9 From ‘Securitization’ of Climate Change to ‘Climatization’ of the
Security Field: Comparing Three Theoretical Perspectives
Angela Oels
9.1 Introduction1
Since 2003, climate change has been articulated as a
threat to national, international, and human security
in scientific publications and political declarations.
What does the articulation of climate change as a security
issue mean in terms of policy implications?
How is climate change being rendered governable as
a security issue and what are the consequences of
this? In this chapter, three theoretical perspectives are
introduced that shed light on this question: the Copenhagen
School, the human security perspective, and
the Paris School. These three schools all offer theoretical
perspectives on the question of what it means (or
should mean) to render something governable as a security
issue and whether or not this is desirable. As
well as being those most discussed in the literature,
these three schools also cover the full spectrum of positions
on the issue: against securitization, for securitization,
and neutral (it depends).
First, the Copenhagen School warns that the successful
‘securitization’ of climate change could legitimize
a political state of exception, in which drastic
mitigation measures are adopted using undemocratic
procedures. While decisive action on climate change
is considered desirable, the political price paid for
such emergency action is seen as too high. However,
empirical analysis shows that there is no evidence of
undemocratic procedures and of extraordinary measures
in the case of climate change. According to the
Copenhagen School, the securitization of climate
change has failed and we should not be worried.
The second perspective claims that the counterproductive
effects of the securitization of climate
change as spelled out by the Copenhagen School can
be avoided once security is redefined in terms of human
security. From this perspective, when climate
change is constructed as a threat to human security,
sustainable development emerges at the top of the
policy agenda. Not only does sustainable development
tackle pre-existing vulnerabilities, but it also enhances
adaptive capacity to the impacts of climate
change, actively reducing the likelihood of mass migration
and violent conflict. However, empirical analysis
shows that since 9/11, human security has more
often than not been redefined in terms of homeland
security of the global North. As a result, human security
concerns in the global South are becoming policyrelevant
only to the extent that they are strategically
relevant for Northern homeland security.
Finally, the Paris School argues that the failed securitization
of climate change is better understood as
the successful ‘climatization’ of the security field. According
to the Paris School, the articulation of climate
change as a security issue signifies that professionals
of (in)security (i.e. intelligence, military, police, defence
ministries) are producing climate change as a legitimate
threat in their everyday practices. This means
that traditional practices of the security field are being
applied to the issue of climate change – for example,
scenario planning studies, early warning systems etc.
At the same time, the security field is expanding to include
climate change professionals with their practices
of risk management, climate modelling etc.,
thereby transforming the security field and its practices.
‘Climatization’ of the security field means that
existing security practices are applied to the issue of
climate change and that new practices from the field
of climate policy are introduced into the security
field. While these transformations are still in their infancy
and empirically hard to detect, this chapter argues
that defence, migration, and development policy
are being transformed in order to secure global circu-
1 The author is grateful to Chris Methmann, Hans Günter
Brauch and two anonymous reviewers for very helpful
comments on an earlier version of this chapter and
to Logan Penniket for careful editing of the final manu-
script.
185J. Scheffran et al. (eds.), Climate Change, Human Security and Violent Conflict, Hexagon Series on Human
and Environmental Security and Peace 8, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-28626-1_9, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
186 Angela Oels
lation from disruptions caused by disasters induced by
climate change.
The review of each analytical perspective is concluded
with an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses
of the respective approach. In doing so, the author
attempts to convince the reader that the Paris
School offers the most interesting analytical perspective
for understanding the policy implications relating
to the production of climate change as a security issue.
The chapter begins with a review of how climate
change emerged as a security issue in science and politics
(9.2), prior to the theoretical analysis (9.3).
9.2 Emergence of Climate Change as
a Security Issue
In this section, key scientific and political documents
are introduced which have been influential in establishing
climate change as a security issue of one kind
or another. By the late 1980s, climate change was
already being discussed in the alarmist language of
security, leading to the declaration of the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in
1992. However, the security implications of climate
change disappeared from the agenda until 2003. This
chapter focuses on the current production of climate
change as a security issue from 2003 until the present.
It highlights the fact that there are various and competing
readings of security prevalent in the debate,
ranging from national security via international security
to human security. The demarcation line drawn
between ‘science’ and ‘politics’ in the following discussion
is artificial: there are close linkages and coproductions.
For structural clarity, the following section
distinguishes between scientific and semi-scientific
knowledge production on the one hand (9.2.1)
and political declarations at the international level on
the other (9.2.2). The chapter then turns to theoretical
reflections on these developments and their (normative)
evaluation (9.3).
9.2.1 The Scientific Debate
Currently, very little empirical research has been completed
on the security implications of climate change.
The limited amount available is often inconclusive or
contradicts other studies. Environmental organizations
were among the first to produce climate change
as a security issue in order to mobilize action for mitigation.
Later on, defence and environment ministries
as well as the military sector itself joined the chorus.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), the institution charged with producing consensus
knowledge on climate change for policymakers,
will address the security implications of climate
change in its fifth assessment report due in 2014.
Environmental organizations argued early on that
the impacts of climate change could trigger mass migration.
Concern over millions of ‘climate refugees’ as
a security threat has been mobilized from 1988 onwards
by environmental non-governmental organizations
like the Worldwatch Institute, the Climate Institute,
and the Earth Policy Institute (all based in
Washington DC), the New Economics Foundation in
London, and Australia’s Friends of the Earth (McNamara/Gibson
2009: 477-478). They sought to establish
climate change as a threat to human and national
security. Most recently, Greenpeace Germany commissioned
a study on ‘climate refugees’ (Jakobeit/
Methmann 2007). Why were environmentalists the
first to actively attempt to ‘securitize’ climate change?
McNamara and Gibson explain:
The geopolitical context was reluctance from the
United States, Australia and other governments to
accept that climate change was a problem; hence depictions
of entire countries disappearing beneath sea level
rise performed a particular function, contributing to a
counter-discourse problematising inaction by western
governments on climate change (McNamara/Gibson
2009: 479).
In academia, the debate on ‘environmental refugees’
was fuelled by Norman Myers. Myers described ‘environmental
refugees’ as people who have been forced
to flee their homelands because their livelihood has
been destroyed by environmental degradation – and
conceived overpopulation as a major factor in this
degradation (Myers 1995: 18–19). Thomas HomerDixon
cautiously put forward the idea that population
growth together with other factors could degrade renewable
resources like fresh water, soil, and forests,
and that this resource scarcity could trigger mass migration
and violent civil wars (Homer-Dixon 1994,
1999). It was, however, Robert Kaplan’s alarmist The
coming anarchy (1994) that made these ideas popular
and strongly influenced US President Clinton’s policymaking
on environmental security. With increasing attention
being paid to climate change in the early 2000s,
the environmental conflict hypothesis became extended
to climate change – in the absence of new research
findings specifically on its nexus with conflict.
Climate change has been established as a security
issue in studies commissioned by governments, especially
by their environment, defence, and foreign af-
From ‘Securitization’ of Climate Change to ‘Climatization’ of the Security Field 187
fairs ministries. For example, the US Pentagon commissioned
a Scenario Planning study by Schwartz and
Randall (2003) which was leaked to the press in 2004.
In this study, Schwartz and Randall developed a
worst-case scenario of abrupt climate change (a drop
in temperature of 5°F in North America and Europe)
and imagined the resulting resource scarcity, mass migration,
and violent conflict, and even the breakdown
of civilization as such. Climate change is presented as
a threat to ‘national’ and ‘international security’. This
worst-case scenario was popularized, for example in
Emmerich’s film: The Day after Tomorrow.
Both the German and UK governments also commissioned
influential studies on climate change as a
security issue. The UK government commissioned the
Stern Report on climate change as a threat to economic
security, arguing that preventing climate
change pays off (Stern 2007). The German environment
and development ministries jointly commissioned
the 2007 report by the German Advisory
Council on Global Change (WBGU), Climate Change
as a Security Risk (WBGU 2008). The WBGU report
explores the linkage between climate change and violent
conflict and offers policy recommendations for
climate change mitigation and adaptation policy, security
policy, development policy, migration policy and
early warning/ disaster management. The WBGU explicitly
rejects a human security framing for its report
(WBGU 2008: 20–21) and instead addresses human
vulnerability to climate change impacts. For example,
issues like water security, food security, livelihood security
(and the need for migration) and security from
climate change induced disasters are at the heart of
the report, even when not presented explicitly in a human
security framing. Policymakers are advised by the
WBGU to tackle the causes of climate change, to use
development assistance to reduce vulnerability in affected
countries, and to strengthen institutions that
could aid in conflict prevention and resolution. This
report was also published in English and has been
highly influential in the international debate.
Substantial input into the debate on climate
change as a security issue has come from the security
sector primarily in the US and the UK. In this sector,
security is usually narrowly defined as ‘national security’.
The report by the Center for Naval Analysis
(CNA 2007), a consultancy that was formed out of
the US Navy, provides a good example of such a
study. The CNA Report National security and the
threat of climate change discusses possible civil and
international wars fuelled by the impacts of climate
change for each world region, from Africa to the Arctic.
In their policy recommendations, the generals and
admirals argue that mitigating climate change should
be a policy priority. They also focus on a partial restructuring
of forces, in order to enhance preparedness
for interventions in states where climate change
has overwhelmed national capacities, potentially leading
to humanitarian disasters and breeding terrorism.
It was not until 2006/2007 that peer-reviewed science
entered knowledge production concerning climate
change as a security issue. There are two strands
in the academic debate: the first asks if and under
which conditions climate change could trigger violent
conflict in affected regions, while the second investigates
the impacts of climate change as a threat to human
security. In 2007, the first special issue of a peerreviewed
journal covered the link between climate
change and violent conflict (Political Geography 26/
2007). Contributions to this special issue focused on
the difficulties of establishing valid causal linkages between
modelled climate change/environmental degradation
and future decisions of people about cooperation,
migration, or violent conflict (Nordas/Gleditsch
2007). Since then, the scientific debate has intensified
and become more differentiated. Burke, Miguel, Satyanath
et al. (2009) claim a statistical correlation between
historical climate variability (rise in temperature)
in African countries and the number of civil
wars. Halvard Buhaug (2010) refutes Burke’s hypothesis:
he tested 11 models for a statistical correlation between
short-term climate variability data and civil wars
in Africa and concluded that climate variables were
not statistically significant (see chap. 2 by Buhaug/
Theisen). Supporters of Burke counter that Buhaug
did not test the most likely correlation between climate
variability and conflict outlined by Miguel, Satyanath
and Sergenti (2004).2
Nevertheless, scientists
like Schellnhuber and Pielke warn that the climate signal
is still weak compared to other social factors but
that in the future, the destruction of livelihood systems
by climatic shocks may well lead to violent con-
flict.3
Based on this review, it is argued that the scientific
debate on the link between climate variability and
conflict remains open and inconclusive.
2 Marc Levy: “On the Beat: Climate-security linkages lost
in translation” (2010); at: <http://newsecurity beat.
blogspot.com/2010/09/on-beat-climate-security-linkages-lost.html>
(15 November 2010).
3 Quirin Schiermeier: “Climate Change Not Linked to
African Wars”, Naturenews, 6 September 2010; at:
<http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100906/full/news.
2010.451.html> (17 October 2010).
