Why We Do Need An Immediate Global Scale Answer To Climate Change

Environment Systems and Decisions, 2014

The science is clear that climate change is one of the most important issues facing humanity. The changing climate is already affecting humanity and our economies in many ways. These effects will increase as the climate continues to change, and the effects are expected to increase dramatically over the coming decades. Climaterelated hazards exacerbate other stressors, often with negative outcomes for livelihoods, especially for people living in poverty. Climate change can amplify existing stresses and vulnerabilities among populations and existing threats to security and can indirectly increase risks of violence and violent conflict. This paper is aimed at examining the changes occurring to the Earth's climate, what additional changes in climate are likely to occur over the coming decades, and how climate change could affect global security.

Journal of Strategic Security, 2020

Policy makers, scholars, strategic military thinkers, and intelligence analysts increasingly recognize climate change as a profound multi- dimensional global crisis. The dimensions of climate change have the potential to alter the way people live by presenting a range of environmental, social, economic, political, and social challenges. These include the potential for extreme weather events (hurricanes, storms, floods, heat waves) triggering mass migration, refugees, and depopulation of entire regions as they become uninhabitable due to extreme heat or sea level rise, droughts, degraded water supplies, famine and food insecurity, and health and biosecurity threats trigger humanitarian emergencies.

American journal of environmental sciences, 2011

Abstract: Problem statement: Climate change is increasingly one of the most serious national security threats which will have significant impacts on natural and coastal resources, ecosystem, human health and settlements, thereby affecting human wellbeing. At the same time, it is likely to influence of large scale human migration, economic and social depression over scarce natural resources and political systems necessary involve an even higher degree of uncertainty. Crucial for action is addressing climate change threats to ...

Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace, 2008

Clinical Medicine, 2009

2009

The international political environment will change substantially as the Earth enters a period of rapid bio-physical transition driven by climate change. While it is true that climate change will have considerable impact on the national security of states around the world, the link between climate change hazards and security threats is not direct. The academic literature has been haphazard in presenting a theoretically consistent paradigm for assessing the security implications of climate change. Because of the global scale of climate change and the regional variation of specific climate change hazards, the traditional, human and environmental security paradigms can and should be reconciled to ascertain how conflict develops from climate change hazards and predict the probability of conflict scenarios developing at a given location. This paper attempts to redress this through a four-step framework for mapping how climate change hazards can lead to human and traditional security problems at a specific location and in surrounding areas.

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, 2023

The melting of glaciers and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, droughts, and flooding are powerful reminders of climate change and signals that we have entered the Anthropocene (Crutzen 2002) -a new geological epoch in which the future of the planet depends on human actions, and which has 'no analogy' in the Earth's history (Dalby 2009, p. 11). Human action has become so powerful and pervasive that it is comparable to a geological force that transforms the planet in unprecedented ways. Nature, the environment and climate are no longer stable backgrounds against which human history and actions unfold. This requires humans to embrace the challenges of this new condition, its complexity and uncertainty. Climate change is emblematic of this shift, as it anticipates many challenges of the Anthropocene. New potentially catastrophic threats -the possibilities of abrupt climate change or the massive extinctions of species -emerge, while concerns about access to water, food and energy remain relevant and are aggravated by climate change. Conflict and social instability may follow or be exacerbated. Not surprisingly, some of these challenges have been addressed as security issues, both because of the concerns that these problems raise for states and peoples, and the power of evoking security to mobilize and legitimize action . Attempts to link climate change and security date back to the 1970s, when apprehensions about anthropogenic changes in weather patterns started to develop. Since then, climate change has been included in national security strategies and has been brought to the discussion of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on more than one occasion (Scott 2015 and Chapter 13 in this volume). There is extensive academic and political debate on the subject. 1 Yet, the term 'climate security', which is used in the literature, remains ambiguous and contested, as does the very consideration of climate change as a security issue. Establishing a link between climate change and security is not a straightforward process. Far from being self-evident, it implies a set of political choices on the kinds of threats that need to be considered, whose security is at stake, and the means to be employed. Once questioned, these choices reveal deeply seated assumptions on what counts as security and the ways of providing it and prompt reflection. For many, security is still associated with the survival of the state, its core values and the legitimation of exceptional measures. The link also requires conceptual and theoretical reworking of the way security is understood and provided, as many of the threats posed by climate change do not fit the traditional security agenda and logic. They question, for instance, the protection of a territory against external threats, using defensive, reactive measures and, that, in turn, challenges many of the political categories on which we moderns operate and think through. This Handbook explores the emergence of climate change as an international security issue, the threats it poses, and the political and academic debates it has prompted. It provides an overview of the different ways the link between climate change and security has been established

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2021): J. Peace Dipl. , 2021

The security paradigm of the world is constantly shifting, and compared to the military and traditional issues, non-military problems are now given significantly greater emphasis. Threats to a person's life and wellness that fall beyond the usual definition of security include climate change. Climate Change has taken a central position on the international forum. The purpose of this study is to analyze climate-driven environmental changes that are anticipated to influence some of the factors that threaten security; undermine livelihoods, increase migration, create political instability or other forms of insecurity, and weaken the capabilities of states to respond to challenges appropriately. Some major international issues such as population growth, pollution, melting of ice glaciers, floods, and droughts are interlinked with the above-said problems and are also becoming the core issues within states and borders. Climate Change may result eventually in a plethora of security risks and threats that can also exacerbate conflicts. The purpose of the study is to examine either climate change is a critical issue or whether the states just politicize it. This study aims to investigate how climate change affects security and public perception to recommend policy solutions to these ever-evolving problems. Security is a multidimensional approach that focuses on an individual's welfare and well-being. Improvement of policymaking in handling the issue of climate change is also a very important factor for peace and human security at the international level.

A topic that regularly presents itself in today's discourse in the field of security is whether climate change can be considered a threat to security. This paper explores the general arguments regarding the topic and asserts that climate change should be considered a matter of security as it presents a threat to the safety of the individual, state and the international.

2008

Weather extremes and greater fluctuations in rainfall and temperatures have the capacity to refashion the Asia-Pacific's productive landscape and exacerbate food, water and energy scarcities in a relatively short time span. Climate change will contribute to destabilising, population movements in Asia and the Pacific. Most of these flows are likely to be internal, but the ripple effects will be felt beyond the borders of the states most affected, requiring cooperative regional solutions and Australian leadership. The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, requiring a more rapid transition away from our dependence on fossil fuels, could place added pressure on an already tight energy market and heighten anxieties about energy security. More extreme weather patterns would result in greater death and destruction from natural disasters adding to the burden on poorer countries and stretching the resources and coping ability of even the most developed nations. Extreme weather events and climate-related disasters will trigger short-term disease spikes and also have more enduring consequences. The cumulative impact of rising temperatures, rising sea levels and more mega droughts on agriculture, fresh water and energy could threaten the security of Australia's neighbours by reducing their carrying capacity below a minimum threshold. While Australia may be better positioned to manage the consequences of climate change, we cannot be inoculated against its destabilising effects. Should climate change coincide with other transnational challenges to security, such as terrorism or pandemic diseases, or add to pre-existing ethnic and social tensions, the impact will be magnified. State collapse and destabilising internal conflicts are more likely outcomes than inter-state wars. Far from exaggerating the scale of climate change it is possible that scientists may have underestimated the threat. The most likely tipping point would be an accelerating reduction of land-based glaciers and the polar ice which could dramatically increase sea levels and reduce river flows. Prudence and sensible risk management suggest that Australia's strategic planners ought to include worse case climate change scenarios in their contingency planning as they do for terrorism, infectious diseases and conventional military challenges to national security.