There is broad scientific consensus that climate change threatens our livelihoods, welfare and even existence on this planet. Still, after decades of alarming research and political activism, politicians and society writ large seem to have difficulty accepting the issue’s urgency. International conferences such as COP30 fail to come up with effective and appropriate political action in response. If climate change has such disastrous consequences for our planet, then why does policy not work? And what else can be done for climate change to be taken more seriously?
Climate change requires global action. The problem’s transnational nature and the lack of effective enforcement mechanisms in the international arena make policy coordination difficult and often ineffective, as it creates the risk of free-riding: countries can benefit from other countries’ climate actions without contributing anything substantial themselves. In turn, leaving individual countries (esp. those most affected in the short-term) to deal with the causes and consequences of climate change undercuts any efforts to deal with this problem multilaterally and equitably (as most affected countries are also often poorer countries of the Global South). Other causes for inefficiency may lie in leaders and publics discounting the future in their political calculus, democratic institutions that make fast action difficult, contrasting ideological positions, or lack of sustained attention as other, more immediate problems drive the political agenda.
The persistent lack of progress on fighting climate change might lead to calls for a different approach: securitizing climate change. There is a good conceptual reason for this: climate change is indeed a threat multiplier that is likely to significantly worsen a range of existing and interacting drivers of potentially violent conflict worldwide, affecting both national as well as human security. In turn, treating climate change as a security problem could increase governments’ sense of urgency for action, motivating them to identify better pathways and avenues for effective coordination, and increasing political will as well as funding to back global mitigation and adaptation policies.
However, based on the COP30 experience, not only does this level of cooperation seem like wishful thinking – it may also be harmful to fair and effective policies. For one, it might counter any previous attempts to more effectively include and engage developing countries as well as marginalized or especially vulnerable groups in international cooperation.
This is because securitization implies the existence of existential crisis, which in turn requires extraordinary and emergency measures. This may sidetrack lengthy institutional processes, but also risk undermining efforts to democratize and render more inclusive both decision-making as well as eventual policy.
Moreover, the involvement of the security sector, including military organizations, in combating climate change is likely to funnel further scarce resources away from those most in need, and possibly negatively affect human security in especially affected countries. Given the large environmental footprint of militaries around the world, these resources may in fact in turn contribute to worsening climate change. Indirectly, securitization may thus not only increase the threat of conflict within societies affected by climate change, but also accelerate rather than mitigate climate change itself.
After COP30, the global climate crisis persists while urgently necessary political solutions continue to be debated. It may well be attractive to characterize climate change as a security emergency of increasing magnitude that demands international mobilization rather than diplomatic inertia. Not only does this ‘quick fix’ come with considerable downsides, however – it also risks sidelining solutions centring on, for example, climate finance and climate justice, political activism, changes in energy production and consumption, as well as individual consumer choice.
Albert Agaba, Michiel Brugman, Mari Bunes, Tessa Hooiveld, Esmee Kuipers, Vera van Middendorp, Lara Reynolds, Irene Schoonhoff, Vera de Weerdt and Pieter Staal
The authors are students in the MA course ‘International Security’. They wrote this opinion piece together in one hour as part of a course seminar.
References
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