A general move to broaden the security agenda occurred during the 1980s by expanding the focus from the security of the state or the nation to an alternative focus on the security of the people, or the global collective. The human security can be affected by economic welfare, environmental concerns, cultural identity, political rights, and military issues. In recent years, environmental degradation is increasingly being considered as a security problem by not just the environmental activists but also the security establishment as they have become more responsive to the idea. In late 1989, the journal of the International Institute for Strategic Studies addressed "Nonmilitary Aspects of Strategy." by addressing a panoply of possibilities of threats: economy, environment, migration, and drugs to find new security problems that can replace the old ones. At the political level, James Baker, Secretary of State in the Bush Administration, considered environmental problems as security threats and the Brundtland Commission's report, Our Common Future, used the concept of "environmental security" explicitly.
Environmental Issues Associated with Global Security
The cold war period was dominated by the national security paradigm, which completely polarized the world characterized by the domination of highly militarized and ideologically polarized confrontation of the superpowers. After the cold war, new security paradigms have been developed such as the national security paradigm, collective security paradigm, international security paradigm, and human security paradigm. This is necessary, as it has become more important to expand the security concept by considering the non-military components and include all aspects of the society as well. National security is still paramount, as those threats to the national security still exist . Threats to the national security include nuclear proliferation, Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism, failed states, biological warfare, global mafias, cyber terrorism, and environmental issues, with an emphasis on finding the link between the environmental change, conflict, and security.
There have been arguments that by considering environmental security as a political issue, the possibility of the issues being diluted and policy-makers and scholars offering compromised, short-term solutions has arisen. They also argue that the developed nations have taken over the agenda and marginalizing the contribution of developing nations to the environmental crises. In 1994, Robert Kaplan stated that changes in the demographics, urbanization, degradation of the environment, and easy access to arms have resulted in producing chronic violence and state failures in West Africa making it uninhabitable. According to Homer-Dixon, civil strife, insurgencies, and ethnic clashes can be the result of environmental scarcity and their incidence may increase as these scarcities are exacerbated in many parts of the developing world. However, the more direct causes are political, economic, and other factors to generate social effects that are harsh and hence, in turn, help to produce violence while the role of such a scarcity stays obscure and indirect often. Environmental scarcity can be due to resources that are insufficient, unequally distributed, or has too much demand for a resource, thereby forcing deprivation on a section of the society. The cause for this scarcity can be population growth, economic development, or pollution. This is manifested in many ways; the insufficient supply can result in one section to seize control of a resource, thereby forcing another section onto an ecologically marginal landscape. Due to the growing scarcity, the deprived society may experience health problems, social disparities, and declines in agricultural and economic productivity. This could result in migration, which leads to an intensification of ethnic and other group-identity tensions in the receiving areas of this migration. Tax bases will be eroded while the demands on the government may increase and violence may result or increases if already present.
Paul Collier had analyzed statistically 47 civil armed conflicts that happened between 1965 and 1999 and identified the variables that strongly correlated with the conflicts, which were economic factors such as dependence on exports of primary commodities, country's low average income, and slow growth; ethnic dominance; and diaspora. He had stated that the conflicts were either because the main objective was to acquire the natural resources or some other objective that was served by acquiring those natural resources. According to Collier, history matters, and past conflict influences present conflict. The insecurities due to environmental stress in countries such as Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, and Haiti are based on longstanding practices of exclusion and exploitation. In South Africa and Asia, during the British rule, some groups had better access to natural resources such as water and land. Subsequently, independence and a slew of reforms have not been able to root out these inequalities from the social and economic fabric of countries such as Pakistan, India, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Therefore, it is clear that practices of violence and insecurities with long histories have been aggravated by accelerated and virulent forms of environment degradation wrought by the human activities. Honduras and El Salvador clashed in a conflict due to land scarcity, in 1969, which resulted in a large number of Salvadorans migrating to Honduras. However, they have not developed strategies to adapt to the environmental stress by methods that include migration to the United States, securing assistance from UN, bilateral development projects, and democratization. Similarly, the case of Chiapas is a conflict due to environmental reasons as armed guerillas fought for farmland. Turbot War between Canada and Spain is an example of scarcity-induced conflict.