188 Angela Oels
The current most influential strand of academic
literature assesses climate change as a threat to human
security. Human security is defined as “a variable
condition where people and communities have
the capacity to manage stresses to their needs, rights,
and values” (Barnett/Matthew/O’Brien 2010: 18).
Those working from a human security perspective do
not deny that environmental stress could be a contributing
factor to violent conflict under certain conditions
(Barnett/Adger 2007). However, they emphasize
that a much wider variety of responses is possible,
ranging from conflict to cooperation (Barnett/Matthew/O’Brien
2010: 13–14). People’s capacity to cope
with environmental stress – i.e. the state of their human
security – is a key factor structuring behavioural
options. From a political ecology perspective, coping
capacity is a matter of access to resources which are
distributed unequally by economic, political, and cultural
institutions (Barnett/Matthew/O’Brien 2010:
13–14). The claim made by this literature is that sustainable
development is the only legitimate answer to
the security implications of climate change, firstly because
it tackles pre-existing vulnerabilities, and secondly
because it enhances adaptive capacity: “Thus
building the capacity to adapt to climate change can
help prevent or resolve climate-related conflicts and
insecurity” (Brown/Hammill/McLeman 2007: 1150).
The assessment reports of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have investigated
human vulnerability to climate change impacts, especially
Working Group II (Adger 2006). The term ‘human
security’ has been avoided in past assessments
but the type of analysis is often implicitly guided by a
human security perspective (which Detraz and Betsill
label environmental security framing, see Detraz/Betsill
2009: 309–310). In its Fourth Assessment Report
(AR4), Working Group II discussed the concept of
human security only once in chapter 9 on Africa, citing
Karen O’Brien’s work (IPCC WGII 2007: 456).
However, the concepts of food security (IPCC WG II
2007: 297) and water security (IPCC WG II 2007: 516)
are widely used by Working Group II. A change in terminology
is expected in the future. In the forthcoming
Fifth Assessment Report (2014), the IPCC Working
Group II dedicates an entire chapter (chapter 12)
to the human security implications of climate change.
One of the ten subheadings of this chapter is supposed
to address ‘conflict’ and another ‘migration
and population displacement’, according to the current
government approved outline.4
Four other chapters
of Working Group II are likely to make explicit
reference to the security implications of climate
change (chapters 3, 9, 13, and 19).5
It is concluded that in the realm of knowledge
production, the various claims about climate change
as a likely cause of violent conflict remain highly contested.
Peer reviewed science has entered into the debate
rather late. The IPCC has used the term human
vulnerability to assess the impacts of climate change
on human well-being, avoiding the explicit use of the
term human security in its Fourth Assessment Report.
However, chapter 12 of Working Group II of the Fifth
Assessment Report by the IPCC that is due by 2014
will explicitly discuss climate change as a threat to human
security.
9.2.2 The Political Debate
Concern about the security implications of climate
change entered the political agenda in the absence of
scientific consensus on this issue. The governments of
Germany and the United Kingdom commissioned
their own scientific studies on climate change as a
security issue (WBGU 2008; Stern 2007) in order to
support their case for strong adaptation and mitigation
action in international climate negotiations. The
security implications of climate change were put on
the agenda of the UN Security Council by the UK in
2007, and on the UN General Assembly agenda by
the small island states (and others) in 2009 (see chap.
33 by Kurtz). The UN Secretary-General’s 2009 report
Climate Change and its Possible Security Implications
builds on available research findings and is considered
the most authoritative political declaration on the
issue. This author argues that a reading of security in
line with (though rarely explicitly referencing) human
security is prevalent in the political debate in Europe
and at the United Nations, and that a national security
reading is prevalent in the US.
The security implications of climate change were
put on the international political agenda by Germany
and the United Kingdom. Germany used its EU Presidency
in spring 2007 to mobilize EU concern about
climate change as an issue of international security
(Council of the European Union 2007: 11). In March
4 IPCC, “Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) Authors and
Review Editors”, at: <http:77www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ar5/ar5
_authors_review_editors_updated.pdf>.
5 Neil Adger, University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK at
a conference on Climate change and Security in Trondheim,
21–24 July 2010; at: <http://climasecurity.files.
wordpress.com/2010/06/neil-adger.pdf>.
From ‘Securitization’ of Climate Change to ‘Climatization’ of the Security Field 189
2008, as a result of the German Presidency Conclusions,
EU commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and
EU High Representative Javier Solana presented a report
on Climate change and international security
(Council of the European Union 2008a). This report
addresses climate change as a “threat multiplier which
exacerbates existing trends, tensions and instability”
(Council of the European Union 2008a: 2), thereby
adopting the terminology proposed by the German
Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). The
so-called Solana Report considers international security
as closely linked to the EU’s own (national) security
as well as to the ‘human security’ of people in developing
countries (Council of the European Union
2008a: 2).The Solana Report calls for action in three
fields. First, it proposes enhancing the monitoring
and early warning of mass migration and violent conflict
especially in regions of ‘state fragility’ (Council of
the European Union 2008a: 7). Second, it calls for European
leadership to foster a post-Kyoto treaty on mitigation
and adaptation, in order to make the 2°C target
internationally binding. Particular attention is paid
to “environmentally-triggered additional migratory
stress” (Council of the European Union 2008a: 8).
Third, cooperation and capacity-building with third
party countries is suggested in the fields of mitigation,
adaptation, and crisis management. Despite great efforts
by France to make alterations to the EU Security
Strategy in the face of climate change security implications,
the regular review of the EU Security Strategy in
December 2008 reached no agreement for change
(Council of the European Union 2008b: 5–6).
In the US, the environment was rendered governable
as a national security issue under the Clinton administration,
while the Bush administration did its
best to reverse this development. In his efforts to appeal
to a US audience, former US Vice-President Al
Gore has repeatedly depicted climate change as an existential
threat to Western civilization that leaves humanity
the choice between “life and death”.6
The
Kyoto Protocol was signed by Clinton in 1997 but was
never ratified by the Senate or the House of Representatives.
In 1993, the Clinton Administration – with
Al Gore as Vice-President - created the Office of Deputy
Under-Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security
(ODUSD-ES) within the Department of Defense
(Floyd 2007a: 345). The environment was also
integrated into the US National Security Strategy (US
NSS) of 1994/1995 (Floyd 2007a: 345). Policies undertaken
focused on the compliance of the US military
with existing environmental law. However, these policies
only lasted a few years. In 2005, the Bush Jr. Administration
deleted the phrase “environmental security”
from the US NSS, cut funding for the
programme where possible, and replaced the environmental
security directive from 1996 with a new directive
that “exempts many military activities from existing
environmental legislation” (Floyd 2007a: 347).
The Bush administration officially withdrew support
from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001. Nevertheless, the
Pentagon commissioned a scenario planning study by
Schwartz and Randall (2003) which assessed climate
change as a threat to national and international security.
The Obama administration has committed itself
to the 2°C target at the Copenhagen (2009) and Cancún
(2010) climate negotiations. Even today, US-based
NGOs remain convinced that articulating climate
change as a threat to national security is the only way
to convince politicians that action on climate change
is a necessity.
The United Kingdom used its presidency of the
UN Security Council in April 2007 to put the security
implications of climate change on the agenda of a session
that was open to all member states. The UK was
supported in this effort by all Western industrialized
states and by some small island states. At the session
on 17 April 2007, the majority of speakers from developing
countries strongly objected to having a discussion
about climate change in the UN Security Council.
Instead, they argued that climate change was an
issue of sustainable development that should be discussed
under the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) or in the UN General Assembly
(UN Security Council 2007a, b). This was also
the official position of the G77 group. Nevertheless,
80 per cent of the speakers agreed that climate
change is likely to have strong human security implications
for people in developing countries. Half of the
speakers (27 out of 55 represented governments)
linked climate change to the threat of violent conflict,
but most did so in the context of a broader “environmental
security” framing in line with human security
(only four used an environmental conflict perspective)
(Detraz/Betsill 2009: 311). The debate focused less on
the question of whether climate change could trigger
violent conflict than on whether the exclusive setting
of the UN Security Council was a suitable arena for
discussion about the security implications of climate
change.
6 Al Gore: “Nobel Lecture”, 10 December 2007 in: The
Nobel Foundation; at: <http://nobelprize.org/ nobel_
prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-lecture_en.html> (3
October 2010).
190 Angela Oels
The UN General Assembly (UNGA) discussed climate
change and security on two occasions, on 22
May 2008 and on 14 April 2011.7
In 2009, the small island
states, with the support of most industrialized
countries, put the climate change and security nexus
on the agenda of the UN General Assembly. They requested
a report by the UN Secretary-General on Climate
Change and its Possible Security Implications,
which was presented by Ban Ki-moon on 11 September
2009 (UNGA 2009). Like its predecessors, the report
defines climate change as “a ‘threat multiplier’,
exacerbating threats caused by persistent poverty,
weak institutions for resource management and conflict
resolution, fault lines and a history of mistrust between
communities and nations, and inadequate access
to information or resources” (UNGA 2009: 2).
The report defines security in terms of human vulnerability
to climate change – fully in line with human security,
but without explicitly using the term. It states
in the introduction “The principal focus in the
present report is on the security of individuals and
communities. It ...is consistent with the suggestion of
the Human Development Report 1994” that, for ordinary
people, “security symbolized protection from the
threat of disease, hunger, unemployment, crime, social
conflict, political repression and environmental
hazards” (UNGA 2009: 4–5).
The report also acknowledges that most states
consider human vulnerability and national security
as interdependent (UNGA 2009: 1,5). The issues
raised in the report range from threats to human development
to threats to human lives lost as a result of
intra- or inter-state violence. Mitigation of and adaptation
to climate change are acknowledged as essential,
but the main part of the report is dedicated to action
in four other policy areas. First, “climate-proving economic
development” is recommended as a strategy of
sustainable development in order to enhance resilience
and grow adaptive capacity (UN GA 2009: 25).
It is argued that “the best way to reduce [developing
countries’] vulnerability is to help to lift them out of
poverty” (UNGA 2009: 28). Second, in the face of a
rising number of expected extreme weather events,
building capacity for disaster risk reduction and disaster
preparedness is recommended (UNGA 2009: 27).
Third, in the field of migration policy, a new legal
framework to protect persons displaced by climate
change is called for (UNGA 2009: 15–20). The UN is
advised to engage in planned resettlements and to
think about solutions for those becoming stateless as
a result of rising sea levels. Fourth, in the fields of defence
and development policy, capacity building for
conflict prevention is proposed. The ‘weak’ states of
Africa are considered a particular security threat, as
their institutional capacities could be overwhelmed by
extreme weather events and resulting mass migration
(UNGA 2009: 18). This reading of human vulnerability
is clearly concerned about the homeland security
of Northern industrialized countries.
The author concludes that the UK, Germany, and
the small island states have successfully put the security
implications of climate change on the international
political agenda. The UN Secretary-General’s
report on Climate Change and its Possible Security
Implications is the most authoritative political statement
to date. It combines the two strands of the academic
debate: it defines climate change as a threat to
international security and human vulnerability in developing
countries, but also dedicates long parts of
the report to the risk of violent conflict in regions of
state fragility, and recommends conflict prevention.
