Environmental

security
What is environmental
security???

• Environmental security is the relative public safety from

environmental dangers caused by natural or human processes
due to ignorance, accident, mismanagement or design and
originating within or across national borders.
Interdependence and the
Environment
• Global threats to the natural environment are a growing source of
interdependence.
• States’ actions regarding pollution, conservation, and natural
resources routinely affect other states. Because environmental
effects tend to be diffuse and long term and because such effects
easily spread from one location to another, international
environmental politics creates difficult collective goods problems.
• A sustainable natural environment is a collective good, and states
bargain over how to distribute the costs of providing that good.
The technical, scientific, and ethical aspects of managing the
environment are complex, but the basic nature of states’ interests
is not. The collective goods problem arises in each issue area
concerning the environment, resources, and population.
Importance of environmental
security
• Environmental security is an important component of human or
national security:
• The largest and most militarily powerful member united states, believes
that It is component of national or international security Concerns
about the environment are receiving higher-level attention.
• To the extent humankind neglects to maintain the globe's life-
supporting eco-systems generating water, food, medicine, and clean air,
current and future generations will be confronted with increasingly
severe instances of environmentally induced changes.
• Such events will test our traditional concepts, boundaries, and
understandings of national security and alliance politics and, if taken
for granted, may lead to conflict, including violent conflict, from the
global to the regional, national, local or human level.
• Environmental security, broadly defined, affects humankind and its
institutions and organizations anywhere and at anytime.
Environmental problems
• Environmental problems are an example of international
interdependence and often create collective goods problems
for the states involved. The large numbers of actors involved in
global environmental problems make them more difficult to
solve.
• To resolve such collective goods problems, states have used
international regimes and IOs, and have in some cases
extended state sovereignty (notably over territorial waters) to
make management a national rather than an international
matter.
• International efforts to solve environmental problems aim to
bring about sustainable economic development.
Environmental threats
• Environmental security is the state of human-environment
dynamics that includes restoration of the environment damaged
by
• Military actions
• Environmental degradation
• Biological threats
• That could lead to social disorder and conflict
• Global warming results from burning fossil fuels—the basis of
industrial economies today. The industrialized states are much
more responsible for the problem than are developing countries,
but countries such as China and India also contribute to the
problem. Solutions are difficult to reach because costs are
substantial and dangers are somewhat distant and uncertain.
• Damage to the earth’s ozone layer results from the use of
specific chemicals, which are now being phased out under
international agreements. Unlike global warming, the costs of
solutions are much lower and the problem is better understood.

• Many species are threatened with extinction due to loss of

habitats such as rain forests. An international treaty on
biodiversity and an agreement on forests aim to reduce the
destruction of local ecosystems, with costs spread among
states.
• The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) establishes
an ocean regime that puts most commercial fisheries and
offshore oil under control of states as territorial waters.
• Pollution—including acid rain, water and air pollution, and
toxic and nuclear waste—tends to be more localized than
global and has been addressed mainly through unilateral,
bilateral, and regional measures rather than global ones.
What is environmental law
• Environmental Law is a complex combination of:
• State
• Federal
• International treaty law pertaining to issues of concern to the
environment and protecting natural resources
• For example, environmental laws often relate to issues such as
pollution of soil, air, or water; global warming; and depletion
of oil, coal, and clean water.
• Countries tend to focus more on the process of making a
treaty, but give less attention on what it really can do when
enforced in the right way.
Impacts of Environmental Security on
International Relations
• Environment is now a key component of International Relations
• The rising attention on Climate Change is a matter that now
has high priority in diplomatic circles
• Environmental Change and Geopolitics were once again
interconnected in 1983, with the possibilities of a nuclear
winter in the aftermath of nuclear war
• The deaths from Nuclear detonations would be followed by a
dramatic fall in global temperatures due to dust and smoke in
the atmosphere
• The Ecological consequences from this would be rapid Climate
change
• These discussions once again linked climate to the central
concerns of International Relations
• International Relation’s core concern has long been with warfare
and the dangers of and how to prevent international conflict
• After The Cold War conflict theorists looked at environmental
conflict and the possibilities of resource conflicts as a source of
warfare
• The critical work on environmental conflict in the 1990s also
pointed to the importance of understanding how the global
political economy was driving environmental change
• It has become increasingly clear that the processes of
development are frequently very disruptive to rural communities
and traditional ways of life
• The traditional core themes of International Relations concerned
with war, peace and security collapse directly with the
environmental discussions
Example
• In 1999, two large earthquakes struck Turkey and Greece
• After that, the two countries offered each other assistance.
• Within the year, the two countries were engaged in a process
to reconcile their differences, ending long-standing rivalry
• This begs the question: Did the exchange of aid and other
assistance following their respective disasters play some role
in their broader reconciliation?
• Since the Turkey-Greece experience in 1999, this question has
been asked repeatedly, every time a disaster has occurred
within the context of some ongoing conflict
Conclusion
• Today we cannot secure security for one the state at the
expense of other.
• Security can only be universal , but security cannot only be
political or military , it must be ecological , economical and
social.
• The environmental functions work well without humanity but
humanity cannot survive without environment.
• The harmful influence of human impact accelerates the
climate change process , leading to severe environmental
effects.
• International cooperation seems to be the key to ensure
security of the environment.
• The sustainable use of resources and joint efforts to protect
the environmental issues across national borders.
• Social divisions can contribute to conflict prevention and
peace building.
• Government , NGO‘s , United Nations they all are important in
battle to assure Environmental Security , but individuals have
to be a part of that battle as well.