Whose security? Politics, risks and alternatives for climate security practices in agrarian-environmental perspectives

ABSTRACT

Climate security, albeit highly contested, is moving beyond the discursive realm into policies and practices that implicate the control of land, water and forests. Through a systematic literature review this paper offers a typology of climate security practices. It observes a shift towards human security framing, offering potential for agrarian struggles. However, risks remain: the depoliticisation of scarcity, control-seeking over natural resources, a push for neoliberal approaches, a dominant focus on violent conflict, and knowledge politics. Alternative approaches are suggested, foregrounding place-specific alliances that address the politics of conflict and embrace plurality of knowledges, contributing to (agrarian) climate justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate security
• climate conflict
• framing
• policy and practice
• climate politics

Introduction

Debates around climate change being a threat to security, peace and stability are increasingly common in academic, policy and activist circles. These debates, whose topic is referred to as ‘climate security’, are exemplary of climate politics and marked by stark disagreements about relations between climate change, conflict and security. The perspective on the sense and meaning of this narrative is highly divergent across professional and governance sectors, academic disciplines and geographic regions. Meanwhile, a wide array of initiatives is emerging in which the discourse has been translated into action, across a range of organisations. For example, the United Nations (UN) has seen considerable action; it established its Climate Security Mechanism in 2018 – a cross-UN-departmental unit ‘to strengthen the capacity of the UN system to analyze and address the adverse impacts of climate change on peace and security’, including a community of practice, training and toolbox (Albrecht 2021). This intensified effort by the UN does not stand alone; rather, it mirrors an overall increase of action around climate security. A broad spectrum of sectors and interests is represented in this agenda: the military, security agencies, governmental bodies, academia, research and think tanks, (international) non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and activist groups. In fact, the rise of action is such that the Planetary Security Initiative¹ released a publication listing all ‘climate security practices’ in 2021. This presents a wide range of practices along a spectrum of climate-focused interventions on the one end and more ‘(hard) security’ interventions on the other, which in the majority of cases intersect with agrarian struggles. Cases included range from ‘Greening the Desert’, a mitigation effort that should have ‘stability’ as a co-benefit, to the energy transition of the French Defence Forces that seeks to limit resource extraction during deployment, and the Juba Peace Agreement of Sudan, in which natural resource management provisions are included (Von Lossow et al. 2021).

The broadness of scope of the practices is indicative of the shift in climate security discourse from a more limited military focus on the effect of climate conflict on state security towards wider concerns around how climate change will affect human and ecological well-being, and thus human security (Adger et al. 2014). This in turn reflects the contestation around the existence of climate-induced conflicts and the political security agendas tied to climate security discourses (Buxton and Hayes 2015; Gemenne et al. 2014). Such agendas have long been accused of being defined by neoliberal tendencies to control the environment, to increase the reach of the security sector, and by determinist and capitalist approaches to scarcities (Buxton 2021; Dalby 2019; Kallis 2019; Scoones et al. 2019). Climate security did not emerge anew; rather, it is rooted in earlier debates around environmental security, that centre on links between environmental degradation and (violent) conflicts. This debate is characterised by a myriad of divergent views and approaches (Floyd and Matthew 2013). It preceded the climate security discourse in pointing towards the complexity of identifying causal links, leading authors to warn that in making that link particular political security discourses may be at play (Dalby 2019; Floyd and Matthew 2013; Hartmann 2010; Peluso and Watts 2001).

Without a doubt, whilst the climate security debate continues to become more heated, the discourses have landed in action. And considering that climate security is conceptualised around a presumed scarcity of natural resources,² its actions affect people that are living off land, water and forests. Those can be seen in the light of potential repressive effects, as was found in work on ‘green militarisation’ or ‘green wars’; the engagement of the military in nature conservation, including anti-poaching measures. This has been shown to lead to a greater willingness to use violence, with socially and environmentally detrimental implications (Büscher and Fletcher 2018; Duffy et al. 2019). This makes dissecting the framing and implementation of climate security practices vital to agrarian debates and begs the question of how and to what extent they are reflected in the rapidly increasing body of academic literature around climate security.

This article aims to offer a contribution through a systematic literature review of the application of the climate security discourse into practices, to identify the framing of these in order to learn from earlier experiences and offer recommendations for future practices. It responds to the first set of questions laid out for this Forum,³ by dissecting how climate security as a ‘new’ narrative and strategy is framing instutionalised responses that affect agrarian settings. Climate security, as the results presented below suggest, could easily provide another ‘corporate-driven, technological narrative’ that pushes the assumption that capitalism, although having shaped the current climate crisis, could also offer the way out through innovation and economic growth that serve adaptation (Borras et al. 2021, 9). It matters greatly in what ways climate security is understood, for how its action is defined, and thus who stands to benefit and who does not.

The paper first sketches the climate security debate and its frames. Secondly, it motivates the method and elaborates on how ‘climate security action’ is understood. This is followed by the results of the review, offering a typology of practices along climate security frames. Six risks in the framing of climate security practices are presented: (1) environmental scarcities, (2) political strategies, (3) control-seeking through top-down governance approaches, (4) a push for neoliberal approaches to economic growth, (5) a dominant focus on violent conflict vis-à-vis conflicts as a clash of interests and (6) knowledge politics. The paper concludes with suggestions for alternative approaches that foreground affected communities through place-specific alliances that address the politics of conflict and embrace plurality of knowledges and degrowth. It therewith aims to contribute to debates on (agrarian) climate justice, as set out by Newell (2022) and Borras and Franco (2018), focusing particularly on the role of militarism and its risks to achieving climate justice.