9.3 Theoretical Perspectives on
Climate Change as a Security
Issue
Climate change is now a security issue, politics and
science tell us. How is climate change being produced
as a security issue and what are the policy implications
of this development? Three theoretical perspectives
have been chosen to shed light on this question. First,
the Copenhagen School warns of the dangers to democracy
which are implied in the successful ‘securitization’
of an issue. The analytical framework suggested
by the Copenhagen School discusses whether
climate change has been successfully securitized, triggering
extraordinary measures (9.3.1). The human security
perspective argues that once security is redefined
as human security, the ‘securitization’ of an issue
propels sustainable development policies to the top of
the policy agenda (9.3.2). The section sketches the human
security approach to climate change and analyses
to what extent human security has played a role in the
‘securitization’ of climate change and which policies
have been facilitated as a result. Finally, the Paris
School argues that the ‘securitization’ of an issue is
neither good nor bad per se – it depends on the policy
7 The debate on climate change and human security
occurred in the UNGA (Brauch 2009a, 2011) on 22 May
2008 and also on 14 April 2011; see at: <http://www.
un.org/News/Press/docs//2011/ga11072.doc.htm> (7
June 2011).
From ‘Securitization’ of Climate Change to ‘Climatization’ of the Security Field 191
implications which need to be assessed. For the Paris
School, the failed ‘securitization’ of climate change is
better understood as the ‘climatization’ of the security
field (9.3.3). This section introduces the Foucaultian
account of security used by the Paris School and investigates
whether there is evidence for a transformation
of security practices resulting from the production of
climate change as a security issue by the professionals
of (in)security. In particular, possible changes in defence
policy, migration policy, and development assistance
are discussed which could be linked to the
‘climatization’ of the security field. It will be concluded
that the Foucaultian framework proposed by
the Paris School is the most capable of offering a
comprehensive assessment of the policy implications
of climate change as a security issue, which are neither
all bad nor all good.
9.3.1 Failed Securitization of Climate Change:
Absence of Extraordinary Measures
The term ‘securitization’ was coined by Ole Wæver to
criticize a form of policymaking in which extraordinary
measures and undemocratic procedures are enabled
in the name of ‘security’. Bill McSweeney (1996)
introduced the term ‘Copenhagen School’ to refer to
the work of Buzan, Wæver and others (Buzan 1991,
2004; Buzan/Wæver/de Wilde 1998; Buzan/Wæver
2003; Wæver 1995, 1999, 2000). This section introduces
the framework of analysis and assesses empirically
the extent to which climate change can be considered
successfully securitized according to the
Copenhagen School.
Security is redefined by the Copenhagen School as
a performative speech act that carries out an action by
speaking the word ‘security’ (Wæver 1995: 55): “By uttering
‘security’, a state-representative moves a particular
development into a specific area, and thereby
claims a special right to use whatever means are necessary
to block it.” To study whether an issue has been
securitized, the researcher is advised to investigate
two things: firstly, elite speech acts need to be identified
that define an issue as an “existential threat to a
designated referent object” and thereby “justif[y] the
use of extraordinary measures to handle” it (Buzan/
Wæver/ de Wilde 1998: 21). Secondly, a relevant audience
has to be identified that shows “signs of [...] acceptance”
of these speech acts (Buzan/Wæver/de
Wilde 1998: 25). It is not required that exceptional
measures are actually adopted for an issue to count as
securitized; it just has to appear possible (Buzan/
Wæver/de Wilde 1998: 25). Security is said to carry
with it “a history and a set of connotations that it cannot
escape” (Wæver 1995: 47). These connotations include
thinking about an issue in terms of threat-defence,
attributing responsibility to the state (Wæver
1995: 47), and legitimizing exceptional forms of politics
(Wæver 1995: 55). This logic does not necessarily
imply the use of force or military means: “it is a coincidence
that military means have traditionally been
the ultimo ratio” (Wæver 1995: 53). Bail-out packages
for failing banks which involve huge sums of taxpayers’
money and which are pushed through parliament
without due process are a prime example of this. The
successful securitization of an issue and the use of extraordinary
measures are considered as a failure to
deal with the issue by means of normal politics
(Wæver 1995: 29). The Copenhagen School admits
that strategies of securitization may be instrumental in
mobilizing support and resources for an issue under
certain circumstances (Buzan/Wæver/de Wilde 1998:
29). However, the Copenhagen School is highly critical
of processes of securitization and recommends
strategies of desecuritization in order to bring issues
back to ‘normal’ politics and democratic procedure.
What are the findings of those who have investigated
the ‘securitization’ of climate change from the
perspective of the Copenhagen School? Is there evidence
of securitizing moves by elite speakers, and if
so, in which years? An initial finding is that the articulation
of climate change as existential threat is nothing
new. In the formation phase of the climate regime
from 1985 to 1992, climate change was also described
as an existential threat by heads of government and in
newspaper reporting in several industrialized countries,
among them Germany and the UK (Carvalho/
Burgess 2005: 1466–1467). In 1990, for example,
these ‘securitizing moves’ facilitated the ambitious
German target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions
by 25 per cent by the year 2000 (Weingart/Engels/
Pansegrau 2000: 272). The dramatic language of existential
threat is said to have returned from 2003 to
2009 (Brauch 2009; Oels 2009a). However, the majority
of those who articulate climate change as a security
issue do not call for extraordinary measures but
instead emphasize the importance of the ‘normal’ political
process of international negotiations under the
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(Oels 2009a). It is only a few people, like former US
Vice-President Al Gore, who actually call for “the urgency
and resolve that has previously been seen only
when nations mobilized for war”8
.
There are actually a number of different security
discourses being mobilized by the elite speakers, with
192 Angela Oels
potentially different policy implications (Detraz/Betsill
2009). While US speakers, delegates from the
small island states, and speakers from the military establishment
are clearly concerned about the national
security implications of climate change, developing
countries and the IPCC, as well as UN resolutions,
analyse human vulnerability to climate change and address
climate change as an issue of sustainable development
and more recently as a human security issue
(see section 9.2) The Copenhagen School does not,
however, distinguish between these different discourses
– it is assumed that good intentions are not
necessarily linked to desirable results (Trombetta
2011: 140). The Copenhagen framework is blind to
the fact that the articulation of climate change as an
issue of human security could have different policy implications
from the articulation of climate change as
an issue of national security.
Were these speech acts accepted by a relevant audience?
Existing studies have found it difficult to identify
what constitutes a ‘relevant’ audience. Oels
(2009a) suggested that the community of international
states might be a relevant audience, and proposed
looking at the debates in the UN Security
Council and the UN General Assembly. The findings
of this analysis are divided: while developing countries
clearly opposed the treatment of climate change
in the UN Security Council, there was widespread
consensus on discussion of climate change and security
in the UN General Assembly (UNGA 2009). The
report by the UN Secretary-General on Climate
Change and its Possible Security Implications uses the
language of human vulnerability, but makes it very
clear that for most countries, human vulnerability and
national security are interdependent concerns (UNGA
2009: 1; see section 9.2.2). In conclusion, there seems
to be audience acceptance amongst international
states that human vulnerability to climate change impacts
– especially in developing countries - requires
political action. Secondly, Brauch (2009) has suggested
studying international opinion polls to see
whether climate change is considered to be a ‘serious’
threat and if the figures supporting this have been going
up or down. Comparative national opinion polls
from 2005 to 2007 show that public concern about
climate change is huge and increased over that period
of time. However, Oels (2009a) argues that this does
not necessarily imply that people would find extraordinary
measures the appropriate means of addressing
the problem of climate change. Third, Oels (2009a)
suggested reviewing national media representations of
climate change and searching for securitizing language.
In the absence of media analyses of securitizing
language after 2003, there were only early hints of
securitizing language in the German and British newspapers
around 1990 and in British newspapers from
2003 onwards (Carvalho/Burgess 2005: 1466–1467,
Weingart/Engels/Pansegrau 2000: 272). A more recent
study addresses the discursive construction of
‘climate refugees’ as a security issue in the media and
its policy implications, using case studies of media
representations of small island people and of Hurricane
Katrina victims (Oels/Carvalho 2011).
Finally, does evidence exist of extraordinary measures
in the field of climate policy? Julia Trombetta has
suggested that in foreign policy it is possible that “the
securitization of climate change would result in confrontational
politics, with states adopting politics to
protect their territory against sea-level rising and immigration;
with the Security Council adopting resolutions
to impose emission targets, and even military action
against polluting factories; and surveillance
systems to monitor individual emissions” (Trombetta
2008: 599). There is no evidence of such measures in
foreign policy. In the environmental sector, Hans
Günter Brauch has suggested that the successful securitization
of climate policy would “legitimate extraordinary
and costly measures that require a progressive
increase in energy efficiency and a decarbonization of
the energy system by increasing renewable energy
sources but without creating serious food security
challenges” and this would mobilize “significant public
funds” (Brauch 2009: 71). For Brauch, successful
securitization depended on the outcome of the Copenhagen
COP-15 negotiations under the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (Brauch 2009:
102). With the stalemate at the Copenhagen negotiations
and the weak Cancun Agreements, all observers
agree that the securitization of climate change has
failed (Oels 2009a; Brauch/Oswald Spring 2011; Oswald
Spring/Brauch 2011).
Oels (2009a) has argued that the political momentum
for climate change in 2007 was lost when the Bali
negotiations under the UNFCCC postponed decision-making
to Copenhagen. Between Bali and Copenhagen,
the financial crisis became a major policy
priority and the climate negotiations never regained
the same priority that they had in 2007. Despite the
election of a new US President with strong climate
8 Gore, Al, 2007: “Nobel Lecture”, 10 December 2007 in
Oslo, The Nobel Foundation; at: <http://nobelprize.
org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-lecture_en.
html> (3 October 2010).
From ‘Securitization’ of Climate Change to ‘Climatization’ of the Security Field 193
policy ambitions, Obama’s failure to get his climate
legislation through the House of Representatives and
the Senate in time for Copenhagen was the breaking
point for a binding agreement in Copenhagen. When
compared with 9/11 in 2001 or the financial crisis of
2008–2009, it is obvious that no emergency measures
concerning climate change have been taken. The terrorist
attacks in 2001 and the financial crisis of 2008–
2009 were responded to with frequent exceptional
‘crisis talks’ by heads of government, followed by determined
legislation passed in (undemocratically)
short time with little consultation. In both cases, fundamental
rights were violated by these new laws. In
contrast, the issue of climate change was tackled by
existing forums (G-8, UN General Assembly, UN Security
Council), and almost all requests for policymaking
were directed to the negotiations under the UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of analysing
the ‘securitization’ of climate change drawing on
the Copenhagen School’s framework? First, regarding
the production of climate change as a security issue,
limiting analysis to speech acts is a significant constraint.
