Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "Why Greenland Matters" with Sherri Goodman

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"Why Greenland Matters" with Sherri Goodman · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  But we need Greenland, and I think we're going to get it one way or the other.
• 0:08
  G'day humans, welcome to SafeSpace for Dangerous Ideas.
• 0:12
  Here's Dangerous Idea for you, as climate chaos reshapes the geography of the planet in the 21st century.
• 0:20
  We are going to have to fundamentally question which parts of the globe are strategically important and strategically unimportant.
• 0:29
  When President Trump floated the idea of the United States acquiring Greenland, many people scoffed and just chalked her up to a random brain fart.
• 0:38
  But in fact, there is actually a serious debate amongst defense analysts and security experts about control of the far North Atlantic and the Arctic in the 21st century.
• 0:51
  As polar ice caps melt, as sea lanes become more navigable, the question of who owns these new avenues for shipping and spying, for mining and submarining, and indeed for warfare becomes more and more pressing.
• 1:07
  Today's guest, Sherry Goodman, knows more about this than almost anybody else. She was the Chief Environmental Officer for the Pentagon for the entire American Defense Department during the Clinton administration, and she had a specific expertise in the polar regions, in Arctic security, in the denuclearization of former Soviet states, in Russian nuclear submarines, in the Baltic Sea, and indeed in climate chaos.
• 1:33
  She is currently a senior fellow with the Polar Institute and the Environmental Change and Security Program with the Woodrow Wilson International Center.
• 1:41
  She has a book, it's called Threat Multiplier, Climate Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security.
• 1:48
  And when I heard her speaking in fascinating ways about this whole Greenland malarkey when Donald Trump first floated it, I thought, that's actually something quite interesting to dig into.
• 1:59
  What will climate change mean for our security, not just in the Arctic, but all over the world? Sherry is the person to tell us, I hope you enjoy as much as I did, the one and only, Sherry Goodman.
• 2:11
  Judy and great importance both strategically, economically and ecologically.
• 2:18
  So let's talk about that. The Arctic, during the Cold War, that's a place where we descended against Russian, Soviet missile attacks, both from the United States, Canada, and Greenland.
• 2:31
  We've long had to, at the end of the Cold War, a very important strategic base in the northwest of Greenland.
• 2:37
  Why is it very important?
• 2:39
  It's an important strategically important location from which we defend against incoming Soviet or now Russian missile attack, today also Chinese North Korean.
• 2:50
  And we also, it's our eyes, part of the eyes in the sky that we have.
• 2:54
  If you look at a map, Greenland is part of the North American continent.
• 2:58
  So that's something that's, you know, important to recognize, but also Arctic security.
• 3:04
  What's interesting is that with climate change, the Arctic is becoming more navigable.
• 3:09
  Temperatures are rising four times as fast in the Arctic as in the rest of the planet, and we now see retreating sea ice, rising temperatures, and falling and collapsing permafrost.
• 3:22
  And many countries have expressed their interest in the Arctic.
• 3:26
  President Putin would like to convert the northern sea route that runs along the shallow Russian coastline into a toll road for transportation from ports in Europe to ports in Asia and has said ambitious shipping goals for Ross Adam, which controls that, and which is also their nuclear entity.
• 3:47
  And so they've modernized and nuclearized much of the Russian Arctic today.
• 3:51
  China also has Arctic ambitions would like to be able to navigate and ship across the Arctic declares itself a near Arctic stakeholder.
• 4:02
  And I certainly resources energy shipping, but perhaps in the future fish.
• 4:08
  As fish stocks move towards both poles with both warming in the oceans and over fishing in other parts of the world.
• 4:20
  And for a long time, we've also had a very important science and research capabilities in the Arctic with other Arctic nations.
• 4:30
  Many other countries would like to understand through science and research efforts, what's happening in the Arctic, because as we say, what happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic.
