hurricane Katrina had on New Orleans in 2005 to understandthe massive demands such events place on the police service to provide emergencyresponse-and-disaster management, including evacuation, while at the same timemaintaining security and an adequate police presence.

This is made even more difficult by the temporary increase in certain types of crime - such aslooting and anti-social behaviour - that can be experienced in the aftermath of environmentaldisasters and during events such as extreme heat waves, as evident in crime statistics fromthe US.

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There are three specific measures that police forces can implement in order to greatlyincrease their ability to respond in the aftermath of a natural disaster. First, emergencyresponse centres need to be climate-proofed using building techniques that provide greaterprotection from storms and flooding. Second, it is essential that critical communication,transport and energy supply networks are adequately protected so that communities can berapidly rebuilt. Third, and most important, effective community-based strategies need to be

encouraged and supported, as it has been shown that civilian social networks play a key rolein reacting to and recovering from environmental disasters.

Forces will also need to develop far greater planning integration with other local emergencyservices and national disaster response agencies.

People on the move

Over the course of the next few decades, three critical factors are expected to come to thefore to create a major humanitarian crisis. As mentioned above, climate change will lead torising sea levels and an increase in extreme weather events. Second, various socio-economicand environmental factors mean there is likely to be an increased scarcity of three keyresources: food, water and energy. Third, this scarcity will take place in a world where,

according to the US Census Bureau the global population is expected to increase from sixbillion to more than nine billion by 2050.

It is almost certain that these factors will result in the mass movement of people. In 2002, ProfNorman Myers, of Oxford University, predicted in a paper titled Environmental refugees: agrowing phenomenon of the 21st century that there could be up to 200 million environmentalrefugees by the middle of the century. This could potentially bring the total number of peopledisplaced by natural disasters, conflict and large development projects to one billion people,according to a 2007 Christian Aid report.

It is uncertain at present what impact this will have on Britain. The Oxford Research Groupexpects major problems where there are large, poor populations adjacent to small, richpopulations - most notably, Mexico and the US; North Africa and southern Europe; and

South-East Asia and Australia. However, further research is needed to understand theimplications of this for Britain.

There are two likely consequences worth highlighting. First, the demand for enhanced bordersecurity is likely to be the knee-jerk reaction from some politicians and members of the publicto increased numbers of environmental refugees. While, in my opinion, such measures arehighly unlikely to succeed in the long-term, the protection of national and maritime bordersand the detention of illegal immigrants are likely to become increasingly important priorities forthe police, HM Revenue and Customs and the UK Border Agency.

Second, it is likely that a rapid rise in immigration will also lead to changes in the rates andtypes of crime that police forces will have to deal with, as there are clear differences betweennationalities in their cultural attitudes towards certain offences, such as drink-driving or knife

crime. At the same time, police forces may have to respond to an increase in right-wingprotests and racially motivated attacks against immigrants.

Under protest

If responses to the aftermath of natural disasters are inadequate, people may begin to loseconfidence in the Governments ability to protect them. This reaction can be seen in thepublics response to last summers flooding across Britain. Emergency measures have in thepast created resentment towards the Government and led to outbreaks of civil unrest; madeworse by a possible breakdown in trust between the police and general public if draconianmeasures need to be enforced on an unwilling population.

For others, the establishment response to climate change may not go far enough, and a rise

in protests aimed at the government or at corporations over environmental damage can beexpected. The Heathrow climate camp of last summer - where hundreds of protesters

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marched along the 1.8-mile stretch of land set aside for a third runway - is unlikely to be thelast as frustration over the lack of action on climate change is bound to increase.

While environmental movements have a long history of peaceful protest and non-violent directaction, on the fringes there are often those who will resort to violence and sabotage. In theUS, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has observed worrying signs of an escalation in

violent rhetoric and tactics among a small minority of environmental extremists, and theycurrently consider eco-terrorism to be one of the most serious domestic terrorism threats. InMay 2005, The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works met to interview JohnLewis, the FBIs counterterrorism deputy assistant director. Those attending the conferenceand the Senate hearing became aware that the direct-action phase of the animal and Earthliberation movements is about to enter a new and much more violent phase.

It is important that emergency service planning - and the associated funding - remainsflexible, taking into account lessons learned from related case studies and scenario-planningexercises.

In the long-term, if the Government responds with traditional attempts to maintain the statusquo and control security, it will fail. Efforts to keep a lid on security problems invariably create

a pressure-cooker effect and result in far more serious dangers emerging later on. Leaderswithin the police service will need to use their influence to make this clear to policy-makersand impress on them the importance of taking steps to prevent and adapt to climate change,rather than relying on aggressive policing to control security later.

ChrisAbbott is the programme coordinator and researcher at Oxford Research Groupand anHonorary Research Fellow of the Centre for Governance and InternationalAffairs at the University of Bristol.

Chris Abbott, A Storm Brewing, Janes Police Review(18 July 2008).