Will the project "‘Nuclear Climate Change’: Mainstreaming New Science on the Systemic Environmental and Human Impacts of Nuclear Weapons Use in Established Nuclear Weapons Policy Circles" receive any funding from the Clearer Thinking Regranting program run by ClearerThinking.org?
Below, you can find some selected quotes from the public copy of the application. The text beneath each heading was written by the applicant. Alternatively, you can click here to see the entire public portion of their application.
In brief, why does the applicant think we should we fund this project?
Scientific research and climate modelling developed over the last 40 years demonstrates that there is no such thing as a limited nuclear war, with even relatively small-scale nuclear exchanges triggering large-scale and often long-term impacts on Earth’s systems. This research has remained siloed and has failed to drive appropriate security policy change – in other words, it has been seriously neglected.
Yet, just as climate change science has slowly but steadily undermined the fossil fuel paradigm, this research on the systemic environmental and humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons use appears to have the potential to radically challenge and reframe traditional thinking on the perceived security benefits of nuclear weapons. In doing so, it would make a rare, evidence-based contribution to a long-standing theoretical debate on the morality and utility of nuclear weapons. It would do this by demonstrating that a nuclear exchange would be far less ‘survivable’ than is generally imagined, create far more collateral damage to non-targeted human societies, and cause long-lasting harms to Earth’s systems that could take us beyond our planetary boundaries – with important consequences for nuclear planning. In other words, it has the potential to show that an attack on one would in many cases be an attack on all, including the attacker themselves, even in the absence of a second strike (returned fire).
Such opportunities to reframe the narrative are few. Nuclear risk reduction and disarmament are typically discussed within a narrow national security frame, such that decisions about whether to pursue further measures are taken only if they are considered to enhance the security interests of a given state. Since security officials in Nuclear Weapon States take a relatively zero-sum approach to these matters, in practice most measures are presumed to degrade state security interests (at the national level) and are therefore not pursued. This makes the opportunities to make serious progress on these agendas extremely limited, as has been evidenced by the last 30 years of inaction and backsliding within these agendas.
Flipping the conceptual underpinnings of nuclear deterrence are therefore the most valuable approaches that can be taken to achieve high-impact change. Indeed, informed decision and policy makers are generally well-disposed to accepting the methodologies that underpin the science of climate change. We feel that we are therefore pushing at an open door, particularly at this moment in history. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and in light of the failure of the step-by-step approach in the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in August 2022, many states are looking for more radical ways to reduce nuclear weapons risks.
As we explain in our answer to Project-Specific Question 3, there are powerful political and psychological forces resisting the advancement of policy work that takes this science into account. This too bears a striking similarity to the resistance against climate change action. The majority of well-funded states, especially those in alliance with nuclear-armed states, have avoided this subject altogether; even traditional non-governmental funders have not put serious resources behind it.
Nevertheless, the EA community is finally starting to shine a new spotlight onto these risks due to their existential nature, and this movement creates the first real opportunity in decades to address them. A recent blog on the Effective Altruism Forum lists research on the ‘Climate, agricultural, and famine effects of nuclear conflict’ third in its list of priorities for work on nuclear risk reduction. The Clearer Thinking Regrants program should therefore support our project, because BASIC has the drive, networks, and reputation – with 35 years of globally-recognised research, policy, and dialogue behind us – to drive the shift that is needed to deliver this change.
Here's the mechanism by which the applicant expects their project will achieve positive outcomes.
These groups will benefit from this project through the following Theory of Change:
By translating their research from scientific journals into easy-to-understand, evidence-based narrative stories, targeted at a policy audience and accompanied by a new shared vocabulary, we will help make the work of the LSU / Rutgers / Colorado research group more comprehensible to within the global nuclear weapons policy community and global climate change policy community.
By actively disseminating these stories through a series of targeted policy reports, op-eds, minilateral/bilateral briefings, and multilateral diplomatic statements, BASIC and its partners will build up literacy of the global nuclear weapons policy community on the impacts of nuclear climate change.
By increasing the literacy of non-nuclear weapon state officials and non-governmental professionals, and convincing them of the validity of the research, we will build a transnational coalition of formal and informal partners that will subsequently help make the case for the work and its implications to the nuclear-armed state governments. The purpose of engaging with the global climate change policy community is to educate and recruit them to the same cause, strengthening a shared sense of purpose to prevent global climate crisis and positive feedback loops between their work and our own.
By increasing the literacy of nuclear-armed state officials, we will put greater pressure on these governments to: a) present persuasive science-based counter-arguments, including by undertaking and publishing transparent, replicable studies of their own (ideally in partnership with non-nuclear-armed states and NGOs); b) reshape their nuclear deterrence doctrines in order to reduce or even minimise nuclear climate change risks, both in their own interests and due to pressure from other stakeholder groups. These may include strengthening self-deterrence and restraint by decision makers in a nuclear crisis; reducing deployed yields or changing targeting options to minimise target burning, such as by eschewing counter-value (i.e. city) targeting; declaratory statements to signal restraint; or even electing to disarm altogether.
By reducing the risks that their nuclear deterrence doctrines will trigger nuclear climate change impacts through risk reduction measures, the nuclear-armed states will reduce the potential harms to the identified beneficiaries.
N.B. We note that perspective change work is an iterative and not-always rational process. We will factor that knowledge into the models of engagement we implement, considering both the ‘hearts and minds’ of the stakeholders with whom we engage.
How much funding are they requesting?
$500,000 USD over 24 months.
What would they do with the amount specified?
Here you can review the entire public portion of the application (which contains a lot more information about the applicant and their project):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NBe85O3myPZZjbMjTIVfLZJh8nlfIklt/edit