• 4:42
  With the accelerated melting of the Greenland ice sheet and also the Antarctic ice sheet, we could see global sea level rise of seven several feet by the end of the century potentially.
• 4:56
  An India, for example, is worried about how changing Arctic conditions could affect the bond soon cycle and therefore the agricultural seasons in that vast and agriculturally important country.
• 5:09
  So there are many impacts from changing Arctic environmental and climate conditions that are important to understand.
• 5:17
  Let's just talk about missiles first, because maybe this is the easiest one to understand.
• 5:21
  Are you saying that our strategic defense bases in Greenland, and I'll say hour, even though I'm not American, but you know what I mean, allied in Greenland that if there were that as part of the United States anti missile program that you would literally use that as a launching pad for missiles to shoot other ICBMs out of the sky.
• 5:42
  If you could or something like what what is the nature of the the actual defense?
• 5:46
  We we use our capabilities to track incoming missiles. We have a lot of missile defense based in Alaska, as you probably know and important bases in Alaska.
• 5:55
  Yeah.
• 5:56
  So they are obviously all connected in terms of monitoring what's happening eyes in the sky, both missiles and space based activities.
• 6:05
  You know, increasingly there are so many satellites in orbit with different sorts of capabilities, everything from monitoring the weather from potentially military space activities.
• 6:16
  And now increasingly as temperatures warm, we're also watching what's happening in the maritime domain.
• 6:23
  So in terms of Alaska, Sarah Palin was right that when Putin rears his head, she's the one who gets to catch what he's doing first because she can see Russia from her house.
• 6:34
  Okay, let's move on to shipping lanes. So you mentioned in passing that Russia has a plan to try to create a toll road along the northern sea route.
• 6:43
  What is that route and who currently owns it?
• 6:45
  Well, the northern sea route runs most runs along the Russian coastline. So Russia considers it to be internal waters.
• 6:53
  Other countries like the United States consider it to be international waters.
• 6:58
  But the fact of the matter is that right now and in the recent past, it's mostly been used by Russia chips, Chinese ships.
• 7:08
  I mean, there's other two have navigated for it. It's not a major strategic thoroughfare now. But as I said, Putin has a vision that it will be in the future and that he will be able to charge for escorts through Russian icebreakers for ships that would like that shorter shipping lane.
• 7:27
  China has articulated in its Arctic strategy that it could save time, save several weeks in shipping if it could ship from Chinese ports like Shanghai across to Europe.
• 7:42
  Now that's still, you know, it's tested that with it's sent in the summertime now when there are, you know, increasingly summers in the Arctic are ice-free.
• 7:53
  It doesn't mean there's no ice. There's always ice and it can actually be even more dangerous as the ice melts. I was in Greenland this last summer and traveled by boat along the coastline.
• 8:04
  And there's a lot of ice, even more ice as the fjords are and the sheet ice sheet is melting. But increasingly the waters are open and there could be some estimates are there will be ice-free summers in the Arctic as soon as potentially 2035.
• 8:22
  Right. Okay. So just to clarify what would normally have been the case traditionally since the dawn of modern shipping would be that the northern Russian landmass would be connected with both thick ice to the Arctic to the North Pole essentially 12 months a year. Is that right?
• 8:40
  And that now what you're talking about happening is that there could be a navigable sea lane that ice breakers could push through in summer to link North Asia with Europe without having to go down around Singapore and India.
• 8:54
  Yes. So avoiding the Straits of Malacca, the Straits of Poromu. Yes. But that is a possible future shipping channel and that's been tested this last summer at Chinese vessel that was not even ice-clad.
• 9:09
  Translated through the North and see route there are two major routes in the Arctic for your listeners to know so the two majors see route so the North and see route that runs along the Russian coastline and then across into Europe.
• 9:22
  And then there's the north what's called the Northwest passage, which is mostly through Canadian waters, which is a much more complex less open and less navigable route.