Population Explosion and Economic Resource Wars
Africa's population has grown from 477 million in 1980 to 1.2 billion while the population growth has receded in the rest of the world and this acceleration of annual population growth has resulted in significant strife for accessing and controlling the valuable natural resources such as minerals, oil, timber, and arable land across the continent. Some believed that progress in science and technology would avert the risks due to the competition for the natural resources associated with overpopulation and over consumption. Africa’s population growth rates, which is currently at about 30 million people per year resulted in the continent’s increasing dependency on food aid as the population growth rate far outstripped the growth rates of the food production, leading to violent struggles for access to resources, crime, and war. Both the scarcity and abundance of economic resources play an important role in the beginning and aggravation of violent conflict, along with other variables. However, they are the main drivers of conflict and many civil wars have economic agendas as the origins of the use and control of ecological resources are motivated by both injustices and greed. According to the expected-utility theoretical model, a civil war can happen if the rebels think that the perceived benefits outweigh the costs and therefore, greed are more important than grievance, and hence the greedy such as the arms dealers, smugglers, poachers, pirates, military leaders enrich themselves more than the needy. This can be evidenced in Liberia where factions financed the conflict by exploiting natural resources and negotiating deals with European, American and Asian firms, which demonstrates how Africa’s wealth has become its curse. Similarly, in Sudan, the control of oil and ecological resource-fuelled the civil war, while in Nigeria oil sparked a localized rebellion against profit-seeking multinationals. In some cases, the leaders are motivated by greed but the ordinary people of the rebels are motivated by legitimate grievances, which were the case of Mozambique rebels who joined MNR rebel movement . Disillusionment is the result of deprivation and marginalization, which forces people to adopt violent solutions, but is not a guarantee that people will pursue their goals using violent behavior, as evidenced by the fact that none of the Africa's many wars were started by the poor and were started by the disaffected elite. The African Union (AU) is still struggling to be financially independent and rely on funding from the West, Canada, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, the World Bank, and the European Union, which thereby control the AU activities. The French have been working to ensure that its former African colonials support its interests in Africa. Russia is pursuing oil and platinum projects in Africa and sales of arms to ensure that its interests in Africa are safeguarded .
New Arctic Shipping Routes
Greenland has taken over its full management of its resources after 2009 Self-Rule Act. Together with Denmark, the Arctic eight (the eight states that make up the council) and the Arctic five (the five states that border the Arctic Ocean) are part of a geopolitical game, due to the abundance of natural resources. Out of all the undiscovered reserves, 13% of oil, 30% of natural gas, and natural gas liquids are present in the Arctic region. Due to the retreating ice, these natural resources are becoming more accessible, which enables maritime transport that was hitherto impossible. Due to the ever-increasing need for natural resources, it is inevitable that these resources will be exploited. However, 97% of these resources are in the already-determined and exclusive economic zones of the Arctic Coastal States and already owned by legitimate states, hence the predation will be commercial in nature rather than military. Due to its remoteness, the exploitation of resources is an expensive endeavor and due to the lack of infrastructure, technologically challenging.
The creation of Arctic Council resulted in a proactive control of their natural resources and a proactive way to control their natural territories. This is especially true for coastal states that are challenged by the growing environmental concerns such as global warming due to climate change. Issues that are relevant on a global and regional scale include long-range air and water pollutants such as toxins, heavy metals, and radioactivity; climate change effects, mass-scale utilization of energy resources, which are extractive and their transportation of these resources through new sea routes. Energy security has become increasingly important for the Arctic states such as Norway, Russia, and Greenland, to exercising and controlling their sovereignty. China and the European Union were attracted by offshore hydrocarbon deposits, oil, and an increased access to energy resources due to climate change and thawing sea-ice. To reinforce this is the potential for northern sea routes and shipping, particularly new trans-arctic routes, and geo-economics. This has resulted in an increase in the potential threat perceptions and risk calculations that are causing uncertainties due to the emerging conflicts regarding the environment and natural resources, as they are now part of the security equation. Currently, the Chinese strategic imports pass through waters dominated by its competitors such as the United States and India or choke pointed at Malacca, which forces diversification of sea routes. It is looking to get the Russian and Norwegian energy supplies through the new Arctic sea routes through the Northern Sea Route, which still passes Bering Strait and Northern Pacific that is dominated by the United States. Due to the climate change and the resulting thawing of ice, new routes are becoming possible and these routes are high interest to countries such as China. These new routes could cause a seismic shift in world trade patterns and of commercial shipping due to significant distance and fuel savings. These polar routes could be beneficial to China as according to the route through the Arctic Ocean, China is 4000 nautical miles closer to the European Union and the East coast of North America with no vessel size restrictions and fees unlike those in the Suez or Panama Canal. China knows that to sustain its economic growth, it requires domestic energy security, which is linked to international energy security, hence its energy diplomacy has changed to expand the channels for supply of imported energy.
Conclusion
The welfare of humankind is dependent on the environmental integrity of the planet and both require tough choices regarding the use of resources, reforming current practices, and avoiding environment stresses. Population growth and depletion of natural resources can affect environment security, which can affect the global, regional, national, human security in many ways. Increase in population results in unequal distribution of natural resources while depletion of natural resources forces the population to migrate causing its own set of problems or the population may resort to predation on the neighbors, which causes the conflict. Being aware of the fact that environmental issues may not manifest directly as conflicts but may be the underlying causes when coupled with other issues, helps the governments take action by formulating the proper policies.
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