Global Warming and the Shift in Security Concepts

    

        

        International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline began to develop as an organized field of study in the early 20th century. According to Carr (1939), IR emerged from a desire to understand the root causes of conflict in the aftermath of World War I, with the aim of preventing inter-state disputes and creating peace through diplomacy and international law. This normative perspective reflected the optimism that international rules could ensure global order.

        However, this optimism collapsed in the 1930s when authoritarian states, such as Nazi Germany, disregarded international law and triggered World War II. Following the war, the world did not enter an era of peace but instead became trapped in a new phase of tension known as the Cold War.

        The limitations of the normative paradigm in explaining state aggression led to the rise of realism, a paradigm emphasizing the struggle for power as the essence of international politics. Realism assumes the international system is anarchic, compelling states to prioritize military power to ensure their survival. For two decades after World War II, this paradigm dominated IR studies, journalism, and foreign policy-making.

        However, toward the end of the Cold War, criticism emerged against the narrow military focus of IR. Dissatisfaction with this limited perspective spurred the rise of new issues such as economics, the environment, identity, and transnational crime, which began to receive attention from the 1970s through the 1990s (Buzan et al., 1998).

        This expansion transformed the understanding of security, shifting from a narrow focus on state defense to a broader concern for human security. Human security encompasses economic, political, social, and environmental dimensions, with global warming becoming increasingly prominent as it is viewed as a threat to the survival of humanity. This condition has driven international actors to mainstream the securitization agenda of environmental issues within the study and practice of international relations.

        After the end of the Cold War, social, economic, and environmental issues increasingly dominated the discourse of international relations, as direct threats to state sovereignty declined. This shift led to a diminishing role for strategic studies that had previously focused on the West-East confrontation during the Cold War era, rendering purely military-centered analyses vulnerable to the growing relevance of non-military issues (Buzan et al., 1998, p. 3). As inter-state threats waned, new dangers emerged that posed greater risks to human survival, such as poverty, disease outbreaks, natural disasters, environmental degradation, and terrorism.

        Unfortunately, states have become less capable of effectively addressing these problems. States seem to have lost authority in resolving issues that should fall under their responsibility, allowing non-state actors to take on a more significant role. Consequently, societies have grown more accustomed to relying on individual initiatives or grassroots movements to tackle their daily challenges (Held & McGrew, 2003, pp. 127--128).

        This decline in state authority has been largely driven by technological advances and the acceleration of global economic integration (Held & McGrew, 2003, p. 133). In this context, the rise of non-state actors has expanded the scope of IR studies, with not only states but also international organizations, multinational corporations, and global economic institutions playing major roles in influencing state policies.

        For instance, in international political economy, global financial institutions and multinational corporations now exert more influence over state policies than military power does. Competition among states has shifted toward seeking economic partnerships rather than building military alliances (Held & McGrew, 2003, p. 131).

        This development reinforces the premise that the study of international relations has shifted from a dominant focus on military politics to non-military issues, involving an increasingly diverse range of actors in global dynamics.

        The concept of security has continued to evolve alongside the dynamics of international relations. Initially, traditional approaches emphasized the state as the primary object of security, defining threats as efforts that undermined state sovereignty or territorial integrity, thereby legitimizing the use of military force. However, since the 1990s, security discourse has expanded to non-military issues such as food access, economic welfare, and environmental quality, with the focus shifting from the state to the individual (Bajpai, 2003, p. 195).

        This change emerged from disappointment with the development and security paradigms of the 1960s--1980s, which failed to address real threats to human survival. The redefinition of security was also strengthened by the end of the Cold War's bipolar confrontation, which redirected attention from issues of war and weaponry toward economic, social, and environmental concerns (Bajpai, 2003; Buzan et al., 1998). A key document emphasizing the concept of human security is the UNDP's Human Development Report 1994, which identified seven dimensions of threats: economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political.

        Massive global economic growth, driven by liberal economics and free trade, has spurred production and consumption to levels exceeding environmental carrying capacity (Worku, 2007). This phenomenon has caused serious environmental degradation: drastic deforestation, rising air and marine pollution, and increasing scarcity of freshwater resources. Tragedies such as Minamata in Japan and the Buyat Bay pollution in Indonesia stand as stark evidence of the harmful impacts of industrial activities on human health and the environment.

        Environmental issues were first raised in security discourse during the 1972 UN Conference, but only gained serious attention in the 1990s, due to the cross-border nature of environmental problems (Buzan et al., 1998, p. 71; Martinovsky, 2011, p. 2). Unfortunately, environmental issues often get sidelined by other topics deemed more urgent, such as terrorism (Trombetta, 2008, pp. 585, 594). Additionally, some argue that the concept of security is irrelevant to environmental issues because security is traditionally associated with violence, while institutions managing the environment differ from those handling security (Floyd, 2010, pp. 2--3).

        Despite these challenges, the theme of environmental securitization continues to develop. Environmental securitization refers to efforts to protect the biosphere and ecosystems through the roles of actors such as scientists, social movements, governments, and international organizations (Detraz & Betsill, 2009, p. 308). Scientific agendas focus on academically identifying environmental threats, while political agendas emphasize policymaking to support adaptation and mitigation of climate change.

        Global warming has become a key driver behind the rise of environmental securitization in the past decade. This phenomenon results from the greenhouse effect caused by emissions of gases such as CO, methane, and CFCs, leading to rising global temperatures, melting polar ice, rising sea levels, and increasing frequency of natural disasters (Trombetta, 2008, p. 596). Various studies, including by NASA and the IPCC, have demonstrated significant trends of global average temperature increases over recent decades.

        In response, international political agendas have produced important agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol (1997), which binds developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the Montreal Protocol, which regulates the reduction of ozone-depleting chemicals. These efforts are complemented by mechanisms like the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), reforestation, and renewable energy development (Detraz & Betsill, 2009; Kegley & Wittkopf, 2001).

        Beyond government policies, public contributions are also crucial. Small actions such as saving electricity, using shared transportation, or choosing environmentally friendly products can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Even consumption patterns, such as reducing beef intake, can help lower methane production, one of the main greenhouse gases.

        Thus, the emergence and mainstreaming of environmental issues in international security discourse reflects a paradigm shift that increasingly emphasizes the importance of human security and environmental sustainability (Barnett & Adger, 2007; Trombetta, 2008).

        Phenomena in international relations have transformed the way security concepts are understood. Security, once narrowly focused on the state, has shifted to the individual level. This paradigm shift began with economic issues and expanded to environmental concerns, with global warming serving as a concrete example that underscores this change.

        The severe impacts of global warming compel cross-border cooperation involving not only governments but also non-state actors, including individuals who are more directly confronted with the tangible consequences of climate change. While states tend to focus on military security issues, individuals bear a greater moral responsibility in addressing the threat of global warming, which directly endangers their living environment.

        The understanding that global warming affects all aspects of human life strengthens the idea that security can no longer be adequately understood solely in the territorial context of the state. The human security perspective enables the study of international relations to respond to the real-life dynamics faced by individuals and communities, and demands that IR studies engage more closely with issues that directly impact human needs, rather than focusing exclusively on matters of state.

 

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Carr, E. H. (1939). The twenty years' crisis, 1919--1939. Macmillan.

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