By doing so, the Copenhagen School has in
the past excluded visual representations and security
practices (Stritzel 2007; McDonald 2008). The Paris
School and revised versions of securitization theory
include such practices in their analysis (Hansen 2010;
see chap. 14 by Rørbæk). Second, it is both a strength
and a weakness of the Copenhagen School that it puts
forward a framework of analysis that fixes the meaning
of security to just one option (existential threat)
and the policy response to one option (extraordinary
measures). Stripple has suggested that the Copenhagen
School is “constructivist in regard to social relations,
but more objectivist in regard to security” (Stripple
2002: 109-110). The Copenhagen School contributes
to a further marginalization of alternative security
discourses by binding the meaning of security to exceptionality
(McDonald 2008: 579). However, “the
meaning of security is not an ontological given, but
changes across time” (Floyd 2007a: 333). Because it
has fixed the meaning of security, the Copenhagen
School is incapable of distinguishing between competing
security discourses and their very different policy
implications (Detraz/Betsill 2009). Moreover, the Copenhagen
School is blind to the transformations in
the logic of security and in the practices of security
which occur when the environment becomes the referent
object (Trombetta 2011: 136). Third, regarding
policy implications, a strength is that we know
whether or not security discourses are legitimizing a
political state of exception. In the case of climate
change, the Copenhagen School reassures us that the
construction of climate change as a security issue has
not yet passed the critical threshold of exceptionality.
Does this mean that the articulation of climate
change as a security issue has not had any consequences
for policymaking? Didier Bigo (2007) has
claimed that narrowing the meaning of security to exceptionality
means that only the tip of the iceberg of
securitization processes is rendered visible. All other
policy implications which could be linked to the articulation
and the practices of security remain invisible
and unrevealed. Trombetta insists that the securitization
of the environment must be considered ‘successful’
in such cases where it “brought about measures
and policies that probably would not otherwise have
been undertaken” – not only in cases where exceptional
measures were enabled (Trombetta 2011: 136).
Trombetta argues that the politicization of the environment
has in many cases been achieved through its
securitization (Trombetta 2011: 142). Floyd insists that
the securitization of the environment can trigger positive
environmental outcomes (Floyd 2007a: 342),
while desecuritization can be negative in cases where
the issue simply disappears from the policy agenda altogether
(Floyd 2007a: 343, 347). Trombetta suggests
that in the environmental sector, the logic of security
is often transformed into something more along the
lines of risk management, for example using the precautionary
principle and the concept of resilience
(Trombetta 2011: 135, 142). In the case of the European
Union, Julia Trombetta has claimed that the climate
security discourse has facilitated the development
of a common energy policy: “The plan
committed member states to raising the European
share of renewable energy to 20 per cent, increasing
energy efficiency, completing the internal market for
electricity and gas, and the development of a common
external energy policy” (Trombetta 2008: 598).
The driving force for these developments was – according
to Trombetta – the merging of the concern
for energy security (to secure energy supply) with concerns
about climate security (to secure climate stability).
The original Copenhagen framework is blind to
such observations below the threshold of exceptional-
ity.
The Copenhagen School reveals that the ‘securitization’
of climate change has failed: the articulation of
climate change as a security issue in numerous elite
speech acts has not (yet) passed the critical threshold
of exceptionality. The Copenhagen School can also
reassure us that we should not be worried. Criticism
194 Angela Oels
raised against the Copenhagen School points to the
possibility that a transformation in the logic of security
could trigger positive outcomes for the environment
and for people. The following section explores
whether a new reading of security in terms of human
security can actually facilitate desirable policy out-
comes.
9.3.2 Climate change as a Threat to Human
Security: An Agenda for Sustainable
Development
A second perspective frames climate change as a
threat to human security. Human security is clearly a
normative approach as it is concerned with what security
ought to be. The human security perspective is
first and foremost “a policymaking agenda” that originated
from the policymaking world, not a theoretical
framework of analysis (Floyd 2007b: 38).
It was the United Nations Development Programme
that introduced the term human security in
its Human Development Report (1994). The human
security approach takes the individual lives of people
as the referent object of security, not the political order
of states. The aim is “to highlight persisting insecurities
of individuals or groups of individuals” (Floyd
2007b: 39). The UNDP argued in 1994 that human security
should include both “freedom from fear”
(mainly safety from violent threats) and “freedom
from want” (i.e. poverty, disease, climate change). The
UNDP envisioned a broad concept of human security
that covered threats to economic security, food security,
health security, environmental security, personal
security, community security, and political security.
The influential Commission on Human Security further
specified the meaning of human security. It argued
that “[t]he focus must broaden from the state to
the security of people – to human security” (Commission
on Human Security 2003). However, the exact
meaning of human security remains contested.
In essence, “those who work within the human
security tradition perform securitizing moves themselves”
(Floyd 2007b: 42). It is hoped that framing
environmental problems as security issues will contribute
to “making them more important than other
politicised issues” (Barnett 2001: 136). Articulating climate
change as a security issue is an instrumental
attempt to turn climate change into a policy priority.
It is hoped that the counterproductive effects of securitization
as defined by the Copenhagen School can
be avoided once the meaning of security is reclaimed
as human security.
The human security perspective reveals the manner
in which a national security perspective fails to address
the root causes of environmental problems
(Floyd 2007a: 342). The human security perspective
emphasizes that “the sovereign state is one of the
main causes of insecurity: it is part of the problem
rather than the solution” (Jones 1995: 310). Daniel
Deudney (1990) has argued that traditional notions of
national security are totally inappropriate and counterproductive
when it comes to securing the environment.
The national security perspective is “reactive” in
that it is about “using the troops to prevent disruption
to social order after ‘nature’ has done her worst”
(Dalby 2009: 135). Followers of human security believe
that their voice in the environmental security debate
can transform the meaning and the practices associated
with security: “Environmental security,
wittingly or not, contests the legitimacy of the realist
conception of security by pointing to the contradictions
of security as the defence of territory and resistance
to change” (Barnett 2001: 137).
As a suitable alternative to readings of environmental
security as national security, Jon Barnett
(2001), Simon Dalby (2009), and others (Barnett/
Matthew/O’Brien 2010) suggest reframing security as
human security. In the global environmental change
research community, human security is defined as
something that is achieved when and where individuals
and communities have the options necessary to end,
mitigate or adapt to threats to their human, environmental
and social rights; have the capacity and freedom
to exercise these options; and actively participate in pursuing
these options (GECHS 1999).
The human security perspective claims that economic,
political, and cultural processes structure people’s access
to resources and hence their capacity to respond
to climate change. When the impacts of climate
change strike, the current state of people’s human security
determines their capacity to respond, adapt,
and cope. At the same time, the impacts of climate
change erode human security as climate change reconfigures
access to and destroys resources. For example,
farmers and others who depend on natural resources
are particularly vulnerable to climate change, yet their
fate is mediated by governmental institutions which
may offer emergency shelters and compensate losses
from natural disasters. Dalby (2009) has suggested
that working towards peace in the face of climate
change requires first, drastically decarbonizing the developed
economies, and second, preparing for the climate-induced
disruptions that cannot be avoided, by
means of conflict prevention and sustainable develop-
From ‘Securitization’ of Climate Change to ‘Climatization’ of the Security Field 195
ment. It is claimed that human security offers a form
of securitization without the “counterproductive outcomes
that come from securitization by the state; indeed
it points to a role for the state in mitigating the
drivers of environmental change and in facilitating responses
to minimize insecurities” (Barnett/Matthew/
O’Brien 2010: 20).
Simon Dalby has claimed that not only should the
meaning of “security” be reconsidered, but also the
meaning of “environment”. Dalby draws on Paul Crutzen’s
idea of a new geological era called the ‘Anthropocene’
in which the activities of humans have become
key drivers of changes in the biosphere. Dalby
argues that the emergent Earth Systems science has
demonstrated how it does not make sense to think of
the environment as something external to humans. Instead,
humans and nature are mutually constituted by
politics, and closely linked in an interconnected system
characterized by emergence, contingency, and
change (Dalby 2009: 147, 170). Securing the environment
is therefore no longer about preserving or stabilizing
the status quo (Dalby 2009: 168). Instead, it is
about enhancing the system’s capacity for adaptive
emergence, its resilience to disruptions, and its capacity
to regenerate (Dalby 2009: 168).
Has the human security perspective been influential
in framing the way climate change is perceived?
The concept of human security has achieved widespread
acceptance in international policy discourse
over the last two decades (McCormack 2010: 39). The
UN General Assembly hosted its first systematic discussion
on human security on 22 May 2008. At this
meeting, “many countries listed as major threats to
HS [human security] environmental degradation, climate
change, natural disasters and forced migration”
(Brauch 2011: 4). On 8 March 2010, the UN SecretaryGeneral
presented his first report on Human Security,
in which he listed “climate change and the increase in
the frequency and intensity of climate-related hazard
events” as one of five priorities of the UN (Brauch
2011: 4). On 14 April 2011, the UN General Assembly
hosted an informal thematic debate on human security
in which climate change featured once more
(Brauch 2011). The EU has mentioned the human security
implications of climate change in its Solana Report
2008. At the level of national governments, only
Greece has recognised climate change officially as a
challenge for human security.9
As was argued above (9.2.1, 9.2.2), a human vulnerability
perspective is dominant in the realm of climate
science and climate policy. In climate science, the
IPCC as the advisory body for policymakers is committed
to a human security perspective on climate
change in its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) due by
2014. The IPCC will address the human security implications
of climate change in chapter 12 of Working
Group II, according to the government approved outline
of the AR5. In the realm of international politics,
the UN Secretary-General’s 2009 Report on Climate
Change and its Possible Security Implications defines
security in terms of “the security of individuals and
communities” (UNGA 2009: 4), much in line with a
human security perspective. The report explicitly cites
the Human Development Report 1994, which was essential
in the debate on human security (UNGA 2009:
5). However, at the same time it acknowledges that
for most states, national security and human vulnerability
are two sides of the same coin. While an explicit
framing of climate change as an issue of human security
has emerged rather recently, there is a long tradition
in international science and politics of focusing
on human vulnerability to climate change impacts.
Such a focus on human vulnerability is clearly in line
with a discourse framed in terms of human security
(labelled environmental security by Detraz and Betsill),
as Detraz and Betsill demonstrate in their discourse
analysis of climate change science and politics
(Detraz/Betsill 2009).
Has (human) security framing propelled the issue
of climate change to the top of the policy agenda as
intended by those making securitizing moves? Or is it
too early to ask this question since explicit framing of
climate change in terms of human security has begun
emerging rather recently? For many years, global climate
governance was depoliticized and technocratic,
allowing a broad range of actors to become part of
the negotiation process with a rather low level of
commitment (Methmann 2009). The last milestones
of global climate governance were the adoption of the
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in
1992 and the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. From 2007 to
2009, a process of politicization of climate change occurred
which was certainly helped if not facilitated
through its securitization in those years (Trombetta
2011: 142). In the years 2007–2009, climate change
and its possible security implications were certainly at
the top of the policy agendas of the European Union,
G8/G20, the UN Security Council and the UN General
Assembly. Has this politicization facilitated decisive
mitigation and adaptation action on climate change?
9 “Greece assumes the Chairmanship of the Human Security
Network May 2007-2008”; at: <http://www.mfa.gr/
www.mfa.gr/Articles/en-US/ts18052007_KL2115.htm>.
196 Angela Oels
Not yet, as the failure to officially adopt the Copenhagen
Accord (COP 15 in December 2009) shows,
and as the officially adopted weak Cancún Agreements
(COP 16 in December 2010) illustrate. The
Cancún Agreements officially integrated the main
points of the Copenhagen Accord into the UNFCCC
by having them adopted by all member states. Since
Copenhagen, the US and the EU have used all their
diplomatic power to coerce developing countries into
signing the Copenhagen Accord, for example by
threatening to withdraw or cut development assistance.
