Experts discuss the risks global environmental change poses for the human security, including disaster and disease, violence, and increasing inequity. In recent years, scholars in international relations and other fields have begun to conceive of security more broadly, moving away from a state-centered concept of national security toward the idea of human security, which emphasizes the individual and human well-being. Viewing global environmental change through the lens of human security connects such problems as melting ice caps and carbon emissions to poverty, vulnerability, equity, and conflict. This book examines the complex social, health, and economic consequences of environmental change across the globe. In chapters that are both academically rigorous and policy relevant, the book discusses the connections of global environmental change to urban poverty, natural disasters (with a case study of Hurricane Katrina), violent conflict (with a study of the decade-long Nepalese civil war), population, gender, and development. The book makes clear the inadequacy of traditional understandings of security and shows how global environmental change is raising new, unavoidable questions of human insecurity, conflict, cooperation, and sustainable development. Contributors W. Neil Adger, Jennifer Bailey, Jon Barnett, Victoria Basolo, Hans Georg Bohle, Mike Brklacich, May Chazan, Chris Cocklin, Geoffrey D. Dabelko, Indra de Soysa, Heather Goldsworthy, Betsy Hartmann, Robin M. Leichenko, Laura Little, Alexander López, Richard A. Matthew, Bryan McDonald, Eric Neumayer, Kwasi Nsiah-Gyabaah, Karen L. O'Brien, Marvin S. Soroos, Bishnu Raj Upreti

Environmental change presents a new context and new opportunities for transformational change. This timely book will inspire new ways of understanding the relationship between environmental change and human security. A Changing Environment for Human Security: Transformative Approaches to Research, Policy and Action both supports and informs a call for new, transformative approaches to research, policy and action. The chapters in this book include critical analyses, case studies and reflections on contemporary environmental and social challenges, with a strong emphasis on those related to climate change. Human thoughts and actions have contributed to an environment of insecurity, manifested as multiple interacting threats that now represent a serious challenge to humanity. Yet humans also have the capacity to collectively transform the economic, political, social and cultural systems and structures that perpetuate human insecurities. These fresh perspectives on global environmental change from an interdisciplinary group of international experts will inspire readers – whether students, researchers, policy makers, or practitioners – to think differently about environmental issues and sustainability. The contributions show that in a changing environment, human security is not only a possibility, but a choice.

Severe droughts, damaging floods and mass migration: Climate change is becoming a focal point for security and conflict research and a challenge for the world’s governance structures. But how severe are the security risks and conflict potentials of climate change? Could global warming trigger a sequence of events leading to economic decline, social unrest and political instability? What are the causal relationships between resource scarcity and violent conflict? This book brings together international experts to explore these questions using in-depth case studies from around the world. Furthermore, the authors discuss strategies, institutions and cooperative approaches to stabilize the climate-society interaction.

Security has tended to be seen as based on military force, yet this illusion is crumbling, literally and figuratively, before our eyes in the conflict zones of Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa. It is now clear that real human security, defined by the Commission on Human Security as 'protecting vital freedoms', can only be achieved if the full range of issues that underpin human security - including environmental integrity - are addressed. This ground-breaking book, authored by prominent international decision makers, tackles the global human security problem across the range of core issues including terrorism, nuclear proliferation, access to water, food security, loss of biodiversity and climate change. The authors identify the causes of insecurity, articulate the linkages between the different elements of human security and outline an agenda for engaging stakeholders from across the globe in building the foundations of genuine and lasting human security for all nations and all people. This is powerful, necessary, solution-focused reading in these times of peril, global conflict, mass inequity and rampant environmental degradation.

Presenting human security perspectives on climate change, this volume raises issues of equity, ethics and environmental justice, as well as our capacity to respond to what is increasingly considered to be the greatest societal challenge for humankind. Written by international experts, it argues that climate change must be viewed as an issue of human security, and not an environmental problem that can be managed in isolation from larger questions concerning development trajectories, and ethical obligations towards the poor and to future generations. The concept of human security offers a new approach to the challenges of climate change, and the responses that could lead to a more equitable and sustainable future. Climate Change, Ethics and Human Security will be of interest to researchers, policy makers, and practitioners concerned with the human dimensions of climate change, as well as to upper-level students in the social sciences and humanities interested in climate change.

This book makes an important and timely contribution to debates about the relationship between climate change and security in Southeast Asia. It does so through a human security lens, drawing on local and regional expertise to discuss the threats that climate change poses to human security in Southeast Asia and to show how a human security approach draws attention to the importance of adaptation and strategies for social resilience. In doing so, it exposes the consequences of climate change, the impact on community rights and access, the special problem of border areas, before going on to investigate local and regional strategies for addressing the human security challenges of climate change.

The Handbook is international in scope and provides an assessment that will be of value to academics, students and policy professionals alike. NGOs and policy institutes which need a grasp of the specificity and range of the issues and problems will al

This is the first comprehensive exploration of why human security is relevant to the Arctic and what achieving it can mean, covering the areas of health of the environment, identity of peoples, supply of traditional foods, community health, economic opportunities, and political stability. The traditional definition of security has already been actively employed in the Arctic region for decades, particularly in relation to natural resource sovereignty issues, but how and why should the human aspect be introduced? What can this region teach us about human security in the wider world? The book reviews the potential threats to security, putting them in an analytical framework and indicating a clear path for solutions.Contributions come from natural, social and humanities scientists, hailing from Canada, Russia, Finland and Norway. Environmental Change and Human Security in the Arctic is an essential resource for policy-makers, community groups, researchers and students working in the field of human security, particularly for those in the Arctic regions.

The year 2007 could perhaps accurately be described as the year when climate change finally received the attention that this challenge deserves globally. Much of the information and knowledge that was created in this field during the year was the result of the findings of the Fourth - sessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which were disseminated on a large scale and reported extensively by the media. This was the result not only of a heightened interest on the part of the public on various aspects of climate change, but also because the IPCC itself proactively attempted to spread the findings of its AR4 to the public at large. The interest generated on the scientific realities of climate change was further enhanced by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC and former Vice President of the US, Al Gore. By taking this decision in favour of a leader who has done a great deal to create awareness on c- mate change, and a body that assesses all scientific aspects of climate change and disseminates the result of its findings, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has clearly drawn the link between climate change and peace in the world.

This book examines the multiple strategies proposed by the international community for addressing global climate change (GCC) from both human and state-security perspectives. It examines what is needed from major states working within the UN framework to engage with the multiple dimensions of a strategy that addresses GCC and its impacts, where such engagement promotes both human and state security. Two broad frameworks for approaching these issues provide the basis of discussion for the individual chapters, which discuss the strategies being undertaken by major state powers (the US, the EU, China, India, Japan, and Russia). The first framework considers the multiple strategies, mitigation, adaptation, and capacity-building required of the international community to address the effects of GCC. The second framework considers the differentiation of GCC policies in terms of security and how the efficacy of these strategies could be impacted by whether priority is given to state security over human security concerns. This book will be of much interest to students of human security, climate change, foreign policy, and International Relations.