The rise of the climate security debate

Climate security has solidly landed in academic and policy debates, albeit from rather divergent entry points. Its starting premise is that climate change will have negative effects on peace and stability, through an increase of extreme weather events that will spur scarcity of natural resources, leading to increased conflict, migration, and perhaps even wars. This reasoning strongly resonates with earlier literature on the link between conflict and the environment, that situates ‘scarcity’ as an instigator of conflict and war (see e.g. Homer-Dixon 1994). This causal chain has been, and is to this day, fiercely critiqued, such as by political ecology authors, who understand these dynamics as more complex, political and deeply embedded in ideology and competing interests around natural resources in which capital dominates (Kallis 2019; Peluso and Watts 2001; Scoones et al. 2019). This paper builds on this work that lays the foundation for understanding ‘scarcity politics’. It has been argued that the politics of security and the politics of scarcity have fuelled a stream of interventions around food security, water security, energy security, etc., primarily centred around the interests of the elites. Approaches focused on security are part of a ‘[military] paradigm that seeks to maintain control rather than address the underlying problems’ (Rogers 2009, as cited in Buxton and Hayes 2015, 8). More recently, the academic as well as policy debate around environmental security also shifted in another direction to what came to be known as ‘environmental peacebuilding’, seeking to shape contestations around natural resources into positive outcomes for collaboration and peace. Examples of these can be found in ‘transboundary water management’ (Earle et al. 2015; Floyd and Matthew 2013; Krampe 2017). Within climate security debates, the assumed link between climate change and conflict has been called deterministic and Malthusian (Buxton and Hayes 2015; Gemenne et al. 2014; Hartmann 2014) and is refuted in a range of studies that have pointed to the complex of social, political, institutional and ecological factors that, rather than climate change itself, influence whether (violent) conflict erupts or is exacerbated (Adger et al. 2014; Benjaminsen et al. 2012; Bergholt and Lujala 2012; Hartmann 2010). In this, it matters deeply in what manner conflict is defined, also for the way that policy and practice responses are designed. The notion of conflict is really not the same across the domains of peace and conflict studies and political ecology. In the first field, conflict is considered as an event, as an eruption of violence, which may evoke the tendency to suppress it, to avoid violence and disruption. In the political ecology literature, conflicts are instead seen as a process, innate to power structures in society (LeBillon and Duffy 2018). Despite the ongoing debate around the link between conflicts and climate change, the climate security discourse has landed firmly in influential domains, such as the UN Security Council, militaries of the US and other Western nations and major corporations, like Shell (Buxton and Hayes 2015; Buxton 2021). An example: from the Dutch military rose self-proclaimed ‘Klimaatgeneraal’ (climate general), Tom Middendorp,⁴ also the Chair of the International Military Council on Climate and Security, consisting of representatives of the military and security fields. One explanation for this uptake of the concept is the increased urgency that the security element adds to climate change, prioritising it above other agendas, thereby potentially ‘opening policy windows’ that would otherwise remain shut (Warner and Boas 2017). Framing climate security as a crisis would allow for certain political strategies to be pursued, also paving the way for increased support for technocratic, top-down policies (Boin, 't Hart, and McConnell 2009), fitting in a wider phenomenon of ‘disaster capitalism’ in which neoliberal policies are pushed in situations of disaster (Klein 2007). It is, as such, an integral part of climate politics: the spheres and frameworks of climate change making, defining and responding, with particular emphasis on relations of power (Franco and Borras 2019). For more elaborations on the climate security debate, see my earlier work (Lamain 2022).

Climate security frames

This paper follows how climate security is framed within the translation from the discursive realm into policies and practices. Climate security has mostly been presented along four frames, as defined by McDonald (2013): state security, international security, human security and ecological security. As a concept, climate security emerged in the mid-2000s from military and security circles, whose primary reference point was the security of the nation state (Lewis and Lenton 2015; Scott 2012). In this state security frame, in which the state is the reference point, conflicts are understood as events – eruptions of violence – that may lead to broader social unrest, perhaps even civil or inter-state wars (Adger 2010). Increasing concerns about the effects of climate change also brought it to the international governance realm as a concern for international security. In this frame, the international order is to be at risk primarily for conflict, and possibly even war, between countries due to reduced availability of natural resources and heightened migration streams. The UN Security Council, which placed climate change on its agenda following controversy, eventually agreed it to be a ‘threat multiplier’, a discursive approach that has found much ground in defence and international relations policy circles. It should take into consideration the lack of solid evidence and agreement on direct links between climate and conflict. A much broader understanding of climate security was established through the human security frame with the release of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2014, which included a chapter on human security. ‘Human security, in the context of climate change, [is] a condition that exists when the vital core of human lives is protected, and when people have the freedom and capacity to live with dignity’ (Adger et al. 2014, 259). This obviously goes beyond military and geopolitical concerns around state building; rather, it intends to bring climate security to the realm of development, democratic institutions and human rights. The fourth frame, ecological security, is a rather transformative proposal that aims to shift the reference point to ecological systems and the position for humans within them. It then moves attention away from the individual and to the system level. This frame is fairly recent and has seen little analysis or translation into practice as yet, aside from its groundwork delivered by McDonald (2021). A sound scientific and empirical base for the assumptions underlying both the state and international security frames is lacking, and both are in fact much critiqued (Gemenne et al. 2014). State security concerns have been argued to hijack the climate change debate, situating it in the realm of the military, rather than as an issue of social and human development (Boas 2015; Hartmann 2010). The impact of climate change is then presented as something that may be controlled by increasing defence as part of security efforts (Selby and Hoffmann 2014). It has been argued that the ‘threat multiplier’ narrative that was proposed as a response to the contestation continues to limit the understanding of complex dynamics to a linear, deterministic process, with climate change inevitably ending up in conflict. This overlooks other causal chains, such as that the relation may conversely be that conflict leads to increased vulnerability to climate change, that climate change may actually serve to facilitate peaceful arrangements, or that the effects of climate mitigation and adaptation interventions may induce or reinforce conflicts (Abrahams and Carr 2017; Dabelko et al. 2013; Hunsberger et al. 2017). Human security is a broad domain with multiple applications: it is actually a field of thought rather than an approach, and knows many interpretations. It is a concept, an objective, an analytical frame, a policy philosophy and a policy planning approach. The policy philosophy distinguishes between ‘freedom from want’ – e.g. poverty, livelihoods, vulnerability to disaster – and ‘freedom from fear’ – e.g. crime, violence (Gomez and Gasper 2022). The use of the human security frame has also been critiqued for its tendency to assign risk to populations and individuals and for it serving techno-managerial interventions and promoting depoliticised adaptation (Selby and Hoffmann 2014). It is evident, also in this paper, that human security as framing has gained ground and that climate security efforts are mostly (also) situated within this frame. Due to the limited coverage of ecological security as yet, the first three frames form the framework for the inventory and analysis of practices that this paper presents.

