Climate Change: A Global Security Threat

 

“Climate change is the greatest threat to our existence in our short history on this planet. Nobody’s going to buy their way out of its effects.” - Mark Ruffalo

Security is an ambiguous term and there are many meanings attached to it. It is relative in a sense that it varies amongst people. What is security for one may not be security for the other. Relativity of security means looking at security from different vantage points.  The very idea of security keeps evolving with changing time and conditions as new sources of threat emerge. Till a very long period of time, security in its mainstream understanding was understood as “freedom from fear or threat” and mainly conceptualized in terms of military and war. But with the end of the cold war, the ambit of security was broadened as world faced the issues of ethnic conflict, refugee population and famine, food security and climate change. This is known as broadening of security as now security included political, economic, social and environmental issues apart from just military dimension. (Bilgin, Booth, and Jones: 143).

Climate change is defined as long term shift or change in weather pattern. This shift in climate pattern may be natural or as a result of human activities. In recent decade this has become a very grave security issue not just for any one nation but for whole world. It is an issue that threatens global security. So, the question that arises is why climate change is a security issue? Securitization theory says something becomes a security issue only when it is taken out of normal politics and given special attention. Securitization theory makes something a security issue by recognising a threat object, referent object, securitizing actor and the audiences. Recent scientific reports about the climate change have signaled towards the devastating impact that climate change can pose to the global security. The shift in weather pattern can result in such changes in the environment that can threaten the very survival of human beings.

Small island states and their populations are worst hit. They are faced with "no less significant" threats from climate change than governments and peoples endangered by firearms and bombs, a representative from Papua New Guinea pointed out in a debate on 17 April 2007 on energy, security and climate in Security Council. The melting glaciers due to greenhouse gas emission (GHG) can have serious repercussions for island nations. Even a half-metre rise in sea level would undermine the human survival of many Pacific Island nations. Climate change is not only an environmental problem as it threatens the very existence of biosphere, nation states and individuals embedded in it.

This relativity of security—of who or what is being threatened, and from what or whom has important consequences for understanding security relations between states, within states, and between non-state actors. (Krause & Williams:2). When talking about climate change, whose security we are looking at, we are looking at the security of biosphere, planetary order and individuals embedded in this biosphere. As everything like economies, social system and free-standing individuals are embedded in the biosphere so all these becomes the referent objects that need to be protected. The threat object here is extreme weather events and natural disaster in forms of flood, earthquake, drought, heat waves, volcanoes, UV rays and many other that threaten the very existence of our planet and individuals embedded in it. International organizations and nation-states, IGOs, NGOs are the actors in global climate governance that are trying to ensure the security of biodiversity, people, and communities inhabiting the planet. Climate change is a collective action problem and transboundary in nature so it can not be handled by one nation alone. It requires global cooperation and negotiation amongst various states to protect our biosphere (economies and social system embedded in it). Security by what means may include by creating rules and guidelines for cutting on greenhouse gas emissions, reducing the use of plastics and CFCs.

Climate change as a security issue can lead to emergence of other security threats. For instance, climate change has unprecedented consequences that reach the very core of security agenda: flooding, disease, famine, crop failure, famines, lack of water and energy. These consequences lead to migration of people in already tensed areas and creates refugee crisis, problem of food security and disease control. So, climate change can act an agent in aggravating the already existing security threats.

 

References:

1. Krause, K., & Williams, M. (2018). Security and “security studies.” The Oxford Handbook of International Security, 13–28.

2. Gheciu, A., & Wohlforth, W. C. (2018). The Future of Security Studies. The Oxford Handbook of International Security, 2–13. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198777854.013.1

3. Parry, Jones, Emyr. “The Greatest Threat to Global Security: Climate Change is not merely an Environmental Problem”. United Nations. Accessed on 2 May 2022. https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/greatest-threat-global-security-climate-change-not-merely-environmental-problem#:~:text=It%20has%20become%20increasingly%20clear,for%20food%2C%20water%20and%20energy

4. 5. United Nations Environment Programme (2021). Making Peace with Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies. Nairobi. https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-natur