• 9:35
  I see. Is that just because Canada Canada stretches further north and Russia or for some other reason?
• 9:41
  It's because of geography ocean circulation patterns. There's always been if you think of Norway, Sweden, Finland, they've always had open water in their Arctic areas and parts of Northwest Russia have long had open waters and the Russia's major military base in romance has always is ice free year round.
• 10:05
  It's other parts of the Arctic Russian Arctic that until recently were more ice ice-clad if you will. So it's partly the geography and it's partly the ocean circulation.
• 10:23
  Yeah, you're reminding me isn't Europe unseasonably warm for how high it is latitudinally as well, like New York is on the same latitude as Madrid or something, but it obviously has much color.
• 10:35
  Because of the jet stream and what's called the Arctic Meridian ocean circulation overturning circulation, AMOC.
• 10:41
  One of the concerns of climate scientists is that there could be a tipping point in that AMOC Arctic Meridian overturning circulation and if it should shift dramatically or collapse, that could actually make parts of northern Europe colder in the future.
• 10:59
  Right, because even though the fjords are pretty and snowy, they're not as cold as they would be if they had the same ocean movements as the United States do.
• 11:10
  Just to clarify, when you say that Russia claims that the northern sea route is Russian and America claims that it's international waters, what does the UN say and how would those rival claims be adjudicated in practice where they'd come to a head?
• 11:27
  Well, they'd have to be resolved through if pressed through your potential, the law of the sea treaty. Unfortunately, the United States has not ratified the law of the sea treaty for a variety of complicated domestic political reasons.
• 11:42
  And so its ability to press that case is limited. We would do that through something we do regularly in the South China Sea. We do a freedom of navigation operation because we because the United States believes that much of the area in the South China Sea is international waters despite Chinese claims that it is their eternal water.
• 12:05
  So we regularly send military vessels to do what we call fine ops freedom of navigation operations. We don't do that in the Russian northern sea route.
• 12:17
  And presumably to begin doing so would be perceived as a massive provocation by the Russians. Yes, it would.
• 12:23
  Right. And we do that in the Gulf as well, right? I mean, I occasionally read stories about American warships just going through the Persian Gulf for shits and giggles to make the point that the shipping is, you know, is clear and that Iran shouldn't fuck around.
• 12:36
  Right.
• 12:37
  The next thing that you mentioned was that was that Russia is nuclearizing the Russian Arctic. What does that mean?
• 12:46
  Well, it has about 40 nuclear powered icebreakers in the Russian Arctic. It has a nuclear floating nuclear power plant. It uses in the region. It has modernized the number of the military bases that after the Cold War.
• 13:03
  It let lapse. So it has asserted that it's mostly for economic reasons to ensure the commercial opportunities that will be available coming years through a more navigable northern sea route. But in the process, it's also added nuclear capabilities, both in icebreakers power plants and in its own military capability.
• 13:28
  And this was something that you were involved in early on after the end of the Cold War, right? When I understand that the Norwegians came to the United States and were worried about sort of crumbling Russian nuclear armory and submarines in, you know, near Norwegian waters. What happened there?
• 13:46
  Yes, that's right. And 1994, the Norwegian Minister of Defense approached my boss, then the US Secretary of Defense Bill Perry and said, we're really concerned that a sunken and decommissioned Russian nuclear submarines in mermaids.
• 14:05
  They're on Northwest sub base are going to leak and contaminate fishing grounds in Norway. And we would like you, the United States to help engage the Russians in resolving that. And so the Secretary of Defense came down to my office, which you rarely did. And he said, Sherry, you need to go figure this out over to you.
• 14:29
  And so from that, we created a program called Arctic military environmental cooperation. I should say that at the time I was serving as the first deputy under Secretary of Defense for environmental security. So my portfolio was environment, sort of cleaning up military bases during the complied with environmental laws.
• 14:47
  But also making sure our troops could train under any types of environmental conditions. And so we started a program with the Russians Norwegians and later a number of our other allies joined as well.
