Transcript Session 6 – Security issues

Security issues
Session 6
Displacements as a source of conflicts?
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Increased pressure on resources
Happens mostly within weak, fragile states
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Ex: Darfur
Cumulative process: comes on top of socioeconomic, poltical issues
Importance of the governance of migration
Evidence on climate and conflict
Threats to stability and security
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Increase in the number of weak and fragile states
Risk for global economic development
Distributional conflict between polluters and sufferers
Human rights violations / Crises of legitimacy
Migration
Inter-state conflicts (destabilisation processes, state
failures)
Three types of threat
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Civil conflicts
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Border conflicts
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Environmental crises make states more fragile
 Ex: Earthquake in Haiti
Possible conflicts for resources and for land
Crises of legitimacy of states cannot meet the demands of their
populations
Can be linked to migration
Can be linked to the management of common resources
 Ex: India and Bangladesh
International disputes
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Conflicts between polluters and victims
Scientific controversies
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Initial works by Thomas Homer-Dixon
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Emphasises the linkages between environmental degradations
and social troubles.
Controversies on the security impacts of climate change
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Maximalist perspective:
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Randall and Schwartz 2003 ‘An abrupt climate change scenario’
Burke and al. 2010 ‘Global warming increases the risk of civil wars’
PNAS
Minimalist perspective:
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Buhaug 2011 ‘Climate change not to blame’ PNAS
The securitisation of the climate discourse
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Climate change often presented as a security risk in
order to prompt states to act on climate change:
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To reduce their greenhouse gas emissions
To fund adaptation
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Instrumentation of the climate-security nexus for the
pursuit of an environmental agenda
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Instrumentalisation of the ‘climate refugees’
Scientific challenges
Special issue of Climatic Change, March 2014