As a result, 180 countries have since signed on
to the Copenhagen Accord. In the Cancún Agreements,
the goal of limiting average global warming to
below 2°C above pre-industrial levels was officially
adopted by all member states. This is to be achieved
by voluntary mitigation pledges which developed
countries committed to at their own discretion when
signing on to the Copenhagen Accord. Developing
countries on the other hand agreed to self-defined
mitigation actions. Some improved standards for
measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) of
mitigation actions, and support for developing countries,
were adopted in Cancún. Developed countries
collectively committed in Copenhagen and Cancún to
mobilizing up to US$ 30 billion in 2010–2012 and
US$ 100 billion a year by 2020 in order to support
mitigation and adaptation measures in developing
countries. In addition, a Green Climate Fund was established,
the Cancún Adaptation Framework was set
up, action to reduce emissions from deforestation
(REDD+) was taken, and in Cancún a Technology
Mechanism was established. New legally binding
emission reduction targets for a second commitment
period of the Kyoto Protocol were, however, missing.
In sum, the politicization of climate change might
have been facilitated through its securitization. However,
the outcomes of the politicization process remain
far below the expectations of the human security
community.
So what are the strengths and weaknesses of the
human security perspective on climate change? One
strength of the human security perspective is that it
has a lot to say about what the meaning of ‘security’
and ‘environment’ should be and how securing civilization
from climate change could be achieved. It is assumed
that decisive action on climate change will be
triggered by the climate security discourse, most likely
the drastic decarbonization of the economy. However,
for critics, the human security perspective remains
naive and unrealistic wishful thinking
(Schweller 1999). With regard to climate change, its
politicization was certainly helped by the human security
framing of the issue. However, there is little evidence
so far that focussing on human vulnerability to
climate change has facilitated substantial mitigation
action on climate change and/or sustainable develop-
ment.
A major weakness of the human security perspective
is that it fails to take into account that the articulation
of climate change as a (human) security issue
might trigger a whole range of other policies which
were not intended by the proponents of this discourse.
Rita Floyd argues that broadening security in
the direction of human security has not always had
positive consequences – it has been counterproductive
in some instances (Floyd 2007b). In the field of climate
policy, McNamara and Gibson (2009: 480)
demonstrate that the securitization of ‘climate refugees’
by environmental organizations has directed policy
attention away from mitigation and towards migration
and border control. Another weakness of the
human security perspective is that it does not pay sufficient
attention to how the meaning of human security
has changed over time. In the process of ‘mainstreaming’
(i.e. its widespread usage in the realm of
politics), human security has become reinterpreted.
Duffield and Waddell (2006) have offered an insightful
genealogy (i.e. historic discourse analysis) of human
security from a Foucaultian perspective. Despite
the fact that Duffield and Waddell’s argument is put
forward within a theoretical framework more in line
with the Paris School (9.3.3), it is used here to indicate
the blind spots of the human security perspective.
When it was originally conceived, the concept of
human security sought to balance concerns about development
with concerns about security. As Duffield
and Waddell (2006: 5) show in their historical analysis,
the development pole was concerned with “improving
the resilience of global populations through better
coordination and biopolitical regulation”. The concept
of human security was used to facilitate sustainable development
in line with the UNDP’s Human Development
Report in the 1990s. In the realm of security,
the main concern was to secure global circulation
from disruption (Duffield/Waddell 2006: 10). In the
1990s, security concerns shifted from inter-state wars
to intra-state violent conflicts. These so-called “new
(civil) wars” became conceptualized as “development
in reverse” (Collier 2000: ix). Because it enhances resilience,
sustainable development became conceptualized
as a “bulwark” against organized violence (Duffield/Waddell
2006: 6). It is on this note that develop-
From ‘Securitization’ of Climate Change to ‘Climatization’ of the Security Field 197
ment and security were conceptualized as two sides of
the same coin.
The meaning of human security has changed over
time, with an important rupture after 9/11 (Duffield/
Waddell 2006). Duffield and Waddell argue that after
9/11, the balance between development and security
in the concept of human security tipped towards security.
As a result, concern with global circulation is
now dominant, “the security of ‘homeland’ populations
has moved centre-stage” (Duffield/Waddell
2006: 19). Southern populations’ human security is
only relevant to the extent that it contributes to
Northern ‘homeland’ security (Duffield/Waddell
2006: 12). In the realm of development, this means
that development funding is concentrated on “regions
and sub-populations deemed critical in relation to the
dangers and uncertainties of global interdependence”
(Duffield/Waddell 2006: 11). In the realm of security,
this means that so-called ‘weak’ or ‘failing’ states become
conceptualized as a threat to global circulation
and ‘homeland’ security. In the name of human security,
military interventions which override national sovereignty
are considered justified where ‘failing’ states
(and violent conflicts between competing groups of the
population) pose a risk to global circulation.
Tara McCormack argues that the concept of human
security has in both the past and present been
abused to legitimize military interventions in sovereign
states in the name of the human security of the
population (McCormack 2010: 36–40). The 2001 report
by the International Commission on Intervention
and State Sovereignty The Responsibility to Protect
“moves the earlier juridically based idea of ‘humanitarian
intervention’ as requiring authorization
under the UN charter, onto the terrain of moral duty”
(Duffield/Waddell 2006: 8). Human security therefore
clearly has the potential to legitimize extraordinary
measures such as military interventions in sovereign
states. As a result, the outcomes of securitizing
moves in the name of human security can be just as violent,
short-term-oriented, and undemocratic as those
criticized by the Copenhagen School.
This suggests that assessment of the policy implications
of framing climate change as a (human) security
issue must not be limited to environmental politics
– instead, it should trace policy impacts in a variety
of sectors such as defence, migration, and
development. It is these unintended side effects of the
climate security discourse that must be investigated in
order to reveal the policy implications of the ‘securitization’
of climate change. The Paris School offers a
suitable framework for investigating changing policies
and practices in the sectors of defence, migration,
and development.
9.3.3 Climatization of Security: Securing
Global Circulation from Disruptions
Caused by Climate-induced Disasters
The claim to be substantiated in the following section
is that climate change as a (human) security issue facilitates
a ‘climatization’ of the security field. The security
field is a Bourdieuian, socially constructed space,
the boundaries of which are constantly being renegotiated
among its legitimate members and would-be
members (Bigo 2008a). The security field is therefore
not limited to the military, police, and intelligence,
but also includes securitized sectors like migration
and development – and more recently climate change
itself. ‘Climatization’ of the security field means that
existing security practices are applied to the issue of
climate change and that new practices from the field
of climate policy are introduced into the security
field. Overall, a restructuring of the security field as a
result of its ‘climatization’ may be expected. The empirical
section assesses the defence sector, the migration
sector, and the development sector in search of
evidence for the claim that climate change is being
produced as a (human) security issue by professionals
of (in)security. Secondly, it will be explored whether
there is evidence of transforming or of new security
practices resulting from the recognition of climate
change as a legitimate threat to (human) security. For
reasons of space and clarity, no analysis of the underlying
governmentalities (i.e. rationalities of government)
will be offered, which inform security practices
in each sector (see Oels 2012).
This section starts with an introduction to the
Paris School (9.3.3.1). In the empirical section, the ‘climatization’
of the defence sector, the migration sector,
and the development sector (9.3.3.3) will be assessed,
and the practices enabled in the name of
human security will be explored. It is claimed that climate
change as an issue of human security is mainly
about securing global circulation from disruptions
caused by climate change induced disasters.
9.3.3.1 The Paris School
The Paris School, represented primarily by the writing
of Didier Bigo, investigates the everyday practices of
“professionals of (in)security” and studies the ways in
which subjects and objects are produced as security
problems as a result of these practices (Bigo 2008b:
12). The label ‘Paris School’ was coined by Ole Wæver
198 Angela Oels
because most of the contributing authors were based
in Paris, with the exception of Huysmans (Bigo/Guild
2005; Huysmans 2000, 2006; Tsoukala 2004; Bonelli
2005; Hanon 2000). The Paris School draws on
Foucault’s governmentality lectures where security is
conceptualized as a security dispositif (Foucault
2007). Foucault draws on the term security dispositif
to emphasize that elements as heterogeneous as architectures,
discourses, legal texts, institutions, technological
devices, and the daily practices of actors are
linked by a complex web of relationships and taken
together, render a social problem governable as a security
issue (Foucault 1982: 194). Security dispositifs
are dynamic, the relationships between the elements
can change over time, and new elements may link up.
The term discourse refers to “a specific ensemble of
ideas, concepts, and categorizations that are produced,
reproduced, and transformed in a particular
set of practices and through which meaning is given
to physical and social realities” (Hajer 1997: 44). The
problematization of security renders a social field governable
in a certain way. The following analysis focuses
on technologies of security, the practices that
actors engage in to produce knowledge about and to
manage an object as a security problem or risk.
The Paris School argues that the production of issues
by the transnational and transversal security field
is neither good nor bad per se – it depends on the policy
implications. Most analysts in the Paris School focus
on simply revealing the practices and policy implications
of specific security dispositifs, and in doing so
highlight unintended and problematic developments.
The following analysis remains in this tradition. Others
go one step further and offer an explicitly consequentialist
assessment of the policy implications. In
the case of HIV/AIDS, Stefan Elbe (2009) has suggested
that the positive impact of international policy
attention and upscaled financial resources for HIV education,
testing, and treatment considerably outweigh
the negative consequences of the securitization of
HIV/AIDS, for example the stigmatization (or even
exclusion from the labour market and from travel) of
risk groups.
9.3.3.2 Rendering the Risk of Climate Change
Governable: Mitigation, Adaptation,
and Disaster Management
Three policy fields have emerged to address the risks
of climate change: mitigation, adaptation, and managing
disasters induced by climate change. The risk construction
of climate change has shifted significantly
over the last 25 years (Oels 2012). Reducing greenhouse
gas emissions in order to slow down and halt
global warming (mitigation) has been the main focus
of climate policy from its very inception (Oels 2005).
When the IPCC announced in 2001 that climate
change was already happening and could not be
stopped (though it could be influenced in intensity),
adaptation to projected impacts of climate change
emerged as a complementary policy field (Oels 2012).
Since 2003, science and politics have addressed climate
change as a security issue, with a peak of attention
in 2007. Several policy documents have defined
climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’ that exacerbates
existing vulnerabilities and tensions (9.2.2).
The discussion dealing with climate change as a
security issue is a small, but growing part of the larger
field of climate change policy in which mitigation and
adaptation still dominate policymaking. For the Paris
School, the articulation of climate change as a security
issue indicates that the transnational field of professionals
of (in)security (i.e. police, military, intelligence,
etc.) has recognized the primary and secondary
impacts of unmediated climate change as a
legitimate threat. As a result, the security field has become
‘climatized’ and new security practices have
evolved. The following analysis is limited to the risk
perception of climate change as a security issue (for
mitigation and adaptation, Oels 2012).
9.3.3.3 ‘Climatization’ of Security: Defence,
Migration, Development
Which reading of security do the professionals of
(in)security perform in the case of climate change?