• 15:01
  And we built a cask with the Russians to safely offload the liquid waste streams from Russian nuclear submarines so they could be more safely stored inland rather than leak into the waters there.
• 15:15
  And it was an era of using environmental security cooperation to build trust cooperation and understanding with former enemies.
• 15:24
  And we've used various forms of that kind of environmental cooperation, defense environmental cooperation with allies and partners around the world for the last 30 plus years as a way of strengthening our partnerships with strategically important nations.
• 15:41
  And what was Russia's attitude at the time? Would they were open to this? They were collaborative with the Nordic countries that everybody was on the same page about the goal of cleaning up that area?
• 15:53
  Well, they very much, at the time, at the end of the Cold War, this was the early, this was in mid 1990s, they were very welcoming of an interest in cooperation with Americans.
• 16:06
  And remember, we were also running a very big program called cooperative threat reduction where we were taking out Russian nuclear fissile materials from Russia and former Soviet states as the way to ensure that they wouldn't fall into it.
• 16:22
  And so Russia and former Soviet states were receiving a great deal of funding and technical support to remove those fissile materials.
• 16:32
  This was a program sort of a close cuts another and they welcomed are they wanted to learn and exchange they wanted still to be considered at that time, even though they were no longer the Soviet Union.
• 16:45
  So they want to be considered as still a superpower. So they welcomed the exchanges with the Americans. I spoke at many Russian military academies about environment and security issues in our military and they came and spoke at some of our US defense institutions as well.
• 17:06
  And when you say that part of the remit of the US government when you were the chief environment officer at the defense department in the 90s was to remove fissile materials and potentially dangerous, you know, nuclear material from former Soviet states.
• 17:20
  Obviously one of those states was Ukraine and the removal of nuclear weapons from Ukraine was a major part of the end of the Cold War in hindsight were we too naive.
• 17:35
  I think there were things a lot of things we didn't understand about the rise of Putin at that time. That's for sure. You know, in the Ukrainian certainly have probably wondered whether they wouldn't be better off if they had their own nuclear capabilities today.
• 17:51
  On the other hand, I'm still very glad that we haven't had a nuclear attack on the battlefield. You can't ever be too careful and there are many risks that are still out there.
• 18:02
  You can't see what's happened its apparition in Ukraine. We've come at a lot of near misses and a lot of close calls and you know, Ukraine is still fighting very desperately for its democracy and for its place in the world.
• 18:18
  And so I think they need, you know, they need all the support they can get.
• 18:25
  Do you recall there ever being conversations at the time or being aware of conversations about the time about whether it might be strategically valuable to leave nuclear weapons in other states that aren't just Russia as a countercheck to Russia.
• 18:38
  You know, there was so much instability in the governance of those states at the time that I think it was wise spread view that would be better off to denuclearize as much of the former Soviet Union as possible.
• 18:52
  Right. Yep. I guess in hindsight, 2020 isn't it? Although you probably could have had it off one problem by having a nuclear armed Ukraine, you could have created much bigger ones that we don't get to live in that parallel universe to see what that one looks like.
• 19:05
  So in terms of this collaboration with the Russians, what point in the past sort of quarter century do you recall starting to think, well, maybe this whole thing isn't as sunny as we thought it was going to be at the end of the Cold War.
• 19:20
  And maybe it's not the end of history after all and maybe democracy will not be maybe this is not democracy's heyday.
• 19:29
  Well, I left the Department of Defense in 2001 and you know what happened after 9-11 in the United States is, you know, we really turned to focus on terrorism as the major threat that we faced.
• 19:49
  And so there was a sky of a refocusing in our national security after 9-11 then as Putin began to gather more power within Russia and then extend his reach beyond the borders of Russia.
