6
Plenary Synthesis Discussions

INDICATORS

Workshop planning chair Brian O’Neill noted that discussions produced a highly diverse array of potential indicators, even when examining the same specific risks. Multiple participants interpreted this as a positive sign, suggesting that many options exist for useful indicators, depending on how an issue is conceptualized. Several groups dedicated substantial discussion to critical procedural considerations, best practices, and conceptual principles related to developing indicator systems, not just proposing indicators themselves. This was seen as a valuable outcome and as a recognition that extensive thought regarding methodological frameworks and selection criteria is needed to shape the process of identifying indicators for climate security analysis.

A substantial portion of the Indicators discussion focused on the questions of what climate security indicators are specifically meant to be capturing, and whether specific versus general approaches are preferable:

• A workshop participant noted that much of the discussion had focused on the attribution of causality and on identifying the most proximate climate drivers when evaluating indicators. The participant argued that perfect attribution is unrealistic given complex interconnections across climatic, environmental, and socioeconomic factors, making strict empirical separation of climate signals unlikely. Attribution is further complicated by the uncertainties inherent in forecasting unprecedented future events, where past statistical relationships offer limited guidance. The participant suggested that the analytic focus ought to be on overall net human welfare and security impacts rather than on parsed causal chains. In the participant’s view, nested sets of impact-oriented indicators across interconnected issue areas will likely provide greater insight than rigidly siloed indicators tied to isolated variables. The participant maintained that this pragmatic approach would serve the objectives of risk identification and prioritization more constructively than would pursing elusive definitive climate attribution.
• A workshop participant built on this perspective by suggesting that the extensive lists of indicators could be distilled down to the most fundamental, independent indicators that directly track factors driving key security risks. These could be summarized using a principal components or factor analysis. This would constrain a potentially intractable array of indicators and enhance the feasibility of operational monitoring while avoiding immersion in a sea of possible data streams of questionable utility.
• A workshop participant concurred that exhaustive efforts to isolate precise climatic drivers from wider systemic risks are ultimately of limited value, given the profound complexity of the climate–security nexus. The participant suggested that the most useful indicators would be broad and encompass diverse possible effects and interconnected pathways through which climate stresses propagate through socioeconomic systems.
• A workshop participant noted the challenges inherent in developing security indicators for climate change when insecurity is deeply rooted in underlying development deficits that are unrelated to climate. As a middle path, the participant proposed adopting a nexus perspective, in which indicators are developed wherever numerous risk factors intersect substantially. As an example, indicators for food security would necessarily reflect the convergence of agricultural productivity, livelihoods, migration, health, infrastructure, ecology, markets, and governance.
• Reflecting on all of these comments, O’Neill considered the trade-offs between broad indicators applicable across many risks versus narrow indicators specific to distinct risks. He questioned whether broad applicability makes an indicator ineffective by lacking focus, or rather enhances its utility by capturing multiple risks. In response, a workshop participant responded that indicators addressing multiple priority risks would allow for progress on several issue areas simultaneously through targeted interventions. For instance, enhancing smallholder agricultural resilience could buffer climate impacts across food security, livelihoods, migration, and human development spheres. From an operational perspective, the ability to tackle several risks concurrently offers significant value.

Multiple workshop participants also took up the question of how indicators might connect specifically to U.S. national security interests, which are central to the scope of the workshop:

• A workshop participant suggested that more pertinent than brainstorming on potentially countless specific indicators would be developing meta-indicators that assess key analytic capabilities. These would highlight systemic shortcomings in the data and tools available to feed an analysis. For instance, assessing variability in data collection capacities across Central American countries may reveal vulnerabilities far more meaningfully than abstract universal indicators. Similarly, evaluating early warning system coverage could better indicate response preparedness than decontextualized indicators of

theoretical risks. The participant noted that the Climate Security Roundtable’s previous regional workshop on South Asia had revealed massive data and knowledge gaps even on imminent threats, supporting a capabilities-centric approach (Teece, 2007). The participant concluded by stating that critical deficiencies in risk-monitoring competencies demand urgent attention parallel to debates on indicators themselves.

• A workshop participant noted the inherent tension in discussion that is at once attempting to illuminate fundamental, structural drivers of insecurity and also identify risks to U.S. national security interests. The participant suggested that it may be impossible to identify indicators in which human security and U.S. strategic interests converge perfectly.
• A workshop participant argued that the U.S. national interests relating to Central America’s climate vulnerability need to be conceived fundamentally before debating appropriate indicators. The participant contended that interests could include direct threat reduction, homeland security, economic growth, humanitarianism, and climate risk mitigation globally. Without first explicitly delineating the gamut of relevant U.S. national interests and associated risks, discussions of appropriate indicators will lack necessary direction and consistency.

