Lecture 11: Climate Change and Human Security

Question 1

4 Criticisms of the crisis and war narrative regarding climate change

Answer 1

1. Identifying an enemy
2. Is everyone effected similarly by climate change? It itself creates and reinforces inequalities
3. Can Western technological advances address environmental injustice? Who do we empower through this call to action?
4. Can the Western state save us from climate change?

Question 2

What does it mean to live in the anthropocene?

Answer 2

The age of man: the wilderness, for good or ill, is increasingly irrelevant, everything is shaped by human activity and natural processes are interrupted

Question 3

Definition: ecological security

Answer 3

Integrity of natural systems; security of the planet and natural systems

Question 4

Definition: climate security

Answer 4

Weather systems and changes within these; key to ecological security

Question 5

Definition: environmental security

Answer 5

Combination of ecological and climate security

Encompasses the risks/consequences from environmental change and resource management, conservation, and pollution prevention (=the things we can do to improve ecological and climate security)

Subset of human security

Question 6

Definition: Human security

Answer 6

Provide the essential needs of vulnerable people (survival+, e.g. survival + right to dignified life)

Question 7

4 origins of human security

Answer 7

1. Economic growth no longer main indicator of development -> human development as empowerment of people
2. Increase in civil wars, esp. 1990s -> big impact on civilians
3. Globalization spreading transnational dangers such as terrorism and pandemics
4. Post-Cold War emphasis on human rights and humanitarian intervention (R2P)

Question 8

UNDP Human Development Report 1994 - 3 main points

Answer 8

1. “Freedom from fear and freedom from want”
2. State security does not equal security of citizens
3. Individuals as both referent objects and security actors

Question 9

4 criticisms of the concept of “human security”

Answer 9

1. Lack of precision - no one knows exactly what it means
2. Securitization/militarization of poverty, health and education
3. Role of the state in human security - more often part of the problem than the solution, but if the state is not responsible then who is?
4. R2P risks over-emphasizing military means and prioritizing a top-down, statist and interventionist approach to security - not desirable to empower Western states to intervene in Global South

Question 10

Concept of human security is most useful for

Answer 10

Distinguishing between different approaches to security studies (e.g. security for societies, groups and individuals, and military, nonmilitary or both security threats)

Question 11

3 areas of concern in environmental security

Answer 11

1. Rates at which the earth is in decay (carbon emissions, acidic oceans, depletion of ozone layer, climate change etc.)
2. Levels of consumption of natural energy resources
3. Increase in global population that will likely further exacerbate trends

Question 12

Consumption culture

Answer 12

Rates of consumption are up to 40 times higher in most industralized states

Question 13

UN World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future (1987) - 3 main ideas

Answer 13

1. Environment as a development issue
2. Consumption levels of industrialized North a threat
3. Sustainable development

Question 14

Definition: Sustainable development

Answer 14

Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

Question 15

The coming of anarchy - Robert Kaplan (1994) - 2 points

Answer 15

1. Environment as a security threat to the North
2. Environmental degradation and resource scarcity in Global South will lead to refugee migration, erosion of nation states, empowerment of private armies etc.

Question 16

Resource Wars - Michael Klare (2002)

Answer 16

1. Struggles over resources along interethnic lines have already begun
2. Resource wars are “interstate conflicts that revolve to a significant degree over the pursuit or possession of critical materials”
3. If it’s in a state national interest to gain access to resources, these will always prevail over negotiated settlements -> no compromise -> inter-state war

Question 17

How is the link between environmental change and conflict sometimes overestimated

Answer 17

1. Effects of environmental scarcity are indirect and interact with other social, political, and economic stresses
2. Some states are better equipped than others to respond to environmental change - it’s a governance issue

Question 18

4 cases against environmental change being a security issue

Answer 18

1. Environmental change is a governance issue, not a security challenge (development policy more adequate than militarization and protecting national interest, territorial conquest to ensure resources is too costly)
2. Environmental change needs global responses, not national ones (prioritizing national security prevents international cooperatoin)
3. Global market allows access to sufficient resources (technological inventions to mitigate challenges)
4. Different concept of security is needed, facilitating ecologically inspired innovations

Question 19

What are the effects of extreme weather events/disasters on collective violence?

Answer 19

Does not cause conflict but amplifies pre-existing dynamics; escalation and prolongation of violence, esp. lower-level violence and not so much armed conflict

Question 20

Pre-disaster conditions that can be aggravated/escalated through disasters

Answer 20

1. Livelihoods dependent on agriculture
2. Poverty
3. Exclusion of minority groups
4. Weakness of state institutions

-> increase in vulnerability to conflict once disasters hit

Question 21

Post-disaster mechanisms that increase or decrease the likelihood of collective violence

Answer 21

Increase: spikes in food prices, increased competition over resources, reduction in state policing capacities

Decrease: reduction in rebel resources, disaster diplomacy (windows of opportunity for de-escalation)

Question 22

Likelihood of collective violence depends on

Answer 22

Vulnerability to climate-induced changes to livelihoods and government policies to adapt to and mitigate effects

Question 23

Reading: Climate change and the Syrian War - Cullen Hendrix

Answer 23

Dominant narrative regarding the civil war:
climate change -> historic drought (2007-2010) -> crop and livestock failure -> rural hardship -> migration to urban centers -> dissatisfaction with the government and employment prospects-> protest and violent repression -> dissidents taking up arms

But climate change did not directly cause the Syrian civil war because of multiple motivations behind the war and difficult to establish causal narrative, e.g. would the war not have happened without climate change

Climate shocks raise the probability of conflict and frequency of small-scale conflict, but not wholly responsible for the outcome

Other issues like authoritarian rule, human rights abuses, patronage networks, surging food and fuel prices, weak safety nets