• 20:06
  First into Georgia and later into other places, it became very clear, particularly from some, you know, the Arctic military environmental cooperation had kind of run its course, but there were other related programs there were programs on Arctic security forces roundtable, something where the militaries of the Arctic nations had been meaning to try to ensure that they understood how they were operating in the Arctic as a way to provide.
• 20:35
  To provide confidence building in region that is still remote and hard to operate in, but after Russia's invasions starting really in 2014, those relations began to change.
• 20:50
  And really, it's been more than a decade that there's been really a change that in those relations and the understanding of the ability to work for common interests.
• 21:05
  And so now you have to be much more directed. I mean, we're now we're in a whole new era.
• 21:11
  Yeah. Yeah. Did we respond correctly to the invasion of Georgia? Could we have done more earlier?
• 21:19
  Well, there's always a question, could we have done more? I mean, you know, in the fact that we actually were able to put US troops in there and use an air base in there was in part because of some prior early environmental security cooperation.
• 21:33
  We had started the late 1990s with the Georgia with the Georgians at the end of the Cold War. Probably we we quite for some time we underestimated Putin's intent and his potential reach.
• 21:47
  And across vast parts of Europe and Eurasia has it made you more hawkish?
• 21:56
  Well, I'd say it probably always been someone.
• 22:00
  But I'm both a defense hawk and a climate hawk.
• 22:06
  You know, I am, you know, because of my upbringing, I don't think, you know, even after the Cold War that the world was going to, you know, that we were at the end of history or that there were going to be threats.
• 22:19
  And, you know, anti-Semitism, for example, really never went away. It's waxed in wind in authoritarianism while it hasn't had as much prominence as it does today has never really been off the radar either.
• 22:38
  Greenland. It's been Danish for hundreds of years since the 1700s. It became independent a half century ago, right in the late 70s, but it's still nominally, you know, under the guise of the kingdom of Denmark.
• 22:54
  By what process, if any, would we gain control over Greenland?
• 23:02
  Well, I mean, the future of Greenland is really up to the Greenlanders.
• 23:07
  You know, they have an important election coming up this year and a referendum. They can, they want to determine their future.
• 23:15
  And, you know, they have been, as you said, since 1979, they have been an independent self governing entity that is still part of Denmark.
• 23:26
  They still receive substantial funding from Denmark in a variety of ways, particularly for their defense and security.
• 23:36
  And, in fact, that even increased the Danish government has substantially increased its defense investment in Greenland as a result of the discussions that have occurred since President Trump took office.
• 23:53
  So, I think Greenlanders will determine their future, although we may hear some other comments, otherwise.
• 24:04
  Well, yes. You know, maybe Greenlanders are supposed to determine their future, but maybe Canada is also supposed to not become a 51st state.
• 24:11
  And Panama are supposed to control the canal and garrisons are supposed to control Gaza. But the Trump administration, you never quite know what's going to be thrown out there.
• 24:20
  Okay, you have to remember that, you know, Trump served out as a New York real estate tycoon and mogul and, you know, he used all sorts of tactics to achieve his success in that in those days.
• 24:38
  And he's brought a lot of those tactics into techniques with him into the Oval Office.
• 24:45
  Where do you think his Greenland thing came from?
• 24:49
  Oh, I think some of his advisors and some of his friends, you know, had been talking to him about it for years. They saw it as, you know, maybe another interesting kind of real estate opportunity.
• 25:00
  And, you know, now this year is the first year we'll start having nonstop flights from New York to Newt, the capital of Greenland.
• 25:07
  So, they are going to be increasing economic ties and Greenlander Greenland Premier has said that, you know, we are open for business. We're not open for sale.
• 25:18
  So, they welcome increased tourism. I was in Greenland last summer. It's a beautiful, fascinating place. And, you know, you see climate happening on the front lines.
• 25:30
  It is where the climate is changing so vastly is the great Greenland ice sheet melts at a rapid pace and sends evermore ice into the fjords and into the waterways.