Methodological approach and limitations

Much has been written on the climate security discourse, but given the relatively recent emergence of climate security as a field of action, no systematic reviews are available on its practices. Reviews of policies and governance mechanisms are available, albeit with a scope on specific sectors (e.g. intergovernmental organisations; Dellmuth et al. 2018; Krampe and Mobjörk 2018). This review thus seeks to contribute to the literature by giving an overview of policies and practices that explicitly apply climate security terminology.⁵ This calls for a specific and fairly narrow search strategy, as much of the climate security debate, particularly in relation to ‘human security’, could also be categorised under the much broader frames of environmental peacebuilding (Ide 2020; Krampe 2017), which climate security is considered an element of, and of climate change adaptation. It cuts across debates and practices on environmental cooperation, natural resource management, adaptation, disaster-risk reduction (see e.g. McBean and Ajibade 2009), conservation, development and peacebuilding. Each of these frames encompasses a considerable body of knowledge, which is beyond the scope of this paper. Here I have been particularly interested in how the climate security discourse that has risen globally has permeated arenas of action. This review therefore follows the simple and straightforward approach of searching for practices and policies that are labelled ‘climate security’, or are presented in the literature as part of that field. It is therein difficult to identify whether practices are born as a result of the rise of the climate-security narrative and community, or whether they pre-existed it and may have integrated concerns on climate-security. It does so by following the methodological approach of the systematic literature review, which is defined by outlining a range of steps that are followed in order for the study to be replicable. This process starts with drawing up a protocol, specifying its objective, the research question, search words, and inclusion and exclusion criteria; the protocol underlying this review is included in the Appendix. The search was conducted in Web of Science, and limited to that database, as the interest was primarily in the emergence of practices in academic debates. This poses a serious limitation, however, considering the rapidly emerging appearance of climate security in realms of action, which has not yet featured in the scientific literature. There is a vast – and quickly growing – body of ‘grey literature’ available on these practices, which could provide valuable insights in dominant framings. Also, this could shed light on the urgent question of whether and how climate security is shaping climate mitigation and adaptation investments (Dunlap and Fairhead 2014; Lamain 2022). For the sake of manageability, however, this review is concerned only with the representation of climate security action in academic debates. It follows in the example of Oya (2013) in aiming to explore and synthesise a research field that is emerging. The question guiding this review was ‘How have climate security discourses shaped policy and practice, and what implications has this translation had for agrarian struggles?’

The search in Web of Science resulted in 31 studies, and after first- (title and abstract) and second-stage (full text review) screening, combined with manual forward search, 16 studies remained (articles and book chapters; see Appendix 1 for a flow chart). Full text review was done using an analytical scheme, leading to organisation in two typologies: the first with regard to the orientation of practice design, the second along McDonald’s security frames and their contribution to those. This review is by no means intended to be an exhaustive overview; rather, it is intended to provide insights in the characteristics and articulation of interventions that are explicitly labelled as climate security and why that matters for agrarian struggles.

When applying the frames of McDonald, a strong emphasis on ‘human security’ becomes apparent; it applies to almost all practices that were encountered⁶ (see Table 1). In the majority of cases, human security is interpreted coupled with state security, in which cases the broadness of the effects of climate change, stretching beyond violence and stability, is acknowledged. International security as a frame is less represented, and when it is, primarily in terms of ‘regional security’, applying to specific geographies. This represents the shift of climate security discourses that moved from being more conflict/defence-oriented towards representing wider concerns around adaptation and resilience, following the lack of empirical soundness with regard to the climate-conflict link. Importantly, the climate security frames are not as separate or mutually exclusive as they may seem, especially in the translation from discourse to policy. As is common in this translation, dominance is exercised by actors in power, so that policies and practice abide the world views of policy actors (Mosse 2005). The self-identified human security practices lean strongly on the ‘freedom from need’ side of human security, linking them to state security concerns.

Table 1. Typology of interventions in the review.

SS = state security, HS = human security, IS = international security.

