Climate change and security debates in the United Nations Security Council between 2007-2021

ABSTRACT

This research’s primary motivation is to understand how the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), responsible for maintaining international peace and security, discursively structured climate change-related security issues and institutionalised them in practices by prioritising its five permanent members – China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. Since its resolutions are legally binding, the UNSC is one of the most critical organs of the 193-member UN system. Therefore, it is worthwhile to conduct an in-depth analysis of the Council’s consideration of the security impacts of climate change. Utilising Marteen Hajer’s Argumentative Discourse Analysis, this article contends that France and the United Kingdom effectively shape the discourses on climate change and security within the Council. Nonetheless, it asserts that the Council maintains a narrow focus on climate change, aligned with the political and economic interests of its permanent members, although Russia, China, and even the United States appear to yield substantial influence in actual policymaking.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• human security
• national security
• international security
• UNSC
• argumentative discourse analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. A: Abstainer; D: Defender; N/A: Not Attended; O: Opposer.

2. A: Abstainer; D: Defender; N/A: Not Attended; O: Opposer.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bengü Çelenk

Bengü Çelenk completed her Ph.D. at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2022. She is currently a Research Assistant at Kirsehir Ahi Evran University and is broadly interested in climate change-related security studies and international migration.