• 25:45
  You can know, you know, the ice is retreated extensively in certain areas so that you land now on gravel when you take a helicopter up there instead of actually on the ice.
• 25:55
  So, you see the calving. It's very visceral and it's also very beautiful.
• 26:00
  And, you know, so, you know, I think there will be increased commercial activities and tourism activities between the United States and Greenland.
• 26:13
  You know, Greenland unlike Iceland, you know, it's much more sparsely populated, 57,000 people.
• 26:19
  And they mostly live in the coastal regions because the center is as vast ice sheet.
• 26:24
  And so, you know, there are some limits to that. They're not a lot of road networks, but two major airports are expanding.
• 26:30
  That's going to allow and their runways will be longer. That's going to allow for these nonstop flights, which will be less than or just about four hours from New York.
• 26:41
  So, it's very short. It's actually be shorter to get to Greenland than it is to get to California.
• 26:48
  Wow. As the climate changes, what opportunities and pitfalls does that present in Greenland?
• 26:56
  Well, it means, you know, potentially more economic activity, but I think Greenlanders also want to preserve, you know, their historic way of life.
• 27:04
  You know, they have been a remote and very an Arctic nation.
• 27:10
  And so, they, you know, don't have the same love. They have a lot of fishing.
• 27:16
  They have fabulous food, but they don't yet have, you know, a vast tourist industry.
• 27:24
  And they also, though they had rich in critical minerals, which has been one of the discussions, you know, it's expensive to operate there.
• 27:34
  So, they could be a source of mining and minerals in the future.
• 27:41
  But it's, you know, all these projects have to be done, have to have the price has to be right, because it's expensive to mine and extract.
• 27:52
  And so, there are some new developments under discussion. Greenlanders also want to ensure that their country is ecologically protected, and they have very strong standards that will govern how that work is done.
• 28:06
  You mentioned that the food in Greenland is great. You were there last year. What is Greenlandish food? What can I expect?
• 28:15
  Oh, it's just very, you know, obviously the fish, the halibut, you know, the fresh fish is so well prepared.
• 28:25
  And, you know, they've also had a lot of Danish cultural influences over the years. So, it's really mixed with Greenlandic and some Danish food influences, and there's, you know, highly developed food culture there.
• 28:40
  So, I mean, we visited a small restaurant in Greenland that now we were, we were staying in Greenland, third largest city, Illulisat, which has 5,000 people. That's the third largest city.
• 28:55
  And we went by, city, no, they called it a settlement, a town, a town, okay. And we went to another, really just a small fishing village of just a few hundred people.
• 29:11
  And there is a Danish Michelin star restaurant that you could only get to buy both. And it was serving a multi-course meal with wine tasting.
• 29:21
  And it had recently relocated from the Faroe Islands. So, you know, that's why I'm saying that's, that's a notable, a distinguishing feature of the Greenlandic.
• 29:37
  Right. So, are they sort of positioning themselves as a boutique exotic tourism destination for Europeans and Americans in the same way that Iceland, I mean, Iceland, I wouldn't say it's an Australian boutique.
• 29:50
  I don't know that they, I mean, I think obviously they're well aware of what's happening in Iceland. And, you know, as an American, I could say growing up, people never thought about going to Iceland for vacation.
• 30:03
  And now Americans go to Iceland all the time. And it's, again, it's a very short flight from the east coast of the United States. It's shorter to get to Reykjavik than it is to get to California.
• 30:13
  So, now they have a very highly developed tourist industry. But again, the geology is completely different. You know, Iceland is a further south, it's a volcanic island.
• 30:24
  You could drive around the entire island.
• 30:27
  And yeah, it's more hospitable in many ways to tourism than Greenland, which is a gigantic sheet of ice, mostly.
• 30:37
  And in terms of minerals and mining, what does Greenland sit on? What would we want?
• 30:44
  Well, it has a number of the rare earths that are important to the energy transition for batteries, you know, for the clean energy economy.
