The environmental security debate and its significance for climate change

Policymakers, military strategists and academics all increasingly hail climate change as a security issue. This article revisits the (comparatively) long-standing “environmental security debate” and asks what lessons that earlier debate holds for the push towards making climate change a security issue. Two important claims are made. First, the emerging climate security debate is in many ways a re-run of the earlier dispute. It features many of the same proponents and many of the same disagreements. These disagreements concern, amongst other things, the nature of the threat, the referent object of security and the appropriate policy responses. Second, given its many different interpretations, from an environmentalist perspective, securitisation of the climate is not necessarily a positive development

On preparing for the great gift of community that climate disasters can give us

There is a widespread (if rarely voiced) assumption, among those who dare to understand the future which climate chaos is likely to yield, that civility will give way and a Hobbesian war of all against all will be unleashed. Thankfully, this assumption is highly questionable. The field of ‘Disaster Studies’, as shown in Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell, makes clear that it is at least as likely that, tested in the crucible of back-to-back disasters, humanity will rise to the challenge, and we will find ourselves manifesting a truer humanity than we currently think ourselves to have. Thus the post-sustainability world will offer us a tremendous gift amidst the carnage. But how well we realise this gift depends on our preparing the way for it. In order to prepare, the fantasy of sustainable development needs to be jettisoned, along with the bargain-making mentality underpinning it. Instead, the inter-personal virtues of generosity, fraternity and care-taking need fostering. One role a philosophically informed deep reframing can play in this process of virtuous preparation for disaster is in helping people to understand that, in order to care for their children, they need to care for their children in turn, and so on, ad infinitum

Environmental changes and violent conflict

This letter reviews the scientific literature on whether and how environmental changes affect the risk of violent conflict. The available evidence from qualitative case studies indicates that environmental stress can contribute to violent conflict in some specific cases. Results from quantitative large-N studies, however, strongly suggest that we should be careful in drawing general conclusions. Those large-N studies that we regard as the most sophisticated ones obtain results that are not robust to alternative model specifications and, thus, have been debated. This suggests that environmental changes may, under specific circumstances, increase the risk of violent conflict, but not necessarily in a systematic way and unconditionally. Hence there is, to date, no scientific consensus on the impact of environmental changes on violent conflict. This letter also highlights the most important challenges for further research on the subject. One of the key issues is that the effects of environmental changes on violent conflict are likely to be contingent on a set of economic and political conditions that determine adaptation capacity. In the authors' view, the most important indirect effects are likely to lead from environmental changes via economic performance and migration to violent conflict. © 2012 IOP Publishing Ltd

Conflict and Livelihood Decisions in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh

__Abstract__ We analyse rural household livelihood and child school enrolment decisions in the post-conflict setting of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh. What makes this paper innovative is the use of current subjective perceptions regarding the possibility of violence in the future and past actual experiences of violence in explaining household economic decision-making. Preferences are endogenous in line with behavioural economics. Regression results show that heightened subjective perceptions of future violence and past actual experiences of conflict influence current consumption and child enrolment and could encourage risky mixed crop cultivation. The trauma emanating from past experiences combined with current high perceptions of risk of violence may induce bolder and riskier behaviour in line with prospect theories of risk. Furthermore, a postconflic

Global food security and food riots – an agent-based modelling approach

Due to negative consequences of climate change for agriculture and food production shocks affecting different areas of the world, the past two decades saw the conditions of global food security increasingly worsen. This has resulted in negative consequences for the world economy, partly causing international food price spikes and social upheavals. In this paper we present statistical findings along with a preliminary version of an original agent-based model called the Dawe Global Security Model that simulates the global food market and the political fragility of countries. The model simulates the effects of food insecurity on international food prices and how these, coupled with national political fragility and international food trade can, in turn, increase the probability of food riots in countries. The agents in the model are the 213 countries of the world whose characteristics reflect empirical data and the international trade of food is also simulated based on real trade partnerships and data. The model has been informed, calibrated and validated using real data and the results of these procedures are presented in the paper. To further test the model we also present the model’s forecasts for the near future in terms of food prices and incidence of food riots. The Dawe Global Security Model can be used to test scenarios on the evolution of shocks to global food production and analyse consequences for food riots. Further developments of the model can include national responses to food crises to investigate how countries can influence the spread of global food crises

