About Us

New America’s Resource Security program (2014-2021) explored the balance between natural resources and human security, or “natural security.” In the 21st century, natural security is under threat, given the rising competition for resources and consequences of the industrial age. The Resource Security team identified ideas, policies, and actions to promote natural security, working with partners across the United States and around the world. The work included:

• The Foresight 2020 Project convened a series of conversations about how to strengthen national climate change leadership in the time of COVID-19. The program examined ways in which the Federal government is organized to lead in the world on climate and who leads at home in American states and cities. Resource Security reached out to people who implement change and handle crises, from city managers to social innovators to members of the business community, to talk about what works, what doesn’t, and what they want to see from national leadership. New America gathered what we heard and published insights and ideas for Congress, Presidential advisers, and others interested in a more resilient America.
• Climate Change is already a crisis for human security; droughts are longer and drier, storms are stronger, and fires and floods are more destructive. It is already catalyzing prejudices, weaknesses, and inequities into political instability, social unrest, forced migration, and even violence. If the global community fails to cut greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will be an existential threat to human societies by the end of the century—or sooner. There's an urgent need for solutions that can help societies thrive without sacrificing the future and be more resilient to changes underway. Resource Security took a pragmatic approach to identifying actionable ideas.
• Geopolitics of Natural Resources, specifically food, water, fuel, and metals have always formed the foundation of society and the root stock of human security. But natural resources also shape security in other ways. The global trade in oil, for example, has both fueled wars and been the fuel of wars for a century.  Today, a rising world population with information age expectations is changing the shape of this natural security, from the sufficiency of energy, food, and water resources, to new high tech demands for everything from electricity to exotic minerals, to the legacies of the industrial age, such as climate change and loss of biodiversity. Current work focuses on critical minerals, such as cobalt, lithium, and niobium, which are essential to a clean energy transition, but also for defense, tech, and infrastructure. The team wrote about environmental, economic, and geopolitical consequences of these resources and developing a sensible and sustainable strategy for mineral security. The program examined links between biodiversity and human security, as well as novel policy options.
• The Phase Zero Project focused on new tools for building security and preventing conflict, including conflict prediction models, best practices for field implementation of climate security, integration of climate projections into disaster management tools, and scenario analysis for non-military tools of engagement for preventing armed conflict and promoting environmental preservation.