Highlight 29/2024 – The Urgency of Strengthening Defence Sectors for Climate Emergencies
Shadeisha George-Mattis, 7 August 2024
The faultline that exists in acknowledging the role of the security sector in climate and environmental security requires urgent attention. Traditionally, police and defence officers’ functions entailed maintaining law and order; protecting citizens from crime and other violent acts; reducing any fears that may be associated with these acts; safeguarding the state; and upholding the constitution. In a world of escalating conflict, threats to nationhood, national sovereignty and integrity, and civil uprisings, the role that is played by these trained professionals is, indisputably, needed now more than ever. However, the emergence of impending threats has ushered in a wave of new and unorthodox imperatives that ought to be met by the police in order to adequately inform the way in which Security Sector Governance (SSG) takes place.
Indeed, the United Nations Development Programme supports this argument and posits a reimagined vision for the way in which defence officers perform their duties to incorporate developmental aspects that are hinged on good governance and human rights. However, one notes the glaring failure to highlight these new roles in the context of climate change and its inevitable impact on human security.
The possibility of intrastate war as a result of climatic events which stem from rising temperatures, altered weather patterns, food insecurity fuelled by agricultural challenges, water scarcity climate-induced migrants, economic unproductivity, loss and damage to critical infrastructure, poses incalculable threats to vulnerable groups. Thus, the increase in violence and conflict linked to environmental degradation, necessitates that the scope of security governance be broadened to combat these impending issues in an effective manner. Efforts should be made to ensure that threats to the environment are governed and controlled in ways similarly utilised in curbing traditional military threats. However, while the security of the state is of a secretive and stratified output, the securitization of the state when dealing with climate change by the defence sector necessitates responses that are robust, prompt and effective, with a governance apparatus that is geared towards indigenous peoples, women, the disabled, the elderly and other vulnerable populations. Greater planning and collaboration with corresponding local emergency organizations in the areas of disaster management, with a clear focus on rescue and evacuation are therefore needed. What is more is that the employ of inadequate response mechanisms could result in diminishing returns for incumbent governments.
The core assumption that environmental decay precipitates interstate war is also an argument that must not be overlooked. The COVID-19 pandemic (re)emphasized realist political thought that the state serves as the unit of analysis in international politics and that human being are selfish and egoistical. Considering this, interests, needs and survival are inherently self-seeking in nature. As the severity and frequency of catastrophic events heighten, so will competition for resources among states. Occurrences of this type therefore lay the groundwork for seeds of conflict to be sown. In clearing the path for cooperation to occur, police need to be adept at monitoring breaches to environmental regulation. Fraud and other acts of corruption also need to be stemmed in order to ensure that there is strict adherence to environmental protocols.
The nexus between environmental security and Security Sector Governance provokes questions about who and what requires securing in twenty-first century politics. However, the alternative of desecuritization poses even greater challenges with lasting repercussions.
Shadeisha George-Mattis, Highlight 29/2024 – The Urgency of Strengthening Defence Sectors for Climate Emergencies, 7 August 2024, available at www.meig.ch
The views expressed in the MEIG Highlights are personal to the authors and neither reflect the positions of the MEIG Programme nor those of the University of Geneva.