Governing migration from a distance: interactions between climate, migration and security in the South Mediterranean

Links between security and migration are well established and are associated with the meaning, status, and practice of borders in the international political system. This article assesses how and with what effects the effects of environmental and climate change have entered this relationship between migration and security. It does so by assessing the EU’s external governance of migration in “South Mediterranean Partner Countries” (SMPCs): Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Tunisia. It is argued that a focus on promoting “adaptation” and building “resilience” has developed that is consistent with the logic of governing migration from a distance. However, the article challenges ideas that environmental/climate change act as simple migration “triggers” and instead explores implications of movement towards and not away from risk, as well as the potential for populations to be trapped in areas that expose them to risk. It is shown that both have important implications for the relationship between migration, environmental/climate change, and security in SMPCs

The prospects for environmental accounting and accountability in China

Foucault’s ideas on episteme change are used to help understand change taking place in China from the “industrial civilization” to an “ecological civilization”. If episteme change is taking place this could be reflected in the philosophies and attitudes of Chinese accountants and their environmental accounting work will be developing. The conclusions are that: China is slowly moving towards an ecological civilisation; based around the thinking of Chinese accountants an epistemic change is in evidence in tandem with an emerging interest in ancient Chinese philosophy; Chinese accountants’ engagement with environmental accounting and accountability is evidence of reduced specialisation

Sustainable Land Use: Methodology and Application

The chapters in this volume are edited versions of papers presented at the NATO Ad- vanced Research Workshop on Environmental Change Adaptation and Security held in Budapest, Hungary, from October 16 - 18, 1997. As is evident in this volume, the papers ranged from descriptions of environmental and health issues in Russia and Eastern Europe to models of sustainable land use. This diversity of perspectives on environ- ment and security is indicative of both the breadth of this new area of research as well as the varied background of the researchers involved. The discussions at the NATO workshop were remarkably animated and exciting, not surprising given the interest in the topic. I think this vitality is reflected in the papers in this volume as well. The main purpose of the NATO ARW is to foster research links among researchers from NATO countries and Central and Eastern European States, Russia, and the Newly Independent States. In editing this volume, a decision was made to keep to the spirit of this purpose and-if at all possible-include all papers prepared for the workshop. This required extensive editing and rewriting of some of the papers (and consequent delays in production). A determination was made early in the process by the workshop steering committee that the value of publishing the entire collection of articles out- weighed the advantages of accepting only a limited number

Resource Modelling: The Missing Piece of the HTA Jigsaw?

Within health technology assessment (HTA), cost-effectiveness analysis and budget impact analyses have been broadly accepted as important components of decision making. However, whilst they address efficiency and affordability, the issue of implementation and feasibility has been largely ignored. HTA commonly takes place within a deliberative framework that captures issues of implementation and feasibility in a qualitative manner. We argue that only through a formal quantitative assessment of resource constraints can these issues be fully addressed. This paper argues the need for resource modelling to be considered explicitly in HTA. First, economic evaluation and budget impact models are described along with their limitations in evaluating feasibility. Next, resource modelling is defined and its usefulness is described along with examples of resource modelling from the literature. Then, the important issues that need to be considered when undertaking resource modelling are described before setting out recommendations for the use of resource modelling in HTA

Dynamic political contexts and power asymmetries: the cases of the Blue Nile and the Yarmouk Rivers

This paper explores the evolving patterns of hydropolitical relations in the dynamic contexts of Yarmouk and Blue Nile Rivers in comparison. The analysis aims at shedding light over the complex implications that recent political and social changes have aroused for the water disputes between Jordan and Syria on the one hand, and Ethiopia and Egypt on the other. In both basins, cooperative efforts toward the integrated management of transboundary waters have been only partially effective and largely undermined by the perpetuation of unilateral actions by riparian states. In the case studies, the lack of a basin-wide vision over the control and use of shared waters has resulted in disputes among the basin states and ultimately in an unsustainable, unfair, and unwise utilization of the resources. This paper argues that a substantive and effective integration of national water policies is unlikely to occur, unless power asymmetries are properly addressed in order to overcome the likelihood of hegemonic regimes