Science and politics have focused on human vulnerability
to climate change impacts in the past, a reading
that is very much in line with human security (Detraz/
Betsill 2009). The possible threat of violent conflict as
a result of climate change has been only one among
many concerns (Detraz/Betsill 2009). More recently,
the term human security is officially emerging in the
language of the IPCC, the EU and the UN General
Assembly (9.2.2). Mark Duffield and Nicholas Waddell
have suggested reading “human security as a relation
of governance” (Duffield/Waddell 2006: 2).
They conceptualize human security as a biopolitical
security dispositif, concerned with the population as
referent object of security: “Security in this context relates
to improving the collective resilience of a given
population against the contingent and uncertain nature
of existence” (Duffield/Waddell 2006: 4). In
their reading, human security is about securing global
circulation from disruptions and informs “how international
institutions and actors categorize, separate
From ‘Securitization’ of Climate Change to ‘Climatization’ of the Security Field 199
and act upon Southern populations” (Duffield/Waddell
2006: 2).
Once human security is conceptualized as a form
of biopolitical governance, we can explore the intended
and unintended policy implications of viewing
climate change as a (human) security issue in a field
constituted by the professionals of security. The following
empirical section assesses the defence, migration,
and development sectors in search of evidence
for the claim that climate change is being produced as
a (human) security issue by professionals of (in)security.
Secondly, the section explores whether evidence
exists of transforming or new security practices as a
result of the recognition of climate change as a legitimate
threat to (human) security.
To what extent is climate change being produced
as a (human) security issue by the defence sector and
how is the defence sector restructuring as a result?
There is clear evidence that climate change has been
recognized as a legitimate threat by the defence community
in Northern industrialized states. Climate
change is acknowledged as a threat in two-thirds of
the 24 national security strategies reviewed by
Michael Brzoska. In the majority of cases, climate
change is defined as an issue of human security
(Brzoska 2010: 6–7). Only four countries (the United
States, Russia, Finland and the United Kingdom) conceptualize
climate change as a major threat that could
trigger violent conflict and have national security implications
(Brzoska 2010: 8). The main threats recognized
are disasters induced by climate change that
could spark humanitarian crises, large-scale migration,
and violent conflict. To counter these secondary impacts
of climate change, the national security strategies
recommend building more disaster management
capacity (Brzoska 2010: 6–7). At the level of policy implementation,
that is, in defence planning documents,
capacity building for disaster management is again
the main means of preparing for climate change
(Brzoska 2010: 10). The growing importance of disaster
management is underlined by the 2011 special report
on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and
Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation
which is being prepared by the IPCC. The Special Report
was proposed jointly by the UN International
Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) and the
Government of Norway.
The emerging science makes it very clear that it is
impossible to predict future climate-related disasters.
However, it is possible to identify regions which are
more threatened by climate change than others, socalled
‘climate change hot spots’. Indicators previously
used to identify populations which are particularly
‘vulnerable’ to climate change could now be used
to monitor when the ‘vulnerable’ might become ‘dangerous’,
for example by migrating in large numbers
(Oels 2009b). The study commissioned by the Pentagon
suggests using the same indexing and ranking systems
developed to prioritize those most in need of
support to mark dangerous “migration hot spots” and
“conflict hot spots” (Schwartz/Randall 2003: 2). It is
by such moves that the human security of populations
displaced by climate change is translated into a problem
of national security for ‘homeland’ populations
in industrialized states (Duffield/Waddell 2006: 19).
Hartmann identifies a potential role for the military
before and after a climate-induced disaster
strikes. The use of Northern military to intervene in
Southern sovereign states is facilitated by the concepts
of ‘human security’ and ‘failed state’ (Hartmann
2010). There are two types of possible interventions:
First, as a preventive measure, civilian-military stability
interventions might be enabled in ‘weak’ or ‘failing
states’ which have been identified as ‘climate
change hot spots’. Civilian-military stability operations
could help to establish infrastructure that reduces disaster
risk and enhances disaster management capacity.
Hartmann has argued for the case of the US that ‘stability’
operations carried out in ‘military-civilian
teams’ are now given equal priority to combat operations
by the Department of Defense (Hartmann 2010:
240). These operations could be extended to ‘climate
change hot spots’.
Second, military responsibility-to-protect interventions
might be enabled in states which fail to offer sufficient
levels of protection to their population after a
climate-induced disaster strikes, most likely in Africa
(Hartmann 2010: 241). These could be states whose
coping capacity is overwhelmed by climate-induced
disasters and migration flows. The motivation behind
responsibility-to-protect interventions is clearly guided
by concern with security: to secure global circulation
from disruption. For the EU, Wagner (2008) argues
that security actors have long demanded additional
satellite surveillance and transport capacities and that
these demands are now made in the name of climate
change. Thus, in the future, the military might be involved
in stability operations and/or responsibility-toprotect
interventions in the name of the ‘human security’
of Southern populations affected by climate-induced
disasters (McCormack 2010: 36–40).
In the field of migration, ‘climatization’ contributes
to the already ongoing process of ‘securitization’
of migration. Environmentalists draw on a racist dis-
200 Angela Oels
course to stir up fear of ‘millions of climate refugees’
– for the ‘good’ cause of mobilizing for emission reductions.
According to this discourse, ‘we’ in the industrialized
countries “if not literally flooded, will
most certainly be flooded by the ‘climate refugees’”
(Kolmannskog 2008: 9). According to migration experts,
it is highly unlikely that the poor populations of
the South would have the resources to migrate over
long distances to the industrialized countries. This option
is reserved for the privileged few. The poor will
only be able to migrate short distances if at all, for example
to neighbouring countries. It is the affected
countries and their neighbouring countries that will
be most in need of support to regulate migration
flows and to assist affected populations. The Northern
concern about ‘millions of climate refugees’ is
mainly driven by the fear that uncontrolled migration
flows of a large scale could destabilize the political order
of affected countries and possibly give rise to violence
between migrating groups and receiving communities.
The breakdown of a state monopoly on violence
could cause severe disruption to global circulation, directly
affecting the resource supplies of the economies
of Northern industrialized states. Securing global circulation
is a major goal informing how climate change-induced
migrants are rendered governable.
National governments are concerned to clarify the
status of climate change-induced migrants as either
‘refugees’ or ‘internally displaced persons’ in order to
include or exclude them from their legal order. Humanitarian
organizations, the International Organization
for Migration (IOM), and the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) address climate
change-induced migrants as bodies whose lives need
to be saved by humanitarian assistance (food, water,
shelter, and health care). Funding to afford such humanitarian
assistance is often closely linked to the legal
status of ‘refugee’ or ‘internally displaced person’.
A focus on the legal status of climate change-induced
migrants has the potential to enable and legitimize
more border controls, designed to create a distinction
between deserving ‘climate change-induced refugees’
and undeserving, illegalized ‘others’. However, the
quest for refugee status for climate change-induced
migrants led by some academics and NGOs is yet to
have much policy resonance (chap. 15 by Biermann/
Boas; chap. 16 by Jakobeit/Methmann).
Instead, the Cancún Adaptation Framework
(2010) officially recognizes the problem of climate
change-induced migration for the first time, and includes
a provision that could channel adaptation
funding to climate change-induced migrants. Most
likely, these funds will be used for adaptation measures
in ‘climate change hot spots’. These measures
could enhance the resilience and coping capacity of
the local population, and reduce the need for migration.
Given that reliable climate predictions are not
available, the new security practices focus on enhancing
people’s adaptive capacity (in terms of social capital)
and their resilience to current weather variability.
It is also possible to use these funds to resettle people
who live in ‘climate change hot spots’ to safer regions
in the same country. Migration is considered a legitimate
adaptation option if not a right of affected populations
by migration and development NGOs and
human security activists. To date, no political decisions
have been taken regarding how the scarce funding
is to be distributed between affected regions. Adaptation
measures and adaptation funding are clearly
measures from the field of climate policy. In the process
of the ‘climatization’ of the security field, these
practices are introduced, in this case in the migration
sector. Adaptation funding will play a significant role
in future decision-making on migration management
and resettlement. A similar process can be observed
in the development sector.
The ‘climatization’ of the development sector is
marked by the introduction of adaptation as a new
goal of development policy. The bulk of the practices
enabled by the ‘climatization’ of development policy
are about enhancing people’s coping capacity and
resilience through disaster planning and adaptation
measures. Rather than reducing poverty levels per se,
development policy is currently focused on enhancing
resilience and self-reliance, i.e. the capacity to adapt
to any kind of disruption. This is in line with a neoliberal
governmentality which regards those governed
responsible for their own fate (Duffield 2007). As a
result, the division of the world’s populations into the
‘insured’ (enjoying social protection by the state) and
the ‘uninsured’ might be reinforced rather than overcome
(Duffield 2007).
Given the highly variable and in many places negligible
reach and impact of development aid (for example,
the lack of aid in urban poor areas), many of
those most vulnerable to climate change will remain
unprepared and unable to cope. The amount of funding
provided by industrialized countries to developing
countries for adaptation projects so far remains symbolic
compared with the estimates of adaptation
needs. By June 2009, the total sum of US$ 352.5 million
had been raised for adaptation projects in the
form of voluntary pledges by industrialized countries,
and US$ 1.38 billion in co-financing (GEF 2009a; GEF
From ‘Securitization’ of Climate Change to ‘Climatization’ of the Security Field 201
2009b). However, in the Copenhagen Accord (2009)
and Cancún Agreements (2010), developed countries
promised to raise US$ 30 billion from 2010 to 2012
and to ‘mobilize’ US$ 100 billion a year by 2020 for
mitigation and adaptation measures in developing
countries (UNFCCC 2009: 3). If such sums were actually
raised “it would represent a radical reallocation of
the global aid budget, which was $103 billion in 2006”
(Brown/Hammill/McLeman 2007: 1152).
The construction of millions of ‘climate refugees’
as a threat to human security and to the ‘homeland’
security of Northern states in particular could also facilitate
a militarization of development assistance.
Some of the transformations the ‘climatization’ of development
aid might trigger can be inferred from the
‘war on terror’. As a result of this war, military expenditure
accounts for a growing percentage of the
development assistance budget: 22 per cent alone in
the US (Hartmann 2010: 240). Moreover, development
assistance has been shifted to those countries of
strategic importance for fighting terrorism (Duffield/
Waddell 2006: 1). Early indications suggest that a similar
strategic reorientation of development spending
might be facilitated to reduce the risk of conflict in
so-called ‘climate change hot spots’. Indicators used
to identify populations which are particularly ‘vulnerable’
to climate change could guide the redistribution
of development aid. Unfortunately for those in other
regions, development assistance might in the future
be prioritized towards ‘climate change hot spots’. This
may be aimed at preventing migration and violent
conflict in affected regions, and protecting global circulation
of resources, goods and people from disrup-
tions.
9.3.3.4 Concluding Section
What are the strengths and weaknesses of analysing
the climate change and security nexus from the perspective
of the Paris School?
• First, this school does not fix the meaning of security.
Rather than studying whether one particular
understanding of security is prevalent (exceptionalism),
the heterogeneous network of security
practices and discourses is investigated. The distribution
of discursive elements can be mapped and
changes can be observed over time. In the case of
climate change, it was possible to show that the
predominant understanding of security employed
in political discourse was a human security reading
which aimed at securing global circulation from
disruptions.
