Is Climate Change Asia-Pacific's Biggest Threat?

Recently the commander of American forces in the Pacific, a man by the name of Admiral Samuel Locklear, told the Boston Globe that he believes the most serious long-term threat to Asia-Pacific isn't "the scenarios we all often talk about." The most serious threat, he believes, is climate change.

As Peter Brookes, the senior fellow for national security affairs for The Heritage Foundation, stated in an article he wrote, its possible Locklear was simply trying to avoid mentioning North Korea with tensions as high as they are.

Or, Brookes suggests, he could be simply "reading from the national-security gospel according to Team Obama."

Or maybe, Locklear is saying it because it's true.

Whether or not climate change is a reaction to human activity, sea levels worldwide have been rising at a rate of .14 inches per year since the early 1990s, according to National Geographic.

With its many islands and nearly a million people living along the coasts of South and Southeast Asia, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) believes Asia-Pacific is one of the most vulnerable regions to the effects of climate change.

In fact, according to the UNEP's website, "rising temperatures and extreme weather events have contributed to loss of crop yield in many countries." In total, the UNEP projects that by 2020 crop yield will have dropped by 10 percent.

In a 2012 address to the Environmental Defense Fund, former secretary of defense Leon Panetta sited climate change as one of the nation's greatest security threats.

"For example," he said, "the area of climate change has a dramatic impact on national security: rising sea levels, to severe droughts, to the melting of polar caps, to more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief."

Ultimately, whether or not climate change is in fact the number one threat to the Asia-Pacific region, groups like the UNEP recognize it as a real and current one and are treating it likewise.

Together with local populations, the UNEP is working to support policy planning and ecosystem-based adaptation and investment in renewable energy in that area of the world.