One of the papers that is part of this review observes such dynamics in climate security governance, where increased focus on resilience and adaptation amongst practitioners in the UK should help massage the criticised climate-conflict narrative towards greater acceptance with international aid and development communities; ‘a developmentalisation of the climate security discourse’ (Boas and Rothe 2016, 628). The discursive shift from state security to human security may be understood as well as a broadening move that should redirect attention towards a more social agenda. It is argued that the broadness of the ‘human security’ discourse is intentional, in order to serve as a boundary concept to cross sectors. This broadness allows for translation according to priorities in specific contexts and as such sees vastly different interpretations (Gasper 2010). Framing of practices in the realm of human security may thus reflect a plurality of meanings, ranging from protection from environmental hazards to risks to livelihoods due to resource conflicts, to interventions to increase productivity of dry land (‘freedom from want’), to protection from violence and war (‘freedom from need’) (see Table 2).

Table 2. Intentions of practices per climate security frame.

Frame	Intention of practices
International security
	International/regional collaboration and diplomacy for reducing pressures on resources, loss of land and lives, migration across borders
	- Position-taking of states on military security in the United Nations Security Council
	- Agreements on resource sharing in interregional organisations
	- Providing overviews of risk to human lives and to military deployment by mapping geographic regions
State security
	Increasing military security
	- Securing military bases and installations
	- Providing support and guidance to the military on its readiness for deployment in the case of climate change events and to address climate change effects
	- Reducing ecological footprint of army
	Increasing political security
	- Reducing contestation and conflict due to climate change impacts on natural resources
	- Reducing forced migration due to climate disasters
	- Reducing migration due to reduction of livelihood opportunities as a result of reduction of available natural resources
	- Stimulating collaboration across different segments of society
Human security
	Freedom from need – violence, crime
	- Avoiding loss of life due to extreme weather events
	- Reducing competition for scarce resources among groups and individuals, caused by climate change
	Freedom from want – poverty, food security, water security
	- Preparing for climate change impacts, such as extreme weather events, that can harm housing, infrastructure, belongings and livelihoods
	- Improving the capacity to deal with extreme weather events
	- Contributing to resilience of people and their livelihoods
	- Evaluating a range of dimensions of climate security to prioritise policy interventions

Risks in the framing of practices, and alternative approaches

The increase of human security as the dominant frame could be understood as a move towards greater acknowledgement and integration of agrarian struggles in climate security practice, as it centres more around human and ecological well-being. However, across the systematic literature review six risks were identified that persist within this shift – especially in the way in which the frame of human security is understood and applied – that have major implications in agrarian settings. For each of these, reflection on the predominant tendency across the review is provided, as well as alternatives that were encountered or are available elsewhere.

1.	Environmental resources: absolute/relative versus political scarcity

A first element that cuts across the climate security practices is the premise that climate change will lead to scarcity of resources, and thus to increased (violent) conflicts, including between agrarian groups, such as peasants, herders, and forest dwellers; or to people migrating. This assumption has stood since the Limits to Growth report by the Club of Rome and in academia around that time (se e.g. Homer-Dixon 1994). This kind of scarcity reasoning has been critiqued, and much more nuanced approaches to scarcity are now available. Those move beyond ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ scarcity, which posit resources to be finite, leading to insecurity and disaster, often leading to technological fixes as solutions. Instead, scarcity is increasingly understood as political and ideological and deeply rooted in capitalist dynamics (Kallis 2019; Scoones et al. 2019). ‘Absolute’ and ‘relative’ scarcity thinking is evident in the state and international security frames. The response, then, is to suppress unrest with force, as is also observed within ‘green militarisation’ and ‘green wars’ (Büscher and Fletcher 2018; Duffy et al. 2019). The human security frame often leans on the ‘threat multiplier’ narrative, which equally builds on notions of ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ scarcity, in less direct ways. Across the systematic literature review there is generally a recognition of the complexity in causal chains; nonetheless, there is a persistent idea that this linearity will play out, eventually.⁷ Prominently lacking are questions around the distributional causes of scarcity, relations with divisions along intersectional lines and the choice-making that is inherent to these. Without posing these questions, any action that is aiming to address scarcity, or its consequences, will be subject to tension and thus face the chance of reinforcing matters of injustice:

We must always be clear about the political consequences of scarcity-driven interventions on the structural relations within a society, set within the wider political economy that defines these. Scarcity is not universal, given, fixed or determining, but context-specific, socially constructed, politically contested, variable and dynamic; and therefore, always subject to contestation, negotiation and contentious politics, as different groups mobilise around resource issues. (Scoones et al. 2019, 239)

As an example of this, Abrahams (2020) demonstrates the limitations of the ‘threat multiplier’ discourse that guides interventions of Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the UK's Department for International Development (DFID). ‘A key challenge for those tasked with addressing this conflict [ … ] is reconciling the simplicity of this discursive framing and the on-the-ground complexities of what is deemed to be resource-related conflict’ (Abrahams 2020, 5). After critiques of environmental determinism, environmental peacebuilding was proposed to provide an approach that centres positive peace as an outcome of cooperation, rather than conflict around natural resources. Lessons are available on what Ide (2020) calls ‘the dark side’ of environmental peacebuilding, which emerges when interventions are marked by depoliticisation and stand to invoke displacement and discrimination. Entirely counterproductive to its objectives, interventions then may in fact exacerbate conflict and damage the environment. Through avoiding the reproduction of these dynamics, environmental peacebuilding offers an alternative to security thinking.