• Second, the Paris School directs attention away
from ‘extraordinary measures’ and towards the
routine practices of (non-elite) professionals of security,
and analyses how their practices produce
security discourses (and are incited by them). This
renders visible all those policy transformations
which remain below the threshold of exceptionality.
The articulation of climate change as a security
issue is caused by and incites transformations in
the practices of security. It was argued that the recognition
of primary and secondary climate change
impacts as a legitimate threat by the transnational
security field is an indication of the ‘climatization’
of the security field.
• Third, to understand the policy implications of climate
change as a security issue, not (only) must climate
policy in a narrower sense (mitigation) be
studied, but also changing security practices in defence,
migration, and development. For the defence
sector, it was shown that new flexible military
response capacities are being developed in
the North, so that the political order of overwhelmed
Southern states can be re-established after
climate change-induced disaster. For the migration
sector, it was argued that adaptation funding
will be used in the future to resettle people and/
or to reduce the need for climate change-induced
migration. For the development sector, it was
shown that aid is currently being restructured towards
adaptation to climate change – as a result,
climate change hot spots might attract more resources
than other states.
It is concluded that what the Copenhagen School has
studied as the failed ‘securitization’ of climate change
is reconceptualized by the Paris School as the ‘climatization’
of the security field. Climate change is rendered
governable as an issue of human security. The
reading of human security applied here is to secure
global circulation of resources, goods and people
from disruptions caused by disasters induced by climate
change.
9.4 Conclusion
Climate change has been referred to as a security issue
by science and politics, particularly from 2007 to
2009. There is some evidence that a reading of climate
change along the lines of human security has
emerged. While the term ‘human security’ was not always
explicitly used in the past, this is clearly changing
recently. In the fifth IPCC Assessment Report, sched-
202 Angela Oels
uled for 2014, IPCC Working Group II will dedicate
an entire chapter to the human security implications
of climate change. The EU and the UN have framed
climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’ that may exacerbate
existing vulnerabilities and tensions. This
means that climate change alone is unlikely to trigger
violent conflict, but may increase its likelihood in
combination with other factors. According to this
reading, sustainable development, adaptation policy,
and disaster management are suitable means of addressing
human vulnerability to climate change.
In this chapter, three theoretical approaches were
discussed regarding the meaning and policy implications
of climate change as a security issue. First, the
Copenhagen School was introduced, which is interested
merely in assessing whether the articulation of
climate change as a security problem has passed a critical
threshold of exceptionality. Given the general
agreement in the literature that there is so far no evidence
of ‘extraordinary measures’ or a state of exception,
the Copenhagen School has little of interest to
say about the meaning of climate change as a security
issue. Future research from the Copenhagen School’s
perspective could explore why ‘securitizing moves’ on
climate change ‘failed’ to result in ‘extraordinary
means’. Moreover, an extended reading of securitization
as suggested by Trombetta (2011: 142) could be
used to analyse in greater detail the policy implications
of ‘politicization’ through securitization.
Second, the chapter introduced a normative perspective
that seeks to mobilize policy attention and resources
for the problem of climate change by addressing
it as a human security issue. Despite the fact that
a human security framing of climate change is emerging
in science and politics, this has not yet led to ambitious
and legally binding emission reductions. It
may be too early to tell. In the discussion of strengths
and weaknesses, it was argued that the human security
perspective seems to be blind to the fact that in the
process of mainstreaming human security, its meaning
has shifted. The balance between development and
security within this concept has clearly shifted towards
the security side. As a result, securing global circulation
from disruption is taking primacy over enhancing
the coping capacity of local populations. In
the future, responsibility-to-protect interventions
might even be enabled in the name of human security
where developing countries are overwhelmed by the
impacts of climate change-induced disasters. So a human
security perspective is not necessarily non-violent
and unproblematic.
Third, the Paris School was introduced. The Paris
School investigates the failed securitization of climate
change as a ‘climatization’ of the security field. From
this perspective, it is possible to see that the everyday
practices of professionals in the transnational security
field are producing climate change-induced disasters
as a legitimate threat. It was argued that one strength
of the Paris School is that it studies policy transformations
below the threshold of exceptionality. As a result,
it was possible to observe transforming security
practices in the sectors of defence, migration, and development.
It was demonstrated that practices of disaster
management are emerging in the defence sector
while practices of adaptation are featured in migration
and development policy. It was asserted that climate
change is rendered governable as an issue of human
security and that what is to be secured from disruption
is global (economic) circulation. The Paris
School appears to offer the most promising research
strategy for understanding the policy implications of
climate change as a security issue. It is here that further
research should be encouraged. The implications
of the ‘climatization’ of the security field should be investigated
in much more detail and over longer periods
of time (diachronically) for the defence, migration,
and development sectors. The figure of the ‘climate
refugee’ deserves particular research attention,
as it is mobilized by several different and sometimes
competing climate security discourses.
References
Barnett, Jon, 2001: The Meaning of Environmental Security:
Ecological Politics and Policy in the New Security
Era (London: Zed Books).
Barnett, Jon; Adger, W. Neil, 2007: “Climate Change,
Human Security and Violent Conflict”, in: Political
Geography, 26: 639–655.
Barnett, Jon; Matthew, Richard A.; O’Brien, Karen, 2010:
“Global Environmental Change and Human Security:
An introduction”, in: Matthew, Richard A.; Barnett, Jon;
McDonald, Bryan; O’Brien, Karen (Eds.): Global Environmental
Change and Human Security (London: MIT
Press): 3–32.
Beck, Silke, 2009: Das Klimaexperiment und der IPCC:
Schnittstellen zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik in den
internationalen Beziehungen (Marburg: Metropolis-Ver-
lag).
Bigo, Didier, 2007: “Detention of Foreigners, States of
Exception, and the Social Practices of Control of the
Banopticon”, in: Rajaram, Prem Kumar; Grundy-Warr,
Carl (Eds.): Borderscapes: Hidden geographies and politics
at territory’s edge (Minneapolis, London: University
of Minnesota Press): 3–33.
From ‘Securitization’ of Climate Change to ‘Climatization’ of the Security Field 203
Bigo, Didier, 2008a: “Security: A field left fallow”, in: Dillon,
Michael; Neal, Andrew (Eds.): Foucault on Politics,
Security and War (Basingstoke: Palgrave): 93–114.
Bigo, Didier, 2008b: “Globalized (in)security: the field and
the Banopticon”, in: Bigo, Didier; Tsoukala, Anastassia
(Ed.): Terror, Insecurity and Liberty: Illiberal practices of
liberal regimes after 9/11 (London: Routledge): 10–48.
Bigo, Didier; Guild, Elspeth, 2003: “La mise à l’écart des
étrangers. La logique du visa Schengen” [The Exclusion
of Foreigners: The Logic of the Schengen Visa], Cultures
& Conflits 49: 38–70.
Bonelli, Laurent, 2005: “Un ennemi anonyme et sans visage”
[An Invisible, Faceless Enemy], Cultures & Conflits 58:
131–154.
Brauch, Hans Günter, 2009: “Securitizing Global Environmental
Change”, in: Brauch, Hans Günter; Oswald
Spring, Úrsula; Grin, John; Mesjasz, Czeslaw; KameriMbote,
Patricia; Behera, Navnita Chadha; Chourou,
Béchir; Krummenacher, Heinz (Eds.): Facing Global
Environmental Change: Environmental, human,
energy, food, health and water security concepts, Hexagon
Series on Human and Environmental Security and
Peace 4 (Berlin: Springer): 65–104.
Brauch, Hans Günter, 2009a: “Human Security Concepts in
Policy and Science”, in: Brauch, Hans Günter; Oswald
Spring, Úrsula; Grin, John; Mesjasz, Czeslaw; KameriMbote,
Patricia; Behera, Navnita Chadha; Chourou,
Béchir; Krummenacher, Heinz (Eds.): Facing Global
Environmental Change: Environmental, human,
energy, food, health and water security concepts, Hexagon
Series on Human and Environmental Security and
Peace 4 (Berlin: Springer): 973–998.
Brauch, Hans Günter, 2011: “The Environmental Dimension
of Human Security: Freedom from hazard impacts”,
Background Paper submitted to the Informal Thematic
Debate of the 65th
Session of the United Nations General
Assembly on Human Security, 14th
April 2011; at:
<http://www.afes-press-books.de/html/PDFs/Brauch
_UN-GA_Paper_12%204% 202011_final%20(2).pdf>.
Brauch, Hans Günter; Oswald Spring, Úrsula, 2011: “Introduction:
Coping with Global Environmental Change in
the Anthropocene”, in: Brauch, Hans Günter; Oswald
Spring, Ursula; Mesjasz, Czeslaw; Grin, John; KameriMbote,
Patricia; Chourou, Bechir; Birkmann, Jörn
(Eds.), 2011: Coping with Global Environmental
Change, Disasters and Security –Threats, Challenges,
Vulnerabilities and Risks. Hexagon Series on Human
and Environmental Security and Peace vol. 5 (Berlin –
Heidelberg – New York: Springer-Verlag): 31–60.
Brown, Oli; Hammill, Anne; McLeman, Robert, 2007: “Climate
Change as the ‘New’ Security Threat: Implications
for Africa”, in: International Affairs, 83,6: 1141–1154.
Brzoska, Michael, 2010: “Climate Change as a Driver of
Security Culture”, Paper for the 7th
Pan-European International
Relations Conference Politics in Hard Times:
International Relations Responses to the Financial Crisis,
Stockholm, 9–11 September.
Buhaug, Halvard, 2010: “Climate Not to Blame for African
Civil Wars”, in: Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the USA, 107,38: 16477–16482.
Burke, Marshall B.; Miguel, Edward; Satyanath, Shanker;
Dykema, John A.; Lobell, David B., 2009: “Warming
Increases the Risk of Civil War in Africa”, in: Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, 106,49:
20670–20674.
Buzan, Barry, 1
1983, 2
1991: People, States and Fear: An
Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post
Cold War Era (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf).
Buzan, Barry, 2004: The United States and the Great Powers
(London: Polity).
Buzan, Barry, Wæver, Ole, 2003: Regions and Powers: The
Structure of International Security (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
Buzan, Barry; Waever, Ole; de Wilde, Jaap, 1998: Security: A
new framework for analysis (Boulder: Lynne Rienner).
Carvalho, Anabela; Burgess, Jacquelin, 2005: “Cultural Circuits
of Climate Change in U.K. Broadsheet Newspapers,
1985–2003”, in: Risk Analysis, 25,6: 1457–1469.
CNA [Center for Naval Analysis Corporation], 2007:
National Security and the Threat of Climate Change
(Alexandria, VA: CNA Corporation).
Collier, Paul, 2000: “Doing Well Out of War: An Economic
Perspective”, in: Berdal, Mats, Malone, David M. (Eds.):
Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars
(Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner): 91–112.
Commission on Human Security (Eds.), 2003: Human
Security Now (New York: Commission on Human
Security).
Council of the European Union, 2007: “Brussels European
Council 21/22 June 2007 Presidency Conclusions”,
Brussels, 11177/07 Rev. 1, Concl. 2.
Council of the European Union, 2008a: “Report from the
Commission and the Secretary-General/High Representative:
Climate change and international security”,
Brussels, 7249/08.
