The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the sole recognized 'international' body that studies the scientific, technical and socio-economic effects of climate change, has come out with yet another report in 2014, which has gone one step ahead this time to include a chapter on 'human security'. The Working Group II that collates scientific information regarding Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, has provided details with regard to the ways in which climate change would affect cultures, values and societies. With sections on health, poverty, livelihoods and conflicts, the larger emphasis on climate change as a potential security threat has been raised. Very importantly, the report states that climate change would be a factor in shaping security threats to states as well as their national security policies. This report can be treated as yet another stepping stone to universal recognition of climate change as a security issue.
In this light, the report tries to uncover the growing interactions between state and human security. The link is not direct, rather the argument stems from the inference that any human insecurity caused by climate change could "coincide" with conditions of structural inability to push forward adaptation strategies, which could potentially lead to violent conflict. Although such a scenario is plausible, but the lines connecting the dots are very thin. The scientific basis for such an argument is fuzzy. Moreover, it is conflict which is being considered a threat to state security and not climate change, which could be the trigger point or one of the factors involved. Conflict could be a result of a multitude of factors, in which case resolution is possible only if all the ills are addressed simultaneously. Therefore, the part which deals with climate change as a cause for 'armed' conflict is being viewed with some amount of scepticism too.
As an extrapolation of this claim, for the first time, it has been acknowledged by the IPCC that climate change would form a part of national security policies of some states such as small island states and those states whose territorial integrity could be threatened by transboundary rivalries caused by climate change. However, the point that many countries such as India (at the UNFCCC and UNSC) and social scientists oppose securitization has not been mentioned. Furthermore, state itself has been portrayed as a threat to human security. The fact that any linkage between climate change and national security has undermined the numerous and worst implications of climate change on human security has been pointed out in the report. This is very ironic considering the IPCC's report is less a theoretical enterprise and more a policy-oriented document that is targeted at states and state actors. Secondly, it undermines the much larger debate, which emphasises that any threat can be considered part of the national security matrix, which essentially narrows the range of policy options for the government at any level that is not restricted to trasnboundary issues only.
While carrying forward the securitisation agenda, an attempt has been made not to singularly regard climate change as the cause for poverty, livelihood insecurity or conflict as well. It has been reiterated that climate change is a threat multiplier in the majority of contexts. Nonetheless, this disclaimer has been used occasionally to ward off any definite criticisms that could reduce the credibility of the report as everything before and after this disclaimer has resorted more or less to climate determinism. Moreover, there are references to the creation of opportunities to certain individuals and communities due to climate change and climate variability but the report has not dwell into it much, again questioning its integrity. No findings can be taken seriously by the international community that are one-sided. How climate change can also lead to cooperation between countries or communities or individuals cannot be ignored either.
To a great extent, the cause-effect matrix has been designed in a skewed manner. Just as environmental protection is seen as detrimental to development and poverty eradication by the Indian Government, as a corollary, the report states that climate change can derail sustainable development efforts. There needs to be consensus that the cost-effect matrix works both ways. These concepts are part of the same framework and one cannot be neglected at the expense of the other, which could defeat the purpose of the policy. Poverty also causes environmental deterioration and reduces the ability to adapt. Therefore, without addressing poverty, environmental protection cannot be advanced just as without adopting sound environmental policies, poverty cannot be eliminated or reduced.
One of the other central arguments of the report is that climate change related extreme weather events and sea level rise could cause population displacement and migration. Within this framework, migration of displaced population to urban centres in developing countries has been viewed as a much bigger threat to human security than migration to developed countries. On the one hand, this thesis has been destabilised by the critics of the climate security discourse, according to whom, the causes for migration are more social, economic and political in nature than environmental. Hence, if the socio-economic and political issues can be resolved, environmental threats need not be a catalyst for conflict. One of the ways by which these conditions can be improved is by pressing forward the development agenda, which is the best form of adaptation. However, one needs to take into consideration the environmental repercussions of this development too. Adaptive capacity is vulnerable to climatic changes as well.
On the other hand, repeated attempts to brand climate change a 'developing country syndrome' dilute the 'global' nature of the problem needs to be highlighted. It is assumed that migration from Bangladesh and Maldives to India would impact regional security as the region is considered to have 'weak' institutions. At the same time, possible migration from the islands of the South Pacific to Australia and New Zealand is not classified as big a 'security threat' (albeit it has been recognised as a point of discussion) to the latter countries as they are regarded as 'strong' states with 'strong' institutions.
While reviewing this report, there is a need to delve into several other factors that could have played or could play an important role in its endorsement by the scientific community. The first aspect that should be borne in mind is the timing of the report. It largely seems like an attempt to build a fixed agenda for the UNFCCC COP-21 to be held at Paris in 2015, in which the first universal climate treaty draft is expected to be endorsed by the international community. A lot of countries including India had stated at the earlier climate summits that they would like to wait for the IPCC's fifth assessment report to come out before discussing emissions cuts requirements from them. Implications at political, cultural and socio-economic levels raise the alarm further and calls for more urgent action. In the past, the security implications of climate change were brought to the table by the United Kingdom (UK) in 2007 at the UN Security Council (UNSC) in the run-up to the Copenhagen Summit (2009) and again in 2011 before the Durban Summit in which the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, which laid the foundation for the post-Kyoto mechanism, was agreed upon.
The second factor is the role and scope of the IPCC itself. Should the IPCC's mandate be restricted to providing scientific views and evidence on the current state of knowledge in climate change or should it be given the authorization to assess the socio-economic impacts as well, which largely involves scenario-building? Trend analysis in the case of scientific findings may involve very little error but when it comes to social and even economic dynamics, any scenario-building would involve greater amount of uncertainty due to their qualitative, subjective and multi-pronged nature.
The third factor that assumes significance is the level of confidence in the scientific evidence provided by the IPCC, especially at a time when it is being accused of climate alarmism by sections that are not even composed by climate deniers. The organisation was criticized for its erroneous finding in the 2007 report in which it had stated that the Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035, which the IPCC had admitted later as a mistake. More importantly, a large proportion of the report on human security deals with resource conflicts, which may or may not be linked to climate change. Most of it would be regarded as more credible and convincing if the focus is more on environmental change rather than mere climate change.
In short, the IPCC report in a way weakens the whole discourse on climate change by taking the debate to an entirely different level at a time when political consensus on climate mitigation and adaptation has still not been built. The purpose of the IPCC is to inform and not as much to drive/impose action. A middle ground between climate alarmism and climate denial needs to be espoused so that climate change is not yet again brushed aside due to the lack of consensus on this report itself, which is usually used at the UNFCCC to arrive at important conclusions and decision-making.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are personal.
Dhanasree Jayaram, Ph. D. Candidate, Department of Geopolitics and International Relations, Project Associate at Manipal Advanced Research Group (MARG), Manipal University.
