Securitizing Climate Change: How to Not Think about the Climate Crisis

Oct 12, 2022 | Carol Cohn and Claire Duncanson
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In the Global North, “climate security” has become a dominant frame for thinking—and not thinking—about the climate crisis. And it misdirects our attention because the climate crisis is not a crisis of security; it is a crisis of a white western masculinist framing of the relation between humanity and nature. To say that the climate crisis is a crisis of extractivist capitalism, and the western masculinist mindset that underpins it, is not to ignore that the climate crisis will cause tremendous “insecurity” in people’s lives.

Climate change is framed as a “threat multiplier,” driving insecurity and violence, particularly across the Global South. It is critical to note, however, that the “security” that is of most concern in this framing is threats to the security of powerful states in the Global North, and “security” is taken to mean the ability to defend not only their state borders, but also their political, economic, and military dominance.