Council of the European Union, 2008b: “Report on the
Implementation of the European Security Strategy: Providing
security in a changing world”, Brussels, CL08-
237EN.
Dalby, Simon, 2009: Security and Environmental Change
(Cambridge: Polity Press).
Detraz, Nicole; Betsill, Michelle, 2009: “Climate Change
and Environmental Security: For whom the discourse
shifts”, in: International Studies Perspectives, 10,3: 303–
320.
Deudney, Daniel, 1990: “The Case Against Linking Environmental
Degradation and National Security”, in: Millennium,
19: 461–476.
Duffield, Mark, 2007: Development, Security and Unending
War: Governing the world of peoples (Cambridge:
Polity Press).
Duffield, Mark; Waddell, Nicholas, 2006: “Securing
Humans in a Dangerous World”, in: International Politics,
43: 1–23.
204 Angela Oels
Elbe, Stefan, 2009: Virus Alert: Security, governmentality
and the AIDS pandemic (New York: Columbia University
Press).
Floyd, Rita, 2007a: “Towards a Consequentialist Evaluation
of Security: Bringing together the Copenhagen and the
Welsh Schools of security studies”, in: Review of International
Studies, 33: 327–350.
Floyd, Rita, 2007b: “Human Security and the Copenhagen
School’s Securitization Approach: Conceptualizing
human security as a securitizing move”, in: Human
Security Journal, 5: 38–49.
Foucault, Michel, 1982: “Afterword: The subject and
power”, in: Dreyfus, Hubert L.; Rabinow, Paul (Eds.):
Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press): 208–
225.
Foucault, Michel, 2007: Security, Territory, Population:
Lectures at the Collège de France 1977–1978 (New York:
Picador).
GECHS [Global Environmental Change and Human Security
Project], 1999: Global Environmental Change and
Human Security: GECHS science plan (Bonn: IHDP).
GEF [Global Environment Facility], 2009a: “Financing
Adaptation Action”; at: <http://www. gefweb.org/
interior_right.aspx?id=21584> (1 October 2009).
GEF [Global Environment Facility], 2009b: “Report of the
GEF to the Fifteenth Session of the Conference of the
Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change”; at: <http://www.gefweb.org/
interior_right.aspx?id=234> (2 October 2009).
Hajer, Maarten A., 1997: The Politics of Environmental Discourse:
Ecological modernization and the policy process
(Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Hanon, Jean Paul, 2000: “Les coopérations policières aux
frontières Schengen germano-tchèque et germano-polonaise”
[Police Cooperation at the German-Czech and
German-Polish Schengen Borders], Les cahiers de la
sécurité intérieure 41: 18.
Hartmann, Betsy, 2010: “Rethinking Climate Refugees and
Climate Conflict: Rhetoric, reality and the politics of
policy discourse”, in: Journal of International Development,
22,2: 233–246.
Homer-Dixon, Thomas, 1994: “Environmental Scarcities
and Violent Conflict: Evidence from cases”, in: International
Security, 19,1: 5–40.
Homer-Dixon, Thomas, 1999: Environment, Scarcity and
Violence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Huysmans, Jef, 2000: “Migration and the Politics of Security”,
in: Body-Gendrot, Sophie; Martiniello, Marco
(Eds.): Minorities in European Cities: The Dynamics of
Social Integration and Social Exclusion at the Neighbourhood
Level (London: Macmillan): 179–189.
Huysmans, Jef, 2006: The Politics of Insecurity (London:
Routledge).
IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], 2009:
“Chapter Outline of the Working Group II Contribution
to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)”,
IPCC_XXXI/Doc.20, Rev.1, 28 October 2009 (Geneva:
IPCC Secretariat).
IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], 2010:
“Working Group II, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
Special Report Managing the Risks of Extreme
Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation”;
at: <http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/ AR5/extremessr/index.html>
(4 February 2010).
Jakobeit, Cord; Methmann, Chris, 2007: Klimaflüchtlinge:
Die verleugnete Katastrophe. A report prepared for
Greenpeace (Hamburg: Greenpeace Germany).
Jones, Richard Wyn, 1995: “Message in a Bottle? Theory and
Praxis in Critical Security Studies”, in: Contemporary
Security Policy, 16,3: 299–319.
Kaplan, Robert, 1994: “The Coming Anarchy: How scarcity,
crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly
destroying the social fabric of our planet”, in: The Atlantic
Monthly, 273,2: 44–76.
Kolmannskog, Vikram Odedra, 2008: Future Floods of Refugees:
A comment on climate change, conflict and
forced migration (Oslo: Norwegian Refugee Council).
McCormack, Tara, 2010: Critique, Security and Power: The
political limits to emancipatory approaches (London:
Routledge).
McDonald, Matt. 2008: “Securitization and the Construction
of Security”, in: European Journal of International
Relations, 14,4: 563–587.
McNamara, Karen Elizabeth; Gibson, Chris, 2009: “We Do
Not Want to Leave our Land’: Pacific ambassadors at
the United Nations resist the category of ‘climate refugees”,
in: Geoforum, 40: 475–483.
McSweeney, Bill, 1996: “Identity and Security: Buzan and
the Copenhagen School”, in: Review of International
Studies 22,1: 81–93.
Methmann, Chris, 2009: “'Climate Protection' as Empty Signifier:
A discourse theoretical perspective on climate
mainstreaming in world politics”, in: Millennium, 39,2:
345–372.
Miguel, Edward; Satyanath, Shanker; Sergenti, Ernest, 2004:
“Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An instrumental
variables approach”, in: Journal of Political Economy,
112,4: 725–753.
Myers, Norman, 1995: Environmental Exodus: An Emergent
crisis in the global arena (Washington D.C.: The
Climate Institute).
Nordas, Ragnhild; Gleditsch, Nils Petter, 2007: “Climate
Change and Conflict”, in: Political Geography, 26,6:
627–638.
Oels, Angela, 2005: “Rendering Climate Change Governable:
From biopower to advanced liberal government?”,
in: Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 7,3:
185–207.
Oels, Angela, 2009a: “The Securitization of Climate
Change: Does the Copenhagen School miss the point?”,
manuscript in peer review, University of Hamburg.
Oels, Angela, 2009b: “The ‘Vulnerable’ as ‘Becoming Dangerous’:
The relevance of a Foucaultian framework for
From ‘Securitization’ of Climate Change to ‘Climatization’ of the Security Field 205
studying the ‘securitization’ of climate change”, Paper
prepared for the international conference “Climate
Change, Social Stress and Violent Conflict: State of the
art and research needs” hosted by KlimaCampus, Hamburg
University, Germany, 19–20 November.
Oels, Angela; Carvalho, Anabela , 2011: “Wer hat Angst vor
‘Klimaflüchtlingen’? Wie die mediale und politische
Konstruktion des Klimawandels den politischen Handlungsspielraum
strukturiert”, in: Neverla, Irene; Schäfer,
Mike (Eds.) Klimawandel in den Medien (Wiesbaden:
VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften) forthcoming.
Oels, Angela, 2012: “Rendering Climate Change Governable
by Risk: From probability to contingency”, in: GEOFORUM,
themed issue on Natures of Risk, forthcoming.
Oswald Spring, Úrsula; Brauch, Hans Günter, 2011: “Coping
with Global Environmental Change – Sustainability
Revolution and Sustainable Peace”, in: Brauch, Hans
Günter; Oswald Spring, Ursula; Mesjasz, Czeslaw; Grin,
John; Kameri-Mbote, Patricia; Chourou, Bechir; Birkmann,
Jörn (Eds.), 2011: Coping with Global Environmental
Change, Disasters and Security –Threats, Challenges,
Vulnerabilities and Risks. Hexagon Series on
Human and Environmental Security and Peace vol. 5
(Berlin – Heidelberg – New York: Springer-Verlag):
1487–1504.
Schwartz, Peter; Randall, Doug, 2003: An Abrupt Climate
Change Scenario and its Implications for United States
National Security (Washington, D.C.: Environmental
Media Services).
Schweller, Randall L., 1999: “Fantasy Theory”, in: Review of
International Studies, 25,1: 147–150.
Stern, Nicholas, 2007 [2006]: The Economics of Climate
Change: The Stern review (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
Stripple, Johannes, 2002: “Climate as a Security Issue”, in:
Page, Edward; Redclift, Michael (Eds.): Human Security
and the Environment: International comparisons
(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar): 105–127.
Stritzel, Holger, 2007: “Towards a Theory of Securitization:
Copenhagen and beyond”, in: European Journal of
International Relations, 13,3: 357–383.
Tsoukala, Anastassia, 2004: “Les nouvelles politiques de
controle du hooliganisme en Europe: de la fusion sécuritaire
au multipositionnement de la menace” [The New
Policies of Controlling Hooliganism in Europe: From
the Fusion of Security to the Multi-Positioning of
Threats], Cultures & Conflits 51: 83–96.
Trombetta, Maria Julia, 2008: “Environmental Security and
Climate Change: Analysing the discourse”, in: Cambridge
Review of International Affairs, 21,4: 585–602.
Trombetta, Maria Julia, 2011: “Rethinking the Securitization
of the Environment: Old beliefs, new insights”, in:
Balzacq, Thierry (Ed.): Securitization Theory: How
security problems emerge and dissolve (London:
Routledge): 135–149.
UNDP [United Nations Development Programme], 1994:
Human Development Report. (Nairobi: UNDP).
UNFCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change], 2009: “Copenhagen Accord”; at: <http://
www.unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/11a01.
pdf#page=4> (28 November 2010).
UNGA [United Nations, General Assembly], 2009: “Climate
Change and its Possible Security Implications:
Report of the Secretary-General”, A/64/350 (New York:
UN).
UNSC [United Nations Security Council], 2007a: Minutes
of 5663rd
meeting, S/PV.5663, 17 April (New York: UN).
UNSC [United Nations Security Council], 2007b: Minutes
of 5663rd
meeting, New York, S/PV.5663 (Resumption
1), 17 April, 3 p.m (New York: UN).
Wæver, Ole, 1995: “Securitization and Desecuritization”, in:
Lipschutz, Ronnie D. (Ed.): On Security (New York:
Columbia University Press): 46–86.
Wæver, Ole, 1999: “Securitizing Sectors? Reply to Eriksson”,
in: Cooperation and Conflict 34,3: 334–340.
Wæver, Ole, 2000: “The EU as a Security Actor: Reflections
from a pessimistic constructivist on post sovereign security
orders”, in: Kelstrup, Morten; Williams, Michael C.
(Eds.): International Relations Theory and the Politics of
European Integration (London: Routledge): 250–294.
Wagner, Jürgen, 2008: “Die Versicherheitlichung des Klimawandels:
Wie Brüssel die Erderwärmung für die Militarisierung
der Europäischen Union instrumentalisiert”,
in: Informationsstelle Militarisierung, June: 14–16.
WBGU [German Advisory Council on Global Change],
2008: World in Transition: Climate change as a security
risk (London: Earthscan); at: <http://www.wbgu.de/
wbgu_jg2007_ engl.html> (3 March 2009).
Weingart, Peter; Engels, Anita; Pansegrau, Petra, 2000:
“Risks of Communication: Discourses on climate
change in science, politics and the mass media”, in: Public
Understanding of Science, 9: 261–283.