2.	Political strategies: international action versus sovereignty

The review also highlighted how climate security shapes policy arenas, where the discourse is instutionalised in policy units or entities. The strategic use of climate security narratives by states and state departments demonstrates that they indeed serve geopolitical or domestic political objectives. This draws attention away from the need for socially and ecologically just climate action that would serve marginalised agrarian communities rather than pushing them further into conflict through capitalist undertakings of states and their security conglomerates (Buxton 2021). As such, climate security reinforces neo-colonial relations in international forums and further state enterprises in which the exploitation of agrarian settings is implicated (Borras et al. 2021). Where and how the policy units and entities are positioned is rather diversified across the spectrum of climate security: stretching from more climate change-oriented towards more security-concerned agencies. Climate security policy and practice fulfil an explicit role in political strategising, with divergent objectives, for example to garner support for climate action or to protect security sovereignty. Abrahams (2019) demonstrates the use of the climate security narrative in US policy circles. In the runup to COP21 in Paris, the US government emphasised the concerns of the Pentagon and the US military around climate change being a matter of national security, in order to gain mass for action. Abrahams observes that the climate security community is predominantly populated with military and security actors (more than development actors and especially more than environmental actors), who express that climate security to them is primarily a ‘bipartisan issue’ and that they do not wish to be too closely associated with the ‘left-leaning’ communities that environmental organisations relate to (Abrahams 2019). Conversely, climate security narratives are rejected for their interference with sovereignty elsewhere: declaring climate change as a security issue would imply that there is a need for international military action. For example, Bo (2016) analyses how the Chinese government does not recognise climate security at the international (United Nations Security Council (UNSC)) level, to avoid international interference in domestic affairs and to protect its sovereignty on security matters. At the domestic level, however, China does undertake action by launching policy units or committees, albeit to a limited extent. Also, within the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) , it is observed that the space to manoeuvre towards coordinated climate security action is limited, as streamlining of security efforts may interfere with matters of sovereignty. This ‘hampers the capacity for planning’, due to tensions between India and Pakistan (Krampe and Mobjörk 2018, 334). Offering alternatives to these geopolitical dynamics is beyond the scope of this paper, but clearly a push for more security efforts stands in the way of ‘transform[ing] the relations of production that generate climate change in the first place, through reparation, redistribution and decolonisation’ (Borras et al. 2021, 13).

3.	Governance arrangements: top-down coordinated versus bottom-up, place-specific

Prominent across the literature systematically reviewed here is the tendency to inform or promote coordinated and integrated regional governance arrangements, involving multiple sectors beyond the military and defence (Floyd 2015; Krampe and Mobjork 2018; Tangney et al. 2021). Whilst there is much to say for increased action by states in response to the climate crisis, there may be something to worry about regarding states acting primarily from security interests; this may lead to the military dominating the climate change debate to increase its control (Boas 2015; Hartmann 2010). In their review of barriers in regional governance, for example, Tangney et al. (2021) set out how governance should serve human security; this is nonetheless approached from defence interests.⁸ This could imply that a slippery governance slope is opened, even when presented under the umbrella of human security. Floyd (2015) analyses how ‘institutional and ideational fragmentation’ undermine coordinated approaches, resulting from climate security being a debate rather than a concept. Nonetheless, she identifies a range of regional security initiatives⁹ intended to address climate security. She also notes how other coordinated governance efforts should serve the ‘readiness’ of the military: ‘Today NATO’s primary concern with regard to environmental and climate security is the adverse impact of environmental factors on military readiness and its ability to provide national and international security (Floyd 2015, 130).¹⁰ Security interests then remain focused on the level of control that the military apparatus can maintain, also in a context of climate change. Across the review, however, not all government coordination is observed to lean in on military-centred approaches. Climate security is seen becoming entangled in divergent policy objectives and approaches between sectors (e.g. defence versus environment) and their respective policy communities, its consequent implementation meeting challenges (Abrahams 2019). This could represent the kind of ‘inner-class’ tension emerging within capitalism’s self-reproducing force when meeting environmental limits, as described by Arsel (2023). The state security frame, and related ‘threat multiplier’ debates, are predominantly observed with Western (intergovernmental) organisations. Their counterparts from South (East) Asia and East and Western Africa as well as UN departments adhere, rather, to the human security framing, particularly to argue for climate change to be treated as a developmental issue, related to peace and stability as well as livelihoods (Dellmuth et al. 2018; Krampe and Mobjörk 2018).¹¹ An example of such an alternative to top-down approaches was encountered in the review: the Cuban Risk Reduction Management Centres, a successful approach to dealing with hurricanes and other extreme weather events.¹² Its replication in the wider Caribbean region serves as a promising example and powerful counter-narrative. The centres are managed by the ‘Cuban Civil Defence’; they build on indigenous environmental and climate knowledge and are place-localised, and each centre involves professionals from different disciplines who manage an information hub at the local level (Jerez Columbié and Morrissey 2020).

4.	Economic interests: capital accumulation versus redistribution

Climate security debates draw attention away from causes of climate change that urgently need to be addressed, such as the power of corporations and their contribution to carbon emissions, which result from an economic model of perpetual growth, based on fossil fuels and extensive consumption patterns of global elites (Borras et al. 2021; Buxton and Hayes 2015; Dunlap and Fairhead 2014). The evident limitations, or the self-destructive force, of that system has implications in agrarian settings, among which climate change is one major symptom. Buxton (2021) points to how corporate interests are served by security approaches. There is a historical tradition of the military securing trade and investment, which is increasingly anchored in governance institutes across levels. Also, climate change framed as security concern reinforces ‘a booming military and security apparatus and industry that has already gained unprecedented wealth and power in the wake of 9/11¹³’ (Buxton 2021. 8). This military–industrial complex is integral to neoliberal thinking and stands to benefit from increased relevance, which climate change has been argued to provide it with (Buxton and Hayes 2015). Across the systematic literature review there is a notable presence of departments of defence commissioning practices,¹⁴ which in turn are often directed at continued deployment of the military itself, for example by securing its energy supplies. Moreover, within the review, climate security practices regularly appeared to be grounded in the neoliberal assumption that economic growth will support adaptation. For example, in their ‘climate security assessment of countries’, Phillis et al. (2018) offer maps in which a level of climate security is measured based on a mathematical model that consists of a set of seven indicators, in which economic resilience is one of seven, and its ‘adaptive capacity’ indicator heavily leans on gross domestic product per capita. There is, however, also mention within the review of approaches diverging between economic sectors, e.g. defence versus environment, leading to challenges in implementation. Alternatives to this system are explored, for example in degrowth debates, which redeem the current global model of Western-type growth-driven societies and are exploring what is ‘the good life’, also beyond the material sense (see e.g. Akbulut et al. 2019; Gerber 2020). Degrowth offers a pathway towards climate mitigation by reduced production and consumption patterns, that in turn limits energy needs. Consequently, it also contributes to adaptation by reducing the exploitation of natural resources, which in fact drives most of the socio-ecological conflicts that climate security concerns itself with. More analytical and empirical work on degrowth alternatives to the military would be welcome.

