Climate Change and Ecological Security

Dec 5, 2022 | Matt McDonald
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As climate change is increasingly recognized as a security issue, a parallel understanding is also developing. Traditional categories and approaches may not be the optimal way to address the threats posed by climate impacts.

The nation states and international institutions at the center of security discussions now are shifting their approach. For instance, the U.S. has affirmed and moved to institutionalize its commitment to address the national security implications of climate change under the Biden Administration. In doing so, it is joining an increasing number of other nation-states (the UK, France, Sweden, Germany and New Zealand) that have also developed institutional arrangements and plans for their national response to climate insecurity.

The issue is also taking center stage at the international level. The General Assembly passed a resolution on this issue in 2009, and the UN Climate Security Mechanism was established in 2018. The Security Council has also given its sustained attention to the problem. Its September 2021 debate was the  seventh public dialogue on the international security implications of climate change since 2007. This debate featured majority support for expanding the Security Council’s role in addressing climate change as an international security concern, even if Russia’s veto in December of that year prevented a resolution formalizing the UNSC’s role in providing climate security. (Ongoing informal discussions also have continued through the Arria Formula debates in the Security Council since 2013.)

While China and India joined Russia in outlining concerns about overreach or the replication of discussions that should take place elsewhere, it was telling even here that they did not question the potentially devastating impacts of climate change or the capacity for these manifestations to contribute to insecurity.

Beneath this growing consensus, however, are a series of differences. These are not just about the appropriateness of the UN Security Council as a forum for the discussion of climate change. Nor are they limited to differences of opinion about the specific pathways from climate stress to conflict, or the role of the military as an agent for achieving security.

They are often an attempt to grapple with a broader and more fundamental issue: Whose security matters?