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.
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