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Beyond Internal Conflict: the Emergent Practice of Climate Security

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Beyond Internal Conflict: the Emergent Practice of Climate Security Journal of Peace Research 2021, Vol. 58(1) 186–194 Beyond internal conflict: The emergent ª The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: practice of climate security sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0022343320971019 journals.sagepub.com/home/jpr Joshua W Busby LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Austin-Texas Abstract The field of climate and security has matured over the past 15 years, moving from the margins of academic research and policy discussion to become a more prominent concern for the international community. The practice of climate and security has a broad set of concerns extending beyond climate change and armed conflict. Different national governments, international organizations, and forums have sought to mainstream climate security concerns empha- sizing a variety of challenges, including the risks to military bases, existential risks to low-lying island countries, resource competition, humanitarian emergencies, shocks to food security, migration, transboundary water manage- ment, and the risks of unintended consequences from climate policies. Despite greater awareness of these risks, the field still lacks good insights about what to do with these concerns, particularly in ‘fragile’ states with low capacity and exclusive political institutions. Keywords climate change, climate security, environmental security, human security During a visit to the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu in security; and third, how policy can be made more effec- 2019, UN Secretary-General Anto´nio Guterres wrote on tive going forward. Twitter: ‘We must stop Tuvalu from sinking and the world from sinking with Tuvalu’ (United Nations, The challenges 2019). Guterres underscored the existential risks of cli- mate change for low-lying island countries. In so doing, The emergent practice has identified a broad suite of the Secretary-General demonstrated that practitioners climate security challenges, ranging from the operational have a more expansive set of concerns than whether implications for specific military bases to the existential climate change leads to violent conflict, the primary challenges for some countries and regions. The links focus of much academic research (Gleditsch, 2021). between climate change and internal conflict – both civil Climate-related internal conflict still remains a central wars and communal conflicts – still have a central place focus for practitioners. That said, we still know little in the conversation as evinced by several United Nations about how to prevent climate-related conflicts from Security Council resolutions for ongoing conflicts in starting or how to stop them once they start, though Africa. A 2015 report for the G-7 identified seven academics have more understanding now of risk factors. sources of what they described as ‘compound climate- Both the practice and study of climate security (or cli- fragility risks’, climate risks that when combined with mate security, for shorthand) need to develop more les- other sources of state fragility can lead to negative con- sons of what works to diminish conflict risks and wider sequences including local resource competition, liveli- threats to human security. To understand where the hood insecurity and migration, extreme weather events practice of climate security should go, this essay is and disasters, volatile food prices and provision, divided into three parts: first, the suite of climate security challenges policymakers have identified; second, a short Corresponding author: overview of the emergent practice of climate and [email protected] Busby 187 transboundary water management, sea-level rise and dis- atolls may become uninhabitable by 2050 if saltwater placement, and unintended effects of climate policies overtops aquifers and makes it impossible to grow crops (Ru¨ttinger et al., 2015: viii–x). or secure fresh water (Storlazzi et al., 2018). Such risks Part of this more encompassing set of climate security constitute threats to the continued existence of some concerns is a function of a greater willingness of practi- states, even leaving aside human security impacts. tioners to embrace human security and move beyond a Indeed, countries have made preliminary preparations traditional focus on state security. A focus on human for managed retreat by securing land overseas (in Fiji, security constitutes a broadening in two directions, sub- in Kiribati’s case). stantively away from conventional security threats (mov- Even if their existence is not threatened, other coun- ing beyond armed attacks to encompass environmental tries face extensive risks because of large populations and change) and whose security is of concern (moving valuable infrastructure located near coasts. Former US beyond states to the security of individuals and commu- Vice President Al Gore dramatized these risks in his nities). While the concept has been critiqued for being slideshow projections of future climate change (Gore, wooly (Paris, 2001, 2004; Busby, 2008), a human secu- 2006). Accurately estimating these risks requires projec- rity lens draws attention to how climate change can lead tions of emissions and sea-level rise, adequate representa- to negative consequences for people, even if state security tions of elevation, and good population maps and is not challenged (Adger et al., 2021). The most severe forecasts. A 2019 study corrected some standard biases threat of course is loss of life, and extreme weather events in digital elevation models to estimate the number of such as swift onset storms and even slower onset people likely living in expanded flood zones in a variety droughts can lead to large-scale fatalities. Calls to of emissions scenarios. In the high emissions scenario, broaden or redefine security date back to the 1980s (Ull- they found that some 340 million people would be living man, 1983). With other concerns like the coronavirus below annual flood levels (or below high tide) by mid- also contributing to large-scale death and economic dis- century, up from 250 million today – between 18% and ruption, policymakers have increasingly accepted that 32% in China alone (Kulp & Strauss, 2019). health and environmental threats can constitute security The risks to coastal populations extend beyond sea- concerns. There is, of course, a longstanding debate level rise. A study estimated 625 million lived in low about the merits of securitizing environmental and other elevation coastal zones in 2000 (less than 10 meters problems, because of the potential for threat inflation, above sea-level), with that number expanding to between the use of emergency procedures for security problems, 879 million and nearly 950 million by 2030 under dif- and the risks of reinforcing nationalist approaches to ferent population growth scenarios (Neumann et al., collective problem-solving (Deudney, 1990). 2015). The risks of sea-level rise are magnified by storm This recognition of the security consequences of surge and hurricanes/cyclonic activity. Large coastal climate change led the Intergovernmental Panel on populations in the United States are at grave risk of Climate Change (IPCC), in its Fifth Assessment Report, storms and hurricanes, extending from Texas along the to include a chapter on human security, defined as Gulf Coast to Florida and up the eastern seaboard to protecting the ‘vital core’ of human lives, which include New York. In 2017, three storms in succession – Har- material and non-material aspects (Adger et al., 2014). vey, Irma, and Maria – collectively caused more than The IPCC chapter included but was not limited to the $250 billion in damages and thousands of deaths, and links between climate and conflict. While the treatment required the mobilization of tens of thousands of the went further than this author would have to include military for humanitarian rescue and response (Rice, threats to cultural survival, the chapter signaled the pol- 2018). The island of Puerto Rico, a US possession, had icy community’s broader interests beyond the study of its electricity grid destroyed, with thousands of residents climate–conflict links. experiencing prolonged power outages over the next Among those security risks are the existential threats year. The densely populated areas off the Bay of Bengal to low-lying island countries from sea-level rise, saltwater bordering India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar have expe- intrusion, and coastal inundation from storms. These rienced intense cyclonic activity, with large-scale loss of risks constitute both human security concerns and life, though much less in recent decades for India and threats to state security. In traditional national security Bangladesh. Myanmar experienced catastrophic losses of parlance, states worry that armed external attacks might more than 140,000 lives when Cyclone Nargis battered lead to their countries ceasing to exist as independent the Irrawaddy Delta in 2008. The impacts of climate units. Some studies suggest a number of Pacific island change on hurricanes has been a contentious issue 188 journal of PEACE RESEARCH 58(1) among scientists, but the linkages have become clearer and led to damages in excess of $16.5 billion (Rice, over time (Mooney, 2007). While some of these risks 2019). Other climate risks include riverine flooding, can be managed with early warning systems, cyclone which periodically upends the lives and livelihoods of shelters, and other adaptive responses to climate-proof hundreds of millions around the world and is likely get- infrastructure, the enhanced risks of
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