Workshop Overview

The impacts of climate change overseas pose a significant and cross-cutting threat to the security of the United States (NASEM, 2021; NIC, 2021a,b; USGCRP, 2018). The Central America region, in particular, presents a confluence of major climate impacts and key security challenges (IPCC, 2022; Shaw et al., 2022). From a weather and climate standpoint, the region experiences a wide range of hazards, such as heatwaves, droughts, storms, and floods that have upended the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. From a demographic and socioeconomic standpoint, the region faces profound social and economic challenges —such as poverty, inequality, and corruption. From a security standpoint, the region is the setting for a range of social and political dynamics that impact U.S. interests, including conflict at national and subnational levels; displacement and migration; and the imprint of global geopolitics.

On May 3–4, 2023, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop titled “Climate Security in Central America.”¹ The workshop was held under the auspices of the National Academies Climate Security Roundtable. Over two days, workshop participants considered some of the underlying social, economic, and political dynamics at play in Central America; they explored indicators and pathways for climate-related security risks in the region; and they considered the available tools for analyzing and forecasting these risks.

The overall goal of the workshop was to advance a “systems”² understanding of climate-related security risks in the region, and to consider opportunities to strengthen the analytic capabilities to assess and anticipate those risks. At the outset, participants were introduced to a conceptual framework, previously developed by the National Academies Climate Security Roundtable, that comprises two key sets of factors that shape the evolution of climate-related security risk in a given setting: (1) external influences and stressors that act from outside of the setting and (2) the internal network interactions between the interconnected and interdependent systems and sectors within the setting (see Chapter 1 and Appendix B for a more detailed description).

The Central America climate security landscape encompasses a broad range of issues and challenges. To focus the analysis, workshop participants first considered the underlying human and natural geographic conditions in the region and defined key climate security risks upfront. The subsequent discussion was structured into three main sections: Indicators, Pathways, and Data and Tools.

In the Indicators section, participants highlighted metrics, as well as variables that could serve as metrics, for important climate-related security risks affecting Central America. In the Pathways section, participants envisioned plausible sequences of events over the coming years that could lead to dangerous climate security risk levels, based on the indicators identified earlier in the workshop. In the Data and Tools section, participants discussed the analytical capabilities and tools that could help to assess Central America’s climate security risks adequately. During subsequent plenary and breakout sessions, participants discussed the associated indicators, causal pathways, and Data and Tools for climate security analysis.

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¹ This proceedings has been prepared by the workshop rapporteurs as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop. The planning committee’s role was limited to planning and convening the workshop. The views contained in the proceedings are those of individual workshop participants and do not necessarily represent the views of all workshop participants, the planning committee, or the National Academies.

² The term systems thinking does not currently have a precise, agreed-upon definition. In the context of climate change, however, systems thinking generally recognizes that the complex and unpredictable nature of climate risk arises from the deep interconnections and interdependencies that exist both within and between the natural and societal components of the world, at all scales. Specifically, a systems approach to analyzing climate-related risks would consider the dynamic interactions and feedbacks between social, economic, political, and environmental factors that create the potential for harm to people and nature.