• 30:54
  These are rare minerals that you need to make batteries for the transition.
• 31:00
  Yes, exactly. And a number of applications.
• 31:03
  Okay. And so, what is the current status of that? Are there largely untapped reserves there that other people are eyeing?
• 31:10
  Does Greenland have a policy towards leasing out? I don't know, areas that can be mined or does that come into conflict with its environment?
• 31:17
  Well, the Canadians are Australians. I have looked into several mining projects there. I think there are some deals that have been struck.
• 31:29
  I don't know that the activities are underway yet.
• 31:34
  Again, these projects come down in part to cost and returns. It's expensive to operate in the region. And, you know, they've.
• 31:45
  I know Greenland, for example, has banned uranium mines, so they don't want certain types of mining to occur in their country, but they are open for other types of business provided that can be done in a way they consider to protect the natural resource.
• 32:01
  Where do they get their energy from, Sherry?
• 32:06
  They have a lot of imports of fuel.
• 32:12
  What, they ship in diesel instead of using wind and I know they probably mostly import their fuel, yes.
• 32:24
  And then the question becomes like to what extent assuming like to what extent do we in the West have dibs on extraction and resource usage in Greenland?
• 32:37
  Like if Russia and is part of the play here in this whole conversation about Greenland and attempt to head off the possibility that Russia and China could mine there?
• 32:52
  It's certainly part of the equation to ensure that China and Russia, but mostly China, which has been seeking increased for direct investment across the Arctic and in many other parts of the world.
• 33:06
  Let's be very clear. China has been on a rush for resources throughout Africa, Latin America, Asia.
• 33:16
  It only has 10% of the world's critical minerals, but it has over 50% or more of the processing capability of that.
• 33:28
  It's managed to sort of bring in the resources and it extracts them from other parts of the world.
• 33:35
  Activities, it's sought to develop ports in Greenland as well and the US and the NATO allies Denmark and the United States rebuff those attempts.
• 33:48
  So China seeks those opportunities through its Belt and Road initiative and you know it's declared as I said a polar silk road.
• 33:57
  So it has this in mind that there will be a polar silk road and it sinks investments.
• 34:03
  What does it mean by a polar silk road?
• 34:07
  Well, that it will have shipping lanes that stretch across the Arctic and that it will conduct its form of development in various parts of the Arctic.
• 34:19
  The same kind of development that in other regions has led to deck traps when it's invested and then the country can't pay that loans and then they take over the ports.
• 34:29
  Just explain that what's a debt trap and how does it go wrong?
• 34:32
  Well, they provide a loan and then the country isn't fully able to repay the loan and then they're on the hook and then and then the China you know part of the issue.
• 34:41
  And the concern around the Panama Canal now is that there are Hong Kong entities that own certain activities that both ends in the Panama Canal.
• 34:51
  Now Panama says that it's fully able to control the canal and that it's going to ensure that the shipping lanes remain open for all parties.
• 35:02
  But I think there's increasing concern about Chinese ambitions through its Belt and Road initiative all around the world.
• 35:12
  And just to unpack the death trap, debt trap thing, the idea would be that they'll go to a port that China will go to a poor country say will build your nice airport or a nice bridge.
• 35:23
  And all you have to do is pay us back over this period of time, then the country fails to pay it back and then what happens exactly.
• 35:30
  They kick over and they mad at you and then they own the infrastructure.
• 35:33
  And that's clause 742 B slash C that presumably the mildly corrupt and incompetent basket case country.
• 35:43
  Government did not read when they signed up for the nice, shiny bridge and all of a sudden they're literally Chinese people taking back and operating something on their soil.
• 35:55
  Yeah, happens a lot across the Asia Pacific as well, which is, you know, there's no underpinnings for Australia in our role as a kind of a deputy sheriff of the Pacific.
• 36:06
  You mentioned that we're so glad you're there defending our freedoms.
