Environmental Security?

Abstract

The literature on `environmental security' struggles with conceptual and methodological shortcomings, questioning the analytical value of the concept. Lodgaard and Westing claim that linking the environment to security - and thereby to `high politics' - has created the political awareness and sense of urgency required to resolve environmental problems and increase our security. Despite the positive political effects, Buzan, Wæver & de Wilde warn against such linking, saying it represents an undesirable `securitization' of the environment that restricts the range of means available for resolving environmental problems. In the long run, environmental security is more likely to be achieved if it is made part of the daily political debate, they argue. The environmental conflict perspective, focusing on the circumstances under which environmental degradation or change may lead to violent conflict, represents an effort to overcome some of the methodological problems of the security-environment linkage. This review also discusses how a multilevel approach to environmental security, involving global, regional, national and subnational decision-making levels according to the subsidiarity principle, would provide a more dynamic framework for action than the state-centred approach which still dominates security thinking and policy.