5.	Conflicts – violent events versus structural processes

Security agendas are discursively driven by the objective to reduce or ‘manage’ conflicts, which are understood as violent clashes, or even war. Climate security thinking then frames those affected by climate change, especially vulnerable populations also in agrarian settings, into elements of danger or threats that need to be controlled (Buxton 2021). Within the field of political ecology, conflict is understood as a much broader phenomenon and has been defined as ‘a clash of interests, values and norms among individuals or groups that leads to antagonism and a struggle for power’ (Scheidel et al. 2017, 587). Within this much broader and more nuanced understanding, conflicts are not considered to be ‘events’ in which violence suddenly erupts, but rather ‘processes’ with dynamics around structural inequity and injustice (LeBillon and Duffy 2018). It has been argued that narratives around climate conflict strategically ignore this conceptual divergence and that they bypass, or are blind to, the ‘everyday structural violence and conflict caused by state and economic forces that are pursuing economic growth’ (Dunlap and Fairhead 2014, 947). In the systematic literature review this is encountered likewise, indicating a depoliticisation of conflicts in most of the articles, including in those that are presented as part of a human security framing. Across the review, conflict is hardly defined and covers a broad spectrum: between groups that are rivalling for scarce resources; clashes as a result of migration; intra- and interstate war. Anderson and Gough (2021), for example, apply the metaphor of 'war' as one of the biblical Four Horsemen in reference to the effects of climate change. In most cases, the practice at hand – be it efforts to increase military preparedness, developmental projects aiming to increase resilience or adaptation, or mitigation schemes – is considered a ‘solution’ to address conflict. How these practices will fall into deeper dynamics of conflict, and specifically how they may shape and fuel those dynamics themselves, is not prominently figured. There is, however, ample literature on how (for example) adaptation and mitigation interventions contribute to socio-ecological conflicts around land, water and forests in the Global South (Dabelko et al. 2013; Hunsberger et al. 2017). In fact, an article in the review offers REDD + as an approach for promoting peace and stability, contributing to collaboration, compensation and equity through the payment for ecosystem services element (Tänzler and Ries 2012). A vast body of literature a decade later shows the opposite has been the experience with REDD+: numerous conflicts and injustices have been highlighted (Corbera and Schroeder 2017; Hoang, Satyal, and Corbera 2019; Satyal et al. 2019). Also in relation to involvement of security forces there is the risk that it actually leads to insecurity, as is apparent in contexts with former military invasions such as Afghanistan and Iraq (Buxton 2021). If ‘conflict’ is not understood in a broader sense, but rather as an ‘event’ that can be ‘controlled’ by intervening, possibly even with military force, this is an entirely different starting point for governance than justice and a pursuit of democratic institutions.

6.	Knowledge politics: global, technical, scientific in collaboration with localised, cultured knowledges

Lastly, a note regarding whose knowledge climate security practices are based on; whose knowledge is considered of value? First, the listing of disciplines of authors (Table 1) sees a dominance of the natural and technical sciences, such as environmental sciences and engineering, and also of international relations and peace and conflict studies. Gemenne et al. (2014) already pointed to the need for more involvement of the social sciences: international relations, economics, political sciences; there seems to be a remaining gap of involvement of demography, development studies, and anthropology. In addition there is a need for philosophy, sociology and implementation sciences, in order to better ground debates and action in ethics and understanding of social change. Preferably, these disciplines do not work separately, but rather collaborate in inter- and transdisciplinary set-ups, as the complexity of questions that are part of climate security debates requires integration of pluriform perspectives (Ledford 2015; Repko and Szostak 2021). The scholar-activism tradition has much to offer in how to engage with social movements and activist groups, that are key in highlighting the priorities for people living in forests, of and with land and water, and in transforming agrarian struggles (Borras 2016). Involving types of knowledge other than academic in the conception as well as the implementation of practices benefits their relevance, for actually being grounded in experiences and realities of those affected by climate change. Interventions could be based on ‘the significant environmental knowledge women have built up over generations’ (Ide 2020, 10), to increase the chance of achieving their intended goals. Another example is the inclusion of indigenous, localised knowledge and cultures on weather events in the set-up and conduct of the Disaster Risk Reduction Centres in Cuba:

The success of Cuba’s Risk Reduction Management Centres, and their extension across the Caribbean, showcases the import of long-standing, locally-attuned experience in developing resilience to the environmental threats of climate change. The locally-sensitive environmental knowledge of the Global South is not only relevant in developing climate resilience within the framework of South–South cooperation; it is also key to developing integrated, effective responses to climate change in the Global North – via proven strategies of solidarity and cooperation for adaptation. (Jerez Columbié and Morrissey 2020, 28)

This is yet another example showing that where scholars and activists meet, powerful alliances take shape that can engage with spaces in which policies and practices are framed, designed and implemented, so that they contribute to social and climate justice, rather than expand control of the globally dominant economic and military apparatus.

