Global climate security governance: a case of institutional and ideational fragmentation

Abstract

In recent years climate change has become integrated into pre-existing, but fragmented structures of global security governance. In this article I argue that while institutional fragmentation of global climate security governance is not automatically problematic, the phenomenon of ideational fragmentation that often goes with it is highly disadvantageous to achieving climate security for people. This is because the preferences of a diverse group of security organisations/actors (in this article the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the European Union and the United States/Pentagon) are often vastly removed from the global agenda set by the United Nations and its expressed preference for understanding climate security in terms of human security. I suggest that the first step towards overcoming ideational fragmentation would have to be the advancement of a universal definition of climate security by an authoritative source, however, given that security is for many actors a matter of perception the chances of overcoming ideational fragmentation are slim.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for this journal for their excellent comments; Fariborz Zelli for his comments and support as well as for putting me onto the subject of fragmentation in the first place; and my POLSIS colleague Julie Gilson for her valuable and prompt feedback on ASEAN and other aspects of the paper. Finally, my thanks to my husband Jonathan Floyd for allowing me to run various parts of the argument past him time and again and for his valued advice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

Rita Floyd is a Birmingham Fellow in Conflict and Security at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and the lead-editor of Environmental Security: Approaches and Issues (Routledge, 2013).

^1.IPCC, Climate Change 2007.

^2. See, for example, Barnett, ‘Environmental Security’; Trombetta, ‘Environmental Security and Climate Change’; Detraz, ‘Threats or Vulnerabilities?’.

^3. See various articles in Zelli and van Asselt, ‘The Institutional Fragmentation’.

^4.O'Neill, The Environment and International Relations, 7.

^5.Dingwerth and Pattberg, ‘Global Governance’, 191; Biermann et al., ‘The Fragmentation of Global Governance’, 16.

^6. Ibid. See also Zelli and van Asselt, ‘Introduction’.

^7. It should be noted that this article is written in the spirit of Biermann et al.'s influential paper: ‘The Fragmentation of Global Governance’. They have convincingly demonstrated that, in the case of climate change, fragmentation is often conflictive and as such disadvantageous to the cause of reducing GHGs. The authors end their important article with a call for more empirical research on the ‘relative advantages and disadvantages of fragmentation’. The present article heeds that call.

^8.Niang et al., ‘Africa’; Hijioka et al., ‘Asia’.

^9. To be clear this is not a negative verdict on my part; one point of the overall argument advanced in this paper is of course that not securitising climate change could be better than doing so.

^10. For details on this formulation of securitisation see the section on ‘Politicisation or Securitisation?’ below.

^11.CCDU, African Climate Change Strategy.

^12. Ibid.

^13. See the African Union Department of Peace and Security website: http://www.peaceau.org/en/ [Accessed 15 January 2015].

^14.Campbell, Writing Security.

^15. For example in ASEAN, ‘Declaration on Environmental Sustainability’.

^16.ASEAN, ‘AAM Joint Communiqué’.

^17.ASEAN, ‘Declaration on Environmental Sustainability’.

^18.ASEAN, ‘Action Plan on Joint Response’, 1 (emphasis added). See also http://environment.asean.org/asean-working-group-on-climate-change/ [Accessed 15 January 2015].

^19.ASEAN, ‘ADMM Three-Year-Work Programme’, 6.

^20.Barnett, ‘Environmental Security’; McDonald, ‘Discourses of Climate Security’; Detraz, ‘Threats or Vulnerabilities?’; von Lucke et al., ‘What's at Stake?’.

^21.Floyd, ‘The Environmental Security Debate’.

^22.Deligiannis, ‘The Evolution of Qualitative’.

^23.Homer-Dixon, Environment, Scarcity and Violence.

^24. Ibid., 9.

^25. This issue is contentions, so is the use of the term climate refugee. See, for example, Urdal, ‘Demographic Aspects of Climate Change’; Theisen et al., ‘Climate Wars?’; Gleditsch, ‘Whither the Weather?’.

^26.Mass and Carius, ‘From Conflict to Cooperation?’.

^27. MacQuarrie and Wolff, ‘Understanding Water Security’, 177,

^28.Barnett and Adger, ‘Environmental Change’.

^29.Floyd, Security and the Environment, 105, 97.

^30.CNA Corporation, National Security, 8.

^31. Ibid.; Briggs, ‘Climate Security’; Feakin and Depledge, ‘Climate Security’.

^32.CNA Corporation, National Security.

^33.Matthew et al., Global Environmental Change.

^34.UNDP, New Dimensions of Human Security, 23.

^35.Adger et al., ‘Human Security’, 3.

^36. See Herington, ‘The Concept of Security’, who differentiates between security as a state of being and security as a set of social and political practices.

^37.Buzan et al., Security; Wæver, ‘Klimatruslen’.

^38.Bigo, ‘The Möbius Ribbon’.

^39.Buzan et al., Security.

^40.Trombetta, ‘Environmental Security and Climate Change’.

^41.Corry, ‘Securitization and “Riskification”’.

