Disasters, climate change, and securitisation: the United Nations Security Council and the United Kingdom's security policy

Abstract

Since climate change was included on the United Nations Security Council's agenda in 2007, there has been much debate about whether or not it has been securitised. This paper starts from the premise that climate change has undergone a partial securitisation-that is, a gradual process wherein political choices are made to frame certain issues in particular ways. Climate change has been reframed from a purely developmental and environmental concern to one that impels foreign policy and security domains. This paper makes a novel contribution to disasters, climate change, and security studies by arguing that explicit and implicit links to natural hazard-related disasters have been employed as part of a gradual process of securitisation, or, more specifically, the partial securitisation of climate change. This is demonstrated by drawing on two cases: United Nations Security Council debates between 2007 and 2017; and the United Kingdom's security policy between 1997 and 2017.

Addressing forced displacement in climate change adaptation

“…Many displaced Syrians live in areas significantly threatened by climatic impacts (Ahmed et al, 2021a;MedGlobal, 2022;OSCDS and UNHCR, 2022). In Bangladesh, displaced Rohingya are settled on land highly susceptible to monsoon-related cyclones, storm surges, flooding, and landslides (Ahmed et al, 2021b;Peters, 2018). Additionally, displacement is often directed to areas that climate change will render increasingly hazardous (de Sherbinin et al, 2012).…”

Embracing the Darkness: Methods for Tackling Uncertainty and Complexity in Environmental Disaster Risks

“…Since the 1990s, scenarios have been growing in popularity in environmental scholarship, albeit less so in the social sciences (Pulver and VanDeveer 2009). Analyses of different futures have also become an important tool to anticipate governance challenges in both domestic and foreign policies of many countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Singapore (Fuerth 2011;Mansted and Logan 2020;Peters 2018). The European Environment Agency, for example, has released numerous warnings of potential futures, and some European countries have used both regional scenarios and simulation results in addressing climate security (Expert Group of the IMCCS 2020).…”

First comes the river, then comes the conflict? A qualitative comparative analysis of flood-related political unrest

“…In 2018, Sweden initiated the third United Nations Security Council debate on climate change and security, and Germany maintained the momentum by prioritizing this topic for its two-year membership in the Council (Auswärtiges Amt, 2019). In these debates, disasters play a particularly prominent role (Peters, 2018). Disasters are defined in this study as complex emergencies that result when destructive natural hazards strike vulnerable socio-economic systems (Cohen & Werker, 2008).…”