Environmental security: climate change meets peace through the state

Climate change has made us rethink the way we treat the environment. No more of wasteful and irresponsible investments and activities that harm the environment. Even the security discourse has been put into context by the environmental concern.

There has been an increasing awareness and concern of the environmental degradation and its relationship with security issues. Likewise, a growing evidence shows that conflicts are exacerbated by environmental decline in some countries whose governments are weak, poor, corrupt, and oppressive.

There are four approaches to understand the relationship between environment and security. First is the Toronto School that sees conflict as effect of resource scarcity and population growth. Second is that conflict is directly linked to society’s transition from a subsistence to a market economy. Third is the attempt of groups to gain control of abundant resources through violence. Finally, the fourth approach refers to the “network threats” brought about by environmental degradation that is caused by human activities and disasters.

How we view security? There are two ways to do it; traditionalist and non-traditionalist. The traditionalist view of security gives primacy to military security because the world is anarchic. Relations are driven by insecurity. Nation-state is the unit of analysis here. While, the non-traditionalist view of security argues that there is no hierarchy of issues. It basically expands the scope of security to other threats including individual quality of life.

The concept of sovereignty makes nation-state remain to hold the power to enforce environmental security. Any effort for environmental conservation and protection must engage the nation-state to be effective, sustainable, and have long-lasting impact. How do then international groups and organizations engage a state that is contributing to environmental degradation?

Hydropolitics or politics of water is significant to security studies. This role of hydropolitics has been manifest in the conflicts involving freshwater usage. If water could cause war (water-war thesis), it could also foster peace (water-peace thesis) as exemplified in the agreements and cooperation by countries sharing the water areas (Nile and Mediterranean).