^42.Buzan et al., Security.

^43.Ciută, ‘Security and the Problem’.

^44.Floyd, Security and the Environment, 53; Floyd, ‘Extraordinary or Ordinary’; Mason and Zeitoun, ‘Questioning Environmental Security’.

^45.Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Ecosystems and Human Well-being.

^46.Floyd, Security and the Environment, 184.

^47.Mass et al., Shifting Bases, Shifting Perils.

^48.UN, ‘A New Global Partnership’.

^49. UNEP website: www.unep.org/disastersandconflicts/ [Accessed 15 January 2015].

^50.ENVSEC, ‘Projects by Implementing Organization’.

^51.NATO/CCMS, ‘Preliminary Report’, 1.

^52. Ibid., v.

^53.Floyd, Security and the Environment, 100–101.

^54.NATO, ‘NATO Helps Ukraine Clean Up’.

^55.NATO, ‘Defence and Environments Experts Group’.

^56. Ibid.

^57.NATO, ‘Environmental Security’.

^58.Coffey, ‘NATO in the Arctic’.

^59.ENVSEC, ‘Projects by Implementing Organization’.

^60.NATO, ‘Environmental Security’.

^61.EARDCC, ‘Operations’.

^62.OSCE, ‘Who We Are’.

^63. Mass et al., Shifting Bases, Shifting Perils, 1.

^64.ENVSEC, ‘Projects by Implementing Organization’.

^65.OSCE, ‘Madrid Ministerial Declaration’, 3.

^66.Snoy and Baltes, ‘Environmental Security’, 313.

^67.OSCE, ‘Madrid Ministerial Declaration’, 1.

^68.OSCE, ‘OSCE Stories’.

^69.Solana, Climate Change and International Security.

^70.EU, Report on the Implementation.

^71.EU, ‘Towards a Renewed’, 1.

^72. Ibid.

^73.Parker and Karlsson, ‘Climate Change and the European Union’, 390.

^74.EU, ‘Towards a Renewed’, 2.

^75. Ibid.

^76.EU, ‘Council Conclusions’.

^77.Groen and Niemann, ‘The European Union’.

^78. Ibid., 7.

^79.Biermann et al., ‘The Fragmentation of Global Governance, 23.

^80.Wæver, Concepts of Security, 49.

^81.The White House, ‘The President's Climate Action Plan’, 4.

^82.Obama, ‘Remarks on Climate Change’.

^83.The White House, ‘The President's Climate Action Plan’, 4 (emphasis added).

^84. N. Ahmed, ‘Obama's Fracked-Up Climate Strategy will Guarantee Global Warming Disaster’. The Guardian, 25 June 2013.

^85.Werrell and Femia, ‘On the Record’.

^86.Schwartz and Randall, ‘An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario’.

^87.Floyd, Security and the Environment, 156.

^88. I would like to thank one of the three anonymous reviewers for this point.

^89.CNA Corporation, National Security, 8.

^90. Ibid., 7.

^91.CNA Military Advisory Board, National Security, 23.

^92.DOD, ‘Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap’, 1.

^93. Ibid.

^94. United States Southern Command website: http://www.southcom.mil/ourmissions/Pages/Contingency-Response–Disaster-Relief-Humanitarian-Assistance-.aspx [Accessed 15 January 2015].

^95.DOD, ‘Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap’, 1.

^96.Colman, ‘Head of US Pacific Command’.

^97. C.A. Alaimo, ‘Military Taps UA Expertise to Cope with Impact of Climate Change’. Arizona Daily Star, 3 March 2012.

^98.Briggs, ‘Climate Security’.

^99.DOD, Energy for the Warfighter.

^100. Various UN institutions recognise that conflict is an important element of human insecurity, linked to migration, loss of livelihoods, fear and physical danger. See UN, ‘A New Global Partnership’.

^101. CF contributions in Sjursen, Civilian or Military Power?.

^102.Dalby, Environmental Security, chap. 3; Hartmann, ‘Lines in the Shifting Sand’.

^103.Meierding, ‘Climate Change and Conflict’; Adger et al., ‘Human Security’.

^104.Parker and Karlsson, ‘Climate Change and the European Union’.

^105.Groen and Niemann,‘The European Union’, 7.

^106. For other country's militaries see, for example, the Climate Change & the Military project initiated by the Institute for Environmental Security at: http://www.envirosecurity.org/cctm/ [Accessed 18 March 2015].

^107.Dalby, Security and Environmental Change, 159–172.

^108.DOD, Energy for the Warfighter.

^109.Paskal, ‘The Vulnerability of Energy Infrastructure’.

^110. DOD, Energy for the Warfighter.

^111.Briggs, ‘Climate Security’, 1954.

^112.Barna, ‘Written Testimony on Oil Shale’.

^113. Obama, ‘Remarks on Climate Change’.

^114.Floyd, Security and the Environment, 141.

^115.Adger et al., ‘Human Security’.

^116. As one reviewer for this journal points out however this might change if climate change comes to pose a significant operational risk to the military.