Conclusions and alternatives for moving forward

The troops have taken off, whilst the assumptions underlying the climate security mission have not found common ground. The debate on the climate-conflict link is ongoing, and this becomes evident where climate security practices hit the ground. Climate security is applied for political strategic purposes and its implementation is meeting challenges (Abrahams 2019). There is reason to ask why climate security, even if perceived under the umbrella of human security, would need to be a narrative at all. Security as a frame pushes out alternatives that serve the interests of marginalised populations across the world much better. It tends to lock debates in a ‘threat or security’ binary, whereas there is a plethora of values that are not attended to in this lock (Buxton 2021). ‘Security’ as a narrative fits in what Paprocki (2022) has so aptly termed ‘anticipatory ruination’: the reinforcement of destructive capitalist tendencies by announcing climate disasters, paving the way for forceful responses. These dynamics are thus embedded in larger structures of accumulation by dispossession, affecting natural resources as being expropriated by forces of capital (Harvey 2004).

This paper followed the approach introduced by Bernstein by analysing security narratives along the key questions of critical agrarian studies: ‘Who owns what? Who does what? Who gets what? What do they do with it?’ (Bernstein 2017, 8). It has looked at frames for security applied in climate security practices, particularly zooming in on who stands to benefit from those practices. It concludes that ‘security narratives’ subsume alternatives to dealing with climate change such as climate justice and community-based approaches, in which there is acknowledgement and appreciation of pluralism. Through the translation from discourse to practice, power is exercised (Mosse 2005) and the consequences for rural populations are subsumed in intervention logic. Similar observations are found across the review presented in this article; climate security practices are primarily conceptualised around human security, whereas their guiding assumptions remain rooted in the Malthusian arguments on which the climate security narrative was originally founded. Where human security offers opportunity for opening up the scope to more nuanced, place- and conflict-specific thinking and doing (Gasper 2010), the review found that depoliticised, top-down, neoliberal interventions continue to be proposed, now dressed up as ‘human security’. In an attempt to address the critiques on the causal chains of climate change and conflict, the ‘threat multiplier’ framing has been widely adopted, across the UN, defence and development communities. Practitioners tasked with climate security interventions are found to struggle with the continued deterministic, linear thinking that underlies the threat multiplier narrative driving implementation, because the temporal and spatial linkages are unclear and indirect (Abrahams 2020). The discursive shift from climate security as tied to state security towards a wider understanding in terms of human security and related ‘resilience’ discourses has been found to lead to a greater acceptance of climate security interventions. This has, however, not shifted implementation pathways equally, through the weaving of new narratives into pre-existing state security concerns (Boas and Rothe 2016). This article has outlined six risks that are found in the human security formulation of practices: (1) environmental scarcity thinking, (2) political strategising, (3) control-seeking through top-down governance approaches, (4) a push for neoliberal approaches, (5) a dominant focus on violent conflict and (6) knowledge politics.

In this paper, alternatives are proposed that are not cast from the sky, but rather are promptly available and that will contribute to increased (agrarian) climate justice (Borras and Franco 2018; Newell 2022). The first is environmental justice, which re-politicises socio-environmental relations and conflicts, democratising the use and governance of agrarian spaces and that is conceived and executed in alliances between scholars and activists, integrating disciplinary perspectives (Temper et al. 2018). In fact, agrarian climate justice itself may serve as guiding frame, as also proposed by Calmon, Jacovetti, and Koné (2021). The second alternative proposed is climate action and disaster-risk-reduction efforts, still from a human security lens, but rather aimed at ‘freedom from want’, people-centred and based on geographic epistemologies. Jerez Columbié and Morrissey (2020) give as an example the Risk Reduction Management Centres in Cuba, which are seated in localised governance structures, involve Indigenous and local knowledges and integrate community members in interdisciplinary groups. It is a bottom-up, locally specific, South–South collaboration-based approach to increasing resilience, in a ‘carefully contextualised manner’ (ibid. 9). Thirdly, environmental peacebuilding as a strongly related, or even encompassing, field offers an alternative that is locally grounded and oriented towards collaboration and peace rather than suppression. It includes a solid body of knowledge, and lessons on practices are readily available. In addition to its many positive contributions, Ide (2020) lists six types of adverse effects, calling it ‘the dark side of environmental peacebuilding’: depoliticisation, displacement, discrimination, deterioration into conflict, delegitimization of the state, and degradation of the environment. This offers the chance to improve this field and release the ‘security’ framing. Lastly, degrowth may serve as a guiding framework: reduction of natural resource extraction through a reorientation of values away from production and consumption would contribute to climate mitigation as well as adaptation (Hickel 2021), and as such address concerns driving the climate security agenda.

Acknowledgements

Gratitude is due to the reviewers that have carefully commented on draft versions, which has improved the quality of the paper significantly. I wish to thank my supervisors Jun Borras, Ashok Swain and Murat Arsel for their patient guidance of my snail-pace progress. Also, the Villagers, in particular Yukari Sekine and Dani Calmon; bless you for giving me the courage to believe I can do this. Dario, rock and anchor, thank you for remaining steady at all times. And lastly, my heart and spirits owe Gabrielle Hubler an amount of gratitude that is beyond words; you continue to be my compass and guide.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Corinne Lamain

Corinne Lamain is a part-time PhD candidate at the international Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, where she studies the interrelations between climate finance mechanisms, socio-environmental conflicts and climate securities in the Eastern Himalayas. Corinne is also Director of the Centre for Unusual Collaborations, which aims to increase the space and support for young researchers to work in inter- and transdisciplinary research. She is also involved in degrowth initiatives.