• 36:11
  Thank you.
• 36:13
  It does feel it's a strange place strategically Australia to, you know, to be the the sole medium sized western democracy in a surrounded by a, you know, a billion or two people.
• 36:26
  It's like this strange strange psychology of essentially belonging to the North Atlantic, but residing in the South Pacific.
• 36:35
  What was your sense when you were there recently about what they make of the whole Trump buying Greenland, it global who are.
• 36:44
  You know, I think they're both amused and confused.
• 36:54
  In some ways they're happy to have more attention because maybe this will attract more commercial opportunities and more to their economy.
• 37:04
  On the other hand, it seems clear to me that they have no intention of wanting to be Americans.
• 37:11
  I mean, they don't want to be another state of the United States of the United States.
• 37:16
  No, of course not threat multiplier.
• 37:20
  What's a threat multiplier?
• 37:23
  Threat multiplier is the term I coined with the first group of generals and animals I organized in 2007 to assess the national security implications of climate change and refers to how climate amplifies our security risks,
• 37:37
  particularly in volatile regions of the world, but also in stable regions.
• 37:41
  What we now have is instability in our in our earth system, our natural system from a changing climate.
• 37:46
  We have hotter temperatures and rising sea levels and weird weather patterns and more prolonged route and all of that adds stress to other threats that we face, whether it's threats of terrorism or weapons of mass destruction or nuclear chemical biological.
• 38:07
  Threats or great power competition as an example, you know, the prolonged droughts across much of Africa, which have led to food and water insecurity have become really a petri dish for terrorism and have allowed terrorist groups to serve flourishing places where under stable governance with solid agricultural foundations, you would have had less ability for them to take advantage of vulnerable populations.
• 38:35
  So it strikes me and I'll let you go after we address this point that there are a couple of ways in which climate chaos could create instability and security concerns.
• 38:48
  I mean, they're broadly speaking, there are acute climate crises like specific droughts or wildfires like we're used to in Australia or which we saw in Los Angeles.
• 38:59
  Then there are the kind of chronic problems which just exacerbate everything else and turn the volume up on all the other problems I was speaking with an celebrated Australian environmentalist who was the Australian of the year some years ago,
• 39:17
  who was saying, you know, I don't know how long liberal democracy survives if you just turn growth down by one and a half percentage points or two percentage points because we have to spend so much money grappling with the effects of climate chaos.
• 39:34
  And I don't know how we all cohere as sort of citizens in a demos if we're constantly reeling from being buffeted by the sheer hassle of picking ourselves up and dusting ourselves off because of droughts and increasing food prices because of those droughts and then population movements because of shifts to the monsoon and then having to relocate people because of storm.
• 40:01
  Surges during hurricanes or whatever it might be it's just going to get intensely annoying at best it'll be very annoying and very expensive and his worry is less about are we all going to burn to a crisp will be you know or be submerged underwater and more about can we sustain a prosperous peaceful world under conditions that stressful and it was that chronic prognosis of climate chaos that scared me a lot more than the acute ones.
• 40:32
  Yes well it the chronic conditions of climate the prolonged drought the water stress and even the extreme weather events which occur in important time the wildfires floods hurricanes but then the regions where they occur then less resilient.
• 40:51
  You know to the next wave of intensity whether it's a chronic threat or another hurricane I mean you see this across much of Latin America now Central America which has both suffered from prolonged drought and more extreme storm intensity and so they have lost a lot of their agricultural and
• 41:16
  security and water security you see increased migration out migration from the region now and the areas much less resilient and able to absorb additional populations.
• 41:29
  Sherry you've been generous with your time thank you for speaking with us it's fascinating the book is threat multiplier thanks for being here.
• 41:36
  Well thank you very much Josh it's been great to speak with you and your Australian audience you know I love the Australians I thank you so much for who you are as a nation and the people and a wonderful wonderful country and a very important ally and partner.