Climate Change in the Context of International Relations
Fernando Rei
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Abstract
Similarly to other environmental problems, the planetary scope of climate change has challenged important aspects of the current dynamics of international relations. The need for concrete action to address the problem and reduce it (mitigation) or diminish its impacts (adaptation) presupposes not only the development of science and technology but also, more importantly, a radical change in the production and consumption patterns now prevalent in countries, and this indirectly brings consequences for the power relations among these actors. Furthermore, climate change, by ignoring legal borders between states, demands new forms of governance, and forces a discussion about the concept of sovereignty, its fundamental elements, and its application. In view of these facts, the aim of this article is to bring to discussion the (in)ability of the current dynamics of international relations to respond effectively to global environmental problems, particularly global climate change. This stud...
Key takeaways
- In view of these facts, the aim of this article is to bring to discussion the (in)ability of the current dynamics of international relations to respond effectively to global environmental problems, particularly global climate change.
- These countries are more vulnerable to climate change for different reasons.
- Focusing once more on climate change, the institution of two treaties can be mentioned: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol (KP), that together regulate a complex framework regime founded on two keystone principles of international environment law: Precaution, and Common but Differentiated Responsibilities.
- In the realm of climate change, in addition to the emergence of eminently scientific networks with strong influence on the conduction of international decisions, such as the IPCC, and to the expansion of the action of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), local level intergovernmental networks have been created, as for instance the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and others on the regional level, such as the Network of Regional Governments for Sustainable Development (NRG4SD).
- Because climate change is among the most serious global environmental problems, it challenges the theories of international relations to give effective responses.
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Using Pakistan and the Arctic as examples, this article examines security challenges arising from climate change. Pakistan is in crisis, and climate change, a transnational phenomenon perhaps better characterized as radical enviro-transformation, is an important reason. Its survival as a state may depend to great extent on how it responds to 2010's devastating floods. In the Arctic, the ice cap is melting faster than predicted, as temperatures there rise faster than in almost any other region. Unmanaged, a complex interplay of climate-related conditions, including large-scale "ecomigration", may turn resource competition into resource conflict. Radical enviro-transformation has repeatedly overborne the resilience of societies. War is not an inevitable by-product of such transformation, but in the 21st Century climate-related instability, from resource scarcity and "ecomigration", will likely create increasingly undesirable conditions of insecurity. 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As the impacts of climate change compound, and especially if they accelerate, the modern state system, now little more than 400 years old, will face mounting pressures, pressures that may spur armed conflict. Of these, unforeseen numbers of environmentally dispossessed persons may be the most challenging. Uncontrolled mass migration is anathema to state sovereignty and national security. Ways and means to manage it must be found, and soon. For sovereignty to remain strong and resilient, security-maintaining a stable, peaceful international system-and sustainability-living within the Earth's carrying capacity-must adapt to climate change proactively, not reactively. Security and sustainability in an era of climate change will require unified effort around the globe [6]. Curiously, but fortuitously, the dangerous, divisive potentiality of climate change is also a unifying factor, as national interests find common cause in strengthening sovereignty internally and internationally. Unified action must come in many forms, using all instrument of national power, and must address both mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change, but especially adaptation, will require enormous capability and capacity, some taking forms and methods heretofore unimagined. And given the interdependence of sovereignty, sustainability, and security, the military instrument of national power will play an increasingly important role, likewise in new and different ways. Preserving sovereignty in an era of climate change will make more adaptive use of the military, across its full spectrum of capability and perhaps beyond, an essential ingredient of security and stability. But the military instrument of national power, like all others, will not be immune from the constraints and limitations that climate change will impose. Sustainability, some have recognized, has already become as important to armed forces as to every other element of society and government. Sustainable, capable, and adaptable military power will be in constant demand even if climate change advances on the low end of the more modest current predictions. The recent floods in Pakistan and the thinning, shrinking Arctic ice cap illustrate well, by contrast, the trends and challenges derived from climate change. Pakistan presents what may be the destructive effects of climate change on sovereignty and stability in the context of a state that might be characterized as highly stressed, possibly failing. The Arctic presages what at first may appear to be an upside of climate change, the opening of a new frontier for resource exploitation and new sea lanes of communication and commerce. Pakistan's floods suggest how a climate change induced shock, most importantly the resulting social, economic, and political stresses, may be beginning to test the resiliency of national sovereignty, with internal, regional, and international implications including its volatile relations with India, the growth of terrorism, and the vulnerability of its nuclear arsenal. The Arctic is different. Here climate change is perceived to offer opportunity, especially to the Arctic states: the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Russia [7]. But non-Arctic states, e.g., China, Germany, and Japan, are very much interested-and increasingly present-in these northern reaches [8,9].
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