Global Warming and Environmental Security (original) (raw)

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION: A SERIOUS THREAT TO GLOBAL SECURITY

European Journal of Social Sciences Studies

Climate Change is a concerning issue in the present world. In both, national and international forums, there have been discussions regarding climate change and environmental deterioration as a cause of insecurity. Human activities are the leading forces behind the decline of the environment as well as climate change. An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) report depicts that global temperatures are so far the warmest to have been experienced since 1885. These temperatures are expected to increase further to a margin of about 6.4oC by the year 2100 due to global warming. Global warming is instigated by the accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere which ultimately leads to increase in water levels in the oceans and lakes. The resultant implications are displacement of people to other regions for safety. The natural resources are destroyed along as the natural catastrophes hit causing scarcity which leads to completion of these resources. Security is bleached at both national and international level as people scramble for the resources disturbing peace in the affected areas. Since security is a global responsibility, various countries in a specific region require an alliance for a consorted effort to avert the impending catastrophes as a result of climate change to maintain peace among its people. Developing countries are the most predisposed to these calamities, requiring that more funds be committed to facilitating environmental friendly activities and responding to risks of climate change.

Climate Change and Global Security

Journal of Strategic Security, 2020

Policy makers, scholars, strategic military thinkers, and intelligence analysts increasingly recognize climate change as a profound multi- dimensional global crisis. The dimensions of climate change have the potential to alter the way people live by presenting a range of environmental, social, economic, political, and social challenges. These include the potential for extreme weather events (hurricanes, storms, floods, heat waves) triggering mass migration, refugees, and depopulation of entire regions as they become uninhabitable due to extreme heat or sea level rise, droughts, degraded water supplies, famine and food insecurity, and health and biosecurity threats trigger humanitarian emergencies.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS POSSIBLE SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

KARADENİZ 11TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL SCIENCES, 2022

With the end of the Cold War, security issues expanded to include non-military threats. Climate change, the effects of which started to be seen more and more with the environmental problems that occurred in the 1990s, started to take an important place in the security agenda. Climate change, which has turned into a global environmental problem, has caused problems such as a rise in sea level, excessive precipitation, desertification in many parts of the world, and a decrease in agricultural production caused by drought. In this respect, climate change has started to become a subject that is discussed and discussed as a security problem in today’s international relations. Problems such as hunger, thirst, poverty, or international migration caused by climate change in many countries directly or indirectly cause security problems on a global scale. Climate change causes threats to individuals, primarily environmental, economic, social, political, and societal. These threats to human security turn into national security threats for governments as well. In addition, the environmental threats of global climate change and the direct effects of its effects on the environment and nature cause it to be evaluated within the issue of environmental security. In this respect, global climate change, which is a direct environmental security problem, is handled in different dimensions. In this study, the relationship between climate change and security has been revealed and the possible security problems caused by climate change have been revealed and examined. Key Words: Climate Change, Global Warming, Environmental Security, Security Problems, Humanitarian Security Problems

Threats Posed by the Effects of Climate Change

Threats Posed by the Effects of Climate Change, 2019

Changes in climate are direct consequences from the manmade processes causing global warming (the Anthropocene era). They are threat for humanity and its sustainable future in two ways – 1. as change of weather patterns which should be tackled through all possible ways for reduction of global warming and bringing the CO2 emissions below pre-industrial levels and 2. as how the change of weather patterns interact with societies – including the ability or inability of governments to effectively manage rapid changes, ensure security and prosperity for their nations, and maintain their legitimacy. Climate change aftermaths are hiding potential threats for societies by disturbing their peaceful living and raising chances for conflicts. By changing the physical landscape extreme weather anomalies influence also the international geopolitical landscape. Most directly, climate change impacts state security by decreasing the readiness of institutions to answer its threats. Therefore, climate change impacts can be explicitly seen as potential security threads (even though they are not traditional security threads) and should be taken seriously into consideration of possible deepening of the caused instability. In this article only this second dimension will be regarded.

Potential effects of climate change on global security

Environment Systems and Decisions, 2014

The science is clear that climate change is one of the most important issues facing humanity. The changing climate is already affecting humanity and our economies in many ways. These effects will increase as the climate continues to change, and the effects are expected to increase dramatically over the coming decades. Climaterelated hazards exacerbate other stressors, often with negative outcomes for livelihoods, especially for people living in poverty. Climate change can amplify existing stresses and vulnerabilities among populations and existing threats to security and can indirectly increase risks of violence and violent conflict. This paper is aimed at examining the changes occurring to the Earth's climate, what additional changes in climate are likely to occur over the coming decades, and how climate change could affect global security.

