Climate-Migration: A Security Analysis within the Context of Green Theory (original) (raw)

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 and security: towards ecological security, International Theory, 2018

Climate change is increasingly characterized as a security issue. Yet we see nothing approaching consensus about the nature of the climate change–security relationship. Indeed existing depictions in policy statements and academic debate illustrate radically different conceptions of the nature of the threat posed, to whom and what constitute appropriate policy responses. These different climate security discourses encourage practices as varied as national adaptation and globally oriented mitigation action. Given the increasing prominence of climate security representations and the different implications of these discourses, it is important to consider whether we can identify progressive discourses of climate security: approaches to this relationship underpinned by defensible ethical assumptions and encouraging effective responses to climate change. Here I make a case for an ecological security discourse. Such a discourse orients towards ecosystem resilience and the rights and needs of the most vulnerable across space (populations of developing worlds), time (future generations), and species (other living beings). This paper points to the limits of existing accounts of climate security before outlining the contours of an 'ecological security discourse' regarding climate change. It concludes by reflecting on the challenges and opportunities for such discourse in genuinely informing how political communities approach the climate change–security relationship.

Climate Change in the Context of International Relations

Similarly to other environmental problems, the planetary scope of climate change has challenged important aspects of the current dynamics of international relations. The need for concrete action to address the problem and reduce it (mitigation) or diminish its impacts (adaptation) presupposes not only the development of science and technology but also, more importantly, a radical change in the production and consumption patterns now prevalent in countries, and this indirectly brings consequences for the power relations among these actors. Furthermore, climate change, by ignoring legal borders between states, demands new forms of governance, and forces a discussion about the concept of sovereignty, its fundamental elements, and its application. In view of these facts, the aim of this article is to bring to discussion the (in)ability of the current dynamics of international relations to respond effectively to global environmental problems, particularly global climate change. This stud...

Migration and Conflict in a Global Warming Era: A Political Understanding of Climate Change

SI Social Sciences, 2020

This special issue explores underrepresented aspects of the political dimensions of global warming. It includes post-and decolonial perspectives on climate-related migration and conflict, intersectional approaches, and climate change politics as a new tool of governance. Its aim is to shed light on the social phenomena associated with anthropogenic climate change. The different contributions aim to uncover its multidimensional and far-reaching political effects, including climate-induced migration movements and climate-related conflicts in different parts of the world. In doing so, the authors critically engage with securitising discourses and resulting anti-migration arguments and policies in the Global North. In this way, they identify and give a voice to alternative and hitherto underrepresented research and policy perspectives. Overall, the special issue aims to contribute to a critical and holistic approach to human mobility and conflict in the context of political and environmental crisis.

'Discourses of Climate Security', Political Geography, 2013

Political Geography, 2013

Global climate change has been increasingly defined as a security threat by a range of political actors and analysts. Yet as the range of voices articulating the need to conceive and approach climate change as a security issue has expanded, so too has the range of ways in which this link has been conceptualized. This article systematically maps different approaches to the relationship between climate change and security as climate security discourses, divided here between national, human, international and ecological security discourses. In exploring the contours of each, the articles asks how the referent object of security is conceptualised (whose security is at stake?); who are conceived as key agents of security (who is responsible for/able to respond to the threat?); how is the nature of the threat defined; and what responses are suggested for dealing with that threat? Systematically mapping these alternative discourses potentially provides a useful taxonomy of the climate change–security relationship in practice. But more importantly, it serves to illustrate how particular responses to climate change (and the actors articulating them) are enabled or constrained by the ways in which the relationship between security and climate change is understood. The article concludes by suggesting that the most powerful discourses of climate security are unlikely to inform a progressive or effective response to global climate change.