PATHWAYS

O’Neill noted that some discussion groups had taken more of a scenario-based approach, developing sequenced narratives of potential events, while others had focused more thematically on elucidating pathways related to a specific topic area. Discussions also highlighted commonalities among the various climate-related risk pathways. For example, nearly every work group incorporated or highlighted drought as a prominent climate stressor when discussing plausible risk pathways for the Central America region.

A substantial portion of the pathways discussion focused on the role of geopolitics and extra-regional actors, with a specific focus on China. Participants outlined an array of rationales to contextualize the commonly cited assumption that China will expand its geopolitical and economic engagement with Central American countries as climate change impacts increase.

• A workshop participant highlighted that multiple groups had incorporated a presumption that China would leverage climate impacts and instability to expand its influence and strategic advantages in the region. Conversely, many work groups presumed that the United States would fail to capitalize on opportunities in the face of climate stresses. The participant posed an open-ended question of why this assumption about contrasting levels of Chinese versus American engagement was prevalent across groups. The participant asked if others could speak to whether China is already actively working to exploit current or anticipated climate shifts to further its geopolitical interests, both in Central America and globally.
• In response to this question, a workshop participant commented on assumptions about China’s capacity to leverage climate impacts in its geopolitical favor compared with that of the United States. The participant’s perspective was that underlying this assumption is a broader narrative that engaging in climate change adaptation and resilience-building inherently and necessarily requires mobilizing large sums of money for substantial infrastructure and development investments. The participant elaborated that China’s centralized, state-directed economic system is often assumed to be more capable of marshaling the levels of capital required for major adaptation initiatives relative to the more diffuse, constrained budgetary environment of the U.S. government. The participant qualified that this assumption may or may not bear out in reality on a case-by-case basis. The capabilities of China versus those of the United States to deploy climate adaptation resources strategically are situationally dependent, but the participant concluded that the

perception of China having more adaptable resource-allocation procedures informs the prevalent assumption of their comparative advantage over the United States in leveraging climate shifts geopolitically.

• Another workshop participant offered several contemporary examples of Chinese foreign policy initiatives relevant to this topic. Tangible evidence already exists of China employing infrastructure development and financial investment to expand its influence and access to resources in vulnerable developing regions, with the Belt and Road initiative in South and Central Asia as a leading example. Additional demonstrations of this foreign policy strategy include China’s substantial infrastructure-building activities across the African continent and its position as a major creditor and source of capital to financially constrained developing nations. The participant assessed that China is also making considerable investments domestically and abroad in green-energy technology and production capacity. The confluence of these strategic initiatives positions China well in the context of Central American countries that face such systemic issues as energy poverty, inequality, and financial dependence. In contrast, the participant opined that the United States is hamstrung by its current array of internal challenges and political dysfunction, whereas China can act vigorously and proactively in foreign policy realms. The participant remarked that the United States does not appear to have the same willingness or capacity that it did in the post–World War II era to craft wide-ranging and long-term development visions abroad.
• Another workshop participant described more specific examples and mechanisms of how China converts financial leverage into influence within developing countries, stating that China’s infrastructure investments frequently come with stipulations allowing substantial Chinese expatriate populations to enter the recipient countries. These China-origin workers and contractors then exert influence on local cultures, labor markets, demographics, and social cohesion in the communities where they operate.
• Another workshop participant stated that, in addition to cultivating economic ties abroad, China’s investments are designed to support and give preferential treatment to Chinese companies and industries specifically. The participant suggested that China’s ostensibly climate-oriented engagements, such as green-energy infrastructure projects, serve the parallel purpose of providing Chinese entities a rationale and foothold for other activities, such as cyber operations and surveillance.
• Another workshop participant referred to a recent news development of Honduras switching diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China. The participant asked if others could clarify China’s incentives to expand its influence in Central America through infrastructure diplomacy and other means. In response, a workshop participant shared three key factors that could drive more Chinese involvement in Central America: (1) proximity to the lucrative U.S. market, (2) contrasting trade relationships compared with U.S.–Central American economic ties, and (3) the ability to leverage political influence via engagement with migrant communities that maintain connections in both Central America and the United States.
• Another workshop participant noted that, although the Panama Canal is a key example of the intersection with geopolitics, it did not surface in any of the work groups’ narratives. The participant noted the Canal’s acute vulnerability to even modest decreases in precipitation and drought, especially in its lock-based transit system, and encouraged deeper exploration of the potentially major implications for global trade flows and U.S. power projection.