Climate Change as an International Security Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2021): J. Peace Dipl. , 2021

The security paradigm of the world is constantly shifting, and compared to the military and traditional issues, non-military problems are now given significantly greater emphasis. Threats to a person's life and wellness that fall beyond the usual definition of security include climate change. Climate Change has taken a central position on the international forum. The purpose of this study is to analyze climate-driven environmental changes that are anticipated to influence some of the factors that threaten security; undermine livelihoods, increase migration, create political instability or other forms of insecurity, and weaken the capabilities of states to respond to challenges appropriately. Some major international issues such as population growth, pollution, melting of ice glaciers, floods, and droughts are interlinked with the above-said problems and are also becoming the core issues within states and borders. Climate Change may result eventually in a plethora of security risks and threats that can also exacerbate conflicts. The purpose of the study is to examine either climate change is a critical issue or whether the states just politicize it. This study aims to investigate how climate change affects security and public perception to recommend policy solutions to these ever-evolving problems. Security is a multidimensional approach that focuses on an individual's welfare and well-being. Improvement of policymaking in handling the issue of climate change is also a very important factor for peace and human security at the international level.

Climate Change: Threat to National Security

Global climatic change is an environmental problem of potentially devastating proportions. Evidence of global warming has the potential to bring huge insecurity over food and water availability and also being the cause of large-scale human displacement. Climate change can be a “threat multiplier” by bringing political and economic instability, particularly in many poor and developing countries. Undoubtedly, climate change is a major threat to humankind, which needs to be confronted by global cooperative efforts, not by confrontational behavior.

Climate Change and its Implications to National Security

American Journal of Environmental Sciences, 2011

Problem statement: Climate change is increasingly one of the most serious national security threats which will have significant impacts on natural and coastal resources, ecosystem, human health and settlements, thereby affecting human wellbeing. At the same time, it is likely to influence of large scale human migration, economic and social depression over scarce natural resources and political systems necessary involve an even higher degree of uncertainty. Crucial for action is addressing climate change threats to small island states and states that are least developed, as environmental destabilization may lead to a major economic, environmental and political crisis that may not just affect these states but the world as a whole. Approach: Literatures were identified for review through a comprehensive search by using electronic and non-electronic databases. Related published literature and documents were searched in a systematic way using a range of key words relating to climate change impacts and national security. Results: The literature review indicates that climate change undermine national security dimensions by increasing environmental degradation, resources scarcity, large scale human migration as well as damage of infrastructure. The review also indicate that climate change undermine environmental dimensions by increasing sea level rise, extreme weather events, freshwater scarcity, land degradation and pollution; undermine economic dimensions by reducing access to and the quality of natural resources and human health, in addition to undermine of political dimensions with the possibility of increased environmental refugees, severe storms and failed economics. Conclusion: Reducing climate-induced threats that contributes to national security, there will need to develop an integrated approach in local and national levels and implement sustainable adaptive strategies as well as climate security.

CLIMATE CHANGE AS A MODERN SECURITY THREAT

Across the Earth, in everyday professional and scientific debates, climate changes are referred as a multidimensional global threat that represent a multiplier of various tensions over access to basic life resources which wane. Thus, in this paper we analyze the phenomenology of climate change that is brought into direct/indirect relationship with endangering the safety of human, material and cultural resources and the environment at the national and global levels. The paper also analyzes the impacts of climate change on increasing disaster risk, that every day increasingly destructive endangers the safety of people both by work and by nature of created value. At the end of the paper, the effects of climate change on water resources are presented. In conclusion, the authors point out that climate change is a reality that presents a significant security risk and a challenge, which have caused: the reduction of energy access, food availability, increased frequency and intensity of catastrophic natural disasters, population displacement, increasing public health problems, and lack of health safe drinking water. In addition, they actualize the idea that climate change poses a serious threat to national security and defense of the country, which was matter dealt mostly by activists and environmental experts in the field. However, lately climate change is beginning to be a subject of interest of politicians and security officials around the world.

Environmental Security and Climate Change Environmental Security and Climate Change

International Studies Encyclopedia , 2020

Environmental security focuses on the ecological conditions necessary for sustainable development. It encompasses discussions of the relationships between environmental change and conflict as well as the larger global policy issues linking resources and international relations to the necessity for doing both development and security differently. Climate change has become an increasingly important part of the discussion as its consequences have become increasingly clear. What is not at all clear is in what circumstances climate change may turn out to be threat multiplier leading to conflict. Earth system science findings and the recognition of the scale of human transformations of nature in what is understood in the 21st century to be a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, now require environmental security to be thought of in terms of preventing the worst dangers of fragile states being unable to cope with the stresses caused by rapid environmental change or perhaps the economic disruptions caused by necessary transitions to a post fossil fueled economic system. But so far, at least, this focus on avoiding the worst consequences of future climate change has not displaced traditional policies of energy security that primarily ensure supplies of fossil fuels to power economic growth. Failure to make this transition will lead to further rapid disruptions of climate and add impetus to proposals to artificially intervene in the earth system using geoengineering techniques, which might in turn generate further conflicts from states with different interests in how the earth system is shaped in future. While the Paris Agreement on Climate Change recognized the urgency of tackling climate change, the topic has not become security policy priority for most states, nor yet for the United Nations, despite numerous policy efforts to securitize climate change and instigate emergency responses to deal with the issue. More optimistic interpretations of the future suggest possibilities of using environmental actions to facilitate peace building and a more constructive approach to shaping earth’s future.