The Environmental Security Debate and its Significance for Climate Change

Abstract

Policymakers, military strategists and academics all increasingly hail climate change as a security issue. This article revisits the (comparatively) long-standing “environmental security debate” and asks what lessons that earlier debate holds for the push towards making climate change a security issue. Two important claims are made. First, the emerging climate security debate is in many ways a re-run of the earlier dispute. It features many of the same proponents and many of the same disagreements. These disagreements concern, amongst other things, the nature of the threat, the referent object of security and the appropriate policy responses. Second, given its many different interpretations, from an environmentalist perspective, securitisation of the climate is not necessarily a positive development.

Notes

¹Walter B. Gallie cited in Buzan, People, States and Fear, 7.

²Wæver, “Peace and Security”.

³Ullman, “Redefining Security”, 19.

⁴Myers, “Environment and Security”.

⁵Tuchman Mathews, “Redefining Security”.

⁶Dabelko, Tactical Victories and Strategic Losses, 4.

⁷Westing, “The Environmental Component of Comprehensive Security”, 129.

⁸Goodman, Military capabilities related to Environmental Security, 98.

⁹Campbell, Writing Security, 170.

¹⁰Floyd, “Typologies of securitisation and desecuritisation”.

¹¹Dabelko and Simmons, “Environment and Security”, 137.

¹²Deibert, “From Deep Black to Green?”, 29.

¹³Floyd, “Towards a consequentialist evaluation of security”, 345–6.

¹⁴Käkönen, Green Security or Militarised Environment, 2.

¹⁵Deudney, “The Case against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security”, 465.

¹⁶Finger, “The military, the nation state and the environment”.

¹⁷Wæver, “Concepts of security”, 45 (emphasis in original).

¹⁸Homer-Dixon, Environment, Scarcity, and Violence, 177.

¹⁹ Ibid., 9.

²⁰Homer-Dixon, “The Project on Environment, Population and Security”, 46.

²¹Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy”, 190.

²²It should be noted that Homer-Dixon had been in contact with policymakers in Washington before February 1994. For example, already in 1992, he briefed a national security meeting under the auspices of P. J. Simmons (who worked at that time at the National Security Council's Global Environmental Affairs Directorate and the National Security Archive and, in autumn 1994, went on to direct the Center for Environmental Security and Change, created within the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars). However, it was not till after the publication of Kaplan's “The Coming Anarchy” that Homer-Dixon was contacted by Al Gore's staff. This information is taken from an interview by the author with Homer-Dixon in July 2005.

²³Floyd, “Typologies of Securitisation and Desecuritisation”, 339.

²⁴Levy, “Is the Environment a National Security issue?”; Peluso and Watts, “Violent Environments”; Gleditsch, “Armed Conflict and the Environment”.

²⁵De Soysa, “The Resource Curse”; Collier and Hoeffler, Greed and Grievance in Civil War.

²⁶Kahl, States, Scarcity and Civil Strife in the Developing World, 18.

²⁷ Ibid., 19.

²⁸Peluso and Watts, Violent Environments: Responses, 93.

²⁹Hartmann “Population, Environment and Security: A new Trinity”, 117

³⁰Kahl, Review of Violent Environments; Homer-Dixon, Debate on Violent Environments.

³¹Peluso and Watts, “Violent Environments”, 26.

³²UNDP, Human Development Report 1994, 23.

³³See, for example, Dalby, Environmental Security.

³⁴Barnett, The Meaning of Environmental Security, 129.

³⁵Waever, “Securitization and Desecuritization”, 57.

³⁶Wæver, “Securitisation: Taking stock of a research programme in Security Studies”, 13.

³⁷“A-security… is simply not phrased in these terms, it is not a question of being secure or not, and there is not a perception of existential threats being present”. Ibid., 13.

³⁸Simon, “Closing statement by Julian Simon”, 159.

³⁹Simon, “Pre-Debate Statement: Julian Simon”, 19.

⁴⁰According to Lomborg's website (FAQs section, http://www.lomborg.com/faq/?PHPSESSID=3a0ea70f8f278f3052997758b1645a6f), his connection with Simon came about as follows: “It all started in 1997, when Bjørn Lomborg read a Wired Magazine interview with economist Julian Simon claiming that the environment–contrary to common understanding–was getting better, not worse. Lomborg thought this had to be incorrect (“right wing, American propaganda”). Looking for new ways to get his students involved, in the fall of 1997 he organised a study group with some of his top students to prove Simon wrong. Much to everyone's surprise, much (though definitely not everything) of what Simon said was right. Thus the group set out to write about their results in op-eds in Denmark's leading newspaper, Politiken. They published four lengthy articles with fifty footnotes in each, sparking a firestorm debate spanning over 400 articles in all the major metropolitan newspapers. The articles led to the publication of a book in Danish later that year and to The Skeptical Environmentalist in 2001.”

⁴¹Conca and Dabelko, Environmental Peacemaking; Ali, Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution; Matthew, Halle and Switzer, Conserving the Peace: Resources, Livelihoods and Security.

⁴²Carius, Environmental Peacebuilding: Conditions for Success, 61–4.

⁴³UNEP, Global Transboundary Protected Areas Network, “Cordillera del Cóndor Transboundary Protected Area”. http://www.tbpa.net/case_01.htm

⁴⁴Ali, “Siachen Peace Park: Solution to Half-Century of International Conflict”, 318.

⁴⁵Carius, “Environmental Peacebuilding: Conditions for Success”, 62.

⁴⁶Dabelko, “Next steps for Environment, Population, and Security”, 4.

⁴⁷Floyd, “Towards a consequentialist evaluation of security”, 47–8.

⁴⁸T. Homer-Dixon, “Terror in the Weather Forecast”, The New York Times, 24 April 2007; see also Schwartz and Randall, “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario”; Walker and King, The Hot Topic, 47–8.

⁴⁹UNDP, Human Development Report 2007/2008, v, vi.

⁵⁰UN-Energy, “Sustainable Bioenergy a Framework for Decision Makers”.

⁵¹Friends of the Earth Netherlands, “Policy, Practice, Pride and Prejudice”, July 2007. http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2007/Wilmar_Palm_Oil_Environmental_Social_Impact.pdf

⁵² Ibid. and Oxfam Briefing Note “Bio-fuelling poverty: Why the EU renewable-fuel target may be disastrous for poor people”, November 2007. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/trade/downloads/bn_biofuels.pdf?m=234&url=http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/trade/downloads/bn_wdr2008.pdf