Another prominent theme in the pathways discussion was weak governance as a key structural challenge in Central America, and whether this reflects unique regional attributes or points to a more universal role of governance in modulating the linkages between climate impacts and security risk:

• A workshop participant noted that multiple work groups had incorporated weak institutions and corruption into their risk pathways. In contrast with the previous workshops on South Asia in which governance issues had not featured as prominently in the risk discussions, the participant suggested that the work groups discerned that governance shortfalls particularly exacerbate Central America’s risks by inhibiting adaptive capacity (NASEM, 2023).
• Another workshop participant noted that capable, effective governance is always important for managing climate hazards and risks; the acute volatility and unpredictability of Central America’s governance landscape amplify climate risks for the region. The participant argued that, while governance affects climate risk everywhere, it is the profound fragility and fluidity of Central America’s institutions that make governance central when assessing regional risks.
• Another workshop participant hypothesized that Central America’s relatively small population and economic stature render it more “externally forced” at the global scale than massive South Asia. In South Asia, many of the key security risks reflect internal ethnic, religious, and political tensions, whereas Central America’s risks are forced more by external geopolitical and economic factors acting on the region. This appears to result in more malleable, fragile regional dynamics and institutions in Central America that offer less inherent resiliency against climate stresses.
• Another workshop participant noted that, on average, Central American governments collect far lower shares of gross domestic product in revenue compared with South Asian countries. The participant assessed that this profoundly limits capacity for strategic policymaking and investment at the national level in Central America. This fiscal limitation creates reliance on external financing and influences, further perpetuating climate vulnerabilities.

The pathways discussions also included a few other risk pathways involving the implementation of engineering solutions to climate stress:

• A workshop participant raised the question of whether, under severe drought conditions potentially exacerbated by climate change, Central American countries might choose to deploy geoengineering interventions as a means of relieving water stresses. The participant noted such intentional manipulation of regional precipitation through approaches such as stratospheric aerosol injection could carry major transboundary consequences beyond the targeted benefits. Another workshop participant highlighted that real-world precedents for government-backed climate intervention experiments are already unfolding. The participant noted reports that, in response to intense drought, the Mexican government has instituted cloud seeding field trials to induce rainfall. While limited in scope, the participant argued that this illustrates the potential for unilateral, loosely regulated field tests of risky climate manipulation approaches under conditions of climate stress, even before the technologies are mature or well-understood.
• Another workshop participant described a climate-related risk pathway involving the dependence of Central American electricity grids on hydropower. The participant observed that approximately 50% of Central America’s electricity is derived from hydropower currently and noted that climate change–induced droughts that affect dam reservoir levels and hydroelectric output could therefore necessitate increased reliance on fossil fuel power sources or, alternatively, imported solar power technology (IEA, 2021). In the latter scenario, China’s role as the largest global manufacturer of photovoltaic panels could position it to expand its regional investments and influence.

DATA AND TOOLS

O’Neill noted several important themes recurring across the groups. Multiple work groups highlighted data accessibility, strategies for handling uncertainty, availability of infrastructure-related information, data on governance, and new potential social media data sources. It was unclear, however, whether the myriad indicators proposed and discussed during the sessions could be considered truly actionable given the data constraints raised, or if they were more aspirational in nature.

A prominent theme in the Data and Tools discussions was whether current data systems and resources are suited to characterize empirically the types of climate security indicators participants had identified:

• A workshop participant asserted that highly localized, context-specific knowledge will remain irreplaceable for understanding pathways through which climate impacts and disruptions translate into concrete security threats or sources of instability. The participant was uncertain whether the depth of nuanced understanding needed to discern these context-dependent dynamics could ever be captured wholly through broad top-down data collection and analytical approaches. The participant opined that targeted, impactful interventions require granular on-the-ground appreciation of the cultural, political, economic, and social factors mediating climate effects in a given community.
• Another workshop participant underscored that, even in cases of data deficiencies, key issue areas warranting attention ought not to be simply ignored or overlooked. While the types and quality of available data related to these challenges varied significantly across countries in the Central America region, the participant maintained that some combination of data resources could still be leveraged to gain insight on each area, even if imperfect. The participant remarked on the potential benefits of standardized metadata and collection practices to enable robust integration across available datasets, as well as the value of timely data releases to avoid lags that degrade the utility of many datasets.
• Another workshop participant reflected that, in many cases, perceived data limitations may stem from inadequate understanding of what relevant information already exists. The participant noted that quantitative data are generally well suited for identifying correlations but less capable of explaining causal mechanisms on their own. In contrast, qualitative data elucidate reasoning behind relationships but provide limited generalizability. The participant noted that, even in academia, these complementary approaches tended to reside in silos; they suggested that, without meaningful integration, mismatches between data availability and needs were unsurprising.