ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY

The 20^th century started with two of the largest-scale wars in the human kind history, followed by a completely different experience of the Cold War. The resolution of the latter, together with other changes in the international environment encouraged IR scholars to rethink the concept of security and to expand it from military threats-only, to a much broader concept that include economics, environment, human security on a global level. (Walt 1991)

The increase in number and severity of environmental issues inevitably led to discussing the question whether this non-traditional issues represent a new chapter in security studies.

While some environmental challenges remain to be perceived as abstract, the many more tangible extensions including water, food and energy security have attracted more and more scholarly attention. (Urban 2008, Tuchman Matthews 1989)

Environmental changes can trigger shifts in the balance of power and through that serve as destabilizers on various levels - from local to international. When natural resources are seen as means of power maximization, different actors (be it states, villages or ethnic groups) begin competing for rich territories, while at the same time resource-poor territories can force mass migrations and with it strives between the displaced and the “host” population. (Wirth 1989) And while most of the so-called resource disputes usually involved non-renewable sources, there is considerable amount of evidence that the competition for renewables has already grown fiercer. (P. H. Gleick 1993)

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Gleick (1993) observes that the waning of the Cold War and the increasing evidence of overexploitation of public goods (such as ozone layer, global climate and inequitable resource distribution) raised the question of redefining security. Including environmental issues in matters of (inter)national, human and ecological security makes sense if we recognize that any comprehensive security matrix should not see state and human security as separated from the environment, but rather inseparably embedded in it. The environment provides states with favorable conditions to ensure safety, however its exhaustible and limited nature means that it needs to be managed accordingly. Redclift (1999) links environmental challenges to competition between different actors at the international level. Traditionally environmental change is seen as a cause for security issues; however competition over the environment can be seen as the driving force behind environmental change. In a global market economy different state and transnational actors are looking for way to gain advantage in the battle for resources, with globalization and development creating uniformity of economic goals and at the same time the competition to achieve them. To do so most nation states and other relevant actors exploit the resources, leaving environmental action to NGOs and the (few?) governments who for any reason recognize the need for sustainable resource consumption. To make this possible, environmental security needs to occupy a more central role in geopolitics, including international and domestic political agenda. Given that the number of cases with security issues deriving from various environmental disasters, including resource shortage, some scholars remain bewildered at the existence of environmental management merely at the level of rhetoric, (Redclift 1999) however others claim that the securitization of climate change has been slowly yet persistently attracting more attention to these issues. (Brzoska 2009) Most recently the UNFCCC Paris Agreement has led some to believe things are turning for the better. (Rogelj, et al. 2016)

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When talking about environmental security it is important to think about the relevant actors, as Redclift (1999) points out. Who has the responsibility for the environment in the global market economy, namely determining levels of consumption? With the economic and population growth this question proves important enough, however many believe that it is even more crucial to discuss it in the context of water shortage. Resource scarcity is not just a result of environmental change, but also a combined result together with population growth and unequal social distribution. This differentiates resource scarcity from so-called “environmental scarcity”, which combines all three relevant factors. Further researches should therefore focus on analyzing the interactions between the three factors, for example joint effects of “resource capture” and “ecological marginalization” on security. (T. F. Homer-Dixon Summer 1994)

Some scholars put the environmental degradation and scarcity issues in the same category, yet in contrast to the resource wealth conflicts. While resource wealth means conflict over non-renewable resources, disputes over scarcity usually involve cases of overuse and depletion, exacerbated by mismanagement of water, arable land and decreased access to other resources (e.g. forest goods). (Renner 2002)

On the other hand, some academics argue that climate change, one of the most hotly debated environmental challenges, so far has no proven effect on social tensions.

(Gleditsch 2011) This group of scholars opposes the expenditure of security studies and especially national security to include environmental threats, because according to them degradation of the environment does not lead to organized violence among states, but rather deterioration of human well-being within states. They further argue that wars for resources are too costly and unnecessary due to technological development and robust

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world trading system; economic decline due to deteriorating conditions might dampen interstate conflict and that pollution and scarcity rarely occurs on such an asymmetric and significant scale that it would lead to interstate conflict. (Deudney 1990) According to the scholars who oppose the linkage between environmental degradation and (national) security, there has been insufficient systematic research on the security implications of environmental degradation, despite providing conclusions on the physical implications of climate change. Their critique mostly rests on the claim that so far the statistical analyses have not proven convincing levels of linkage between environmental vulnerability and violent conflict, however there has been sufficient evidence showing how the burdens of climate change will add to the hardship of weak states and vulnerable societies.