Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 12/2013

The Politics of Plenty: Balancing Climate and Energy Security

David Burwell

November 2013

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Abstract

The United States is entering an era of oil and gas abundance. Its new resources will increase U.S. energy security, but they may also undermine climate security—as fossil fuel combustion increases, so too does global warming. Unless Washington enacts a plan to simultaneously advance its competing energy and climate security objectives, it risks squandering the benefits of its new resources and suffering the disastrous effects of climate change.