The risks of ecological security

Abstract

During the last 15–20 years a changing climate has increasingly been seen internationally as a security risk (Brown et al., 2007). This securitisation has in particular taken place within the military, (green) international NGOs and among policy-makers (Selby and Hoffman, 2014). In conferences about climate security, a peculiar mix of actors can be observed among participants of military officers in uniform, climate activists and politicians. Since 2007, the UN Security Council has also discussed the link between climate change and human security several times, and in particular related to the dire security situation in the African Sahel. In March 2021, the African Union’s Peace and Security Council also issued a communiqué dedicated to the effects of climate change on peace, security and stability in Africa. International media have generally been keen to repeat a policy narrative about climate-caused conflicts. Especially the current crisis in the Sahel has drawn international attention to climate change as a possible cause. Just to give two examples – Le Monde reported on 11th April 2019 that conflicts between Fulani herders and Dogon farmers in Mali are caused by resource scarcity following climate change and population growth, whileDeutsche Welle (11th June 2019) concluded that ‘The conflict between Dogon and Fulani ethnic groups over resources in Mali has been exacerbated by climate change, population growth, an absentee state and Islamism’. Indeed, the Sahel is often pointed out as the most typical example of a toxic brew of climate change, poverty, migration and armed insurgency. This view was reflected by the Norwegian Nobel Committee when it awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 to former US Vice President Al Gore and the IPCC and highlighted farmer-herder conflicts in the Sahel as typical examples of a close link between climate change and conflicts. Academic research, on the other hand, has been more critical to framing climate change as a cause of conflicts or as a threat multiplier, although researchers continue to investigate climate change as a risk factor for violent conflict (Mach et al., 2019). Such risks may occur via possible indirect pathways as for instance through reduced food security or the implementation of adaptation or mitigation measures. Both quantitative peace and conflict studies (e.g. Buhaug 2010; Theisen et al., 2013; Koubi 2019) and case-based political ecology (e.g. Benjaminsen et al., 2012; Abrahams and Carr 2017; Benjaminsen and Ba, 2021) have questioned assumptions about climate change as a driver of violence and insecurity, although there may be indirect pathways under certain contexts. My own positionality in debates about climate security and in these comments on the book discussed in this