Notes

1 The Planetary Security Initiative was founded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2015 and is run by a consortium of think tanks and research organisations, facilitating a ‘community of practice’ around climate security.

2 Scarcity may also be conceptualised in relation to the limited ability of the atmosphere to absorb ever-increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. This fascinating approach is, however, beyond the scope of this paper.

3 This set of questions is: ‘How and in what specific, local and global ways, does climate change differ from past environmental exclusions or threats? What combinations of narratives and strategies frame climate change and the institutionalised responses to it in agrarian settings? What exclusions and inclusions result from this?’ (Borras et al. 2021, 17).

4 In 2022, Tom Middendorp published a book, Climate general: building resilience, about his experiences in the Dutch so-called 3D (defence, development, diplomacy) missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and other ‘fragile states’ that taught him how climate change and security are related. He pleads that a steep increase of military effort is needed to address this, requiring reform of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and armies globally.

5 In the review, much more diverse definitions were encountered. Some of the those are not linked, it seems, to broader climate security debates. Two notable cases posit the natural environment – respectively marine ecosystems as defence against floods and algae to improve food and fuel security – as vital to protecting against the effects of climate change. Here, climate security refers to the resilience of ecosystems and their contribution to mitigation and adaptation (Meriwether and Forsyth 2018; Walsh et al. 2016). Such readings and related practices are not taken on board, as they stretch beyond the frames that are most prominent (McDonald 2013). They are mentioned here, however, for their demonstrational power of how climate security as a concept has spread widely from its origin.

6 Except for two cases: practices of NATO and the US Department of Defense, aimed at deployment of the military in the context of climate change (see Table 1).

7 This is made explicit by Busby et al. (2018, 90): ‘Though the effects of climate change and related disasters on conflict are contested [ … ], its accelerative effects on conflict and instability are plausible even if the scope conditions have yet to be fully understood’. In a similar vein, ahead of a review of governance barriers, Tangney et al. (2021, 12) state: ‘[t]he security implications of these ongoing tensions in the context of climate change remain unclear; however, resource shortages and forced migration as a result of climate disasters are likely to reduce human security in the region and could thereby enhance the possibility of conflict between states with already tense relationships’.

8 ‘Assuming a whole-of-government approach to effect climate-related policymaking suggests that issues of security governance that may have traditionally been the preserve of sovereign defence forces, borderland security and foreign affairs overlap substantially with concurrent agendas pursued within domestically focused portfolios such as home affairs, disaster management, environment and energy policy’ (Tangney et al. 2021, 3).

9 Namely, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe or the multiagent Environment and Security Initiative, of which a range of UN departments are partners.

10 Also, at the national level in China, without much public discourse, a Military Climate Change Expert Committee was installed already in 2008, ‘aiming to provide technical support for the military to address climate change and effective guidance for the military’s warfare and disaster management training and anti-disaster preparedness’ (Bo 2016, 105).

11 The latter paper was excluded from the systematic literature review selection after a closer read, for not offering practices, but it gives insight relevant to this point.

12 Between 2005 and 2014, Cuba established 92 Risk Reduction Management Centres across its territory. In the ensuing years, this model was translated and adapted to other contexts in pilot projects: the British Virgin islands, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago (Jerez Columbié and Morrissey 2020).

13 This argument was made by Buxton before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which has increased the defence spending of Western countries by staggering amounts. For example, the German government alone increased its defence budget by 100 billion euro (The Guardian 2022).

14 The US Department of Defense funded the modelling exercises discussed by Busby et al. (2012, 2014, 2018), Busby, Smith, and Krishnan (2014) and Busby et al. (2013), the Australian Department of Defence funded the governance review of Tangney et al. (2021), and NATO’s Defence and Environment Experts Group funded that of Floyd (2015).

Appendix 1.

Systematic literature review protocol and flow chart

Systematic literature review protocol

10 September 2021

Aim

1. To identify whether and how climate security discourses translated into interventions in policy and practice;

2. To analyse in what manner policy and practice are framed and aim to make a contribution;

3. To identify the implications of the framing.

Research question

“How have climate security discourses shaped policy and practice and what implications has this translation had for agrarian struggles?’

Search keywords

Table

Set	Category	Keyword
Set 1	Climate change	Climate change, global warming
Set 2	Climate security discourse	Climate security, environmental peacebuilding
Set 3	Climate practice	Climate action, adaptation, mitigation, conservation, climate finance*, energy transition

Terms within each individual set are connected via OR whereas each set is connected with the other sets through AND. All sets search in the title, abstract and keywords of papers. The general search query was:

(“climate change” OR “global warming”) AND (“climate security” OR “environmental peacebuilding”) AND (“climate action” OR “adaptation” OR “mitigation” OR “climate finance*” OR “energy transition”)

Source databases

-	Web of Science Core Collection

Data-inclusion criteria

1. Time frame: from 2006 (when climate security as a term was coined) to the present.

2. Language: English – because the PhD project focuses on climate security discourses in relation to international climate finance.

3. Focus of literature: climate security practice is a key focus area, e.g. it is further developed as a concept or applied as policy/practice.

4. Type of publication: published journal articles.

Exclusion criteria

1. Duplicated items.

2. Items in which climate security is referred to, but not elaborated on as concept or framework, or in which no practices or investments in action are included.

Flow chart of the literature selection process.