Climate Migration and Security

Securitisation as a Strategy in Climate Change Politics

Ingrid Boas

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138811515
• eBook ISBN: 9781317608448
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Climate migration, as an image of people moving due to sea-level rise and increased drought, has been presented as one of the main security risks of global warming. The rationale is that climate change will cause mass movements of climate refugees, causing tensions and even violent conflict. Through the lens of climate change politics and securitisation theory, Ingrid Boas examines how and why climate migration has been presented in terms of security and reviews the political consequences of such framing exercises.

This study is done through a macro-micro analysis and concentrates on the period of the early 2000s until the end of September 2014. The macro-level analysis provides an overview of the coalitions of states that favour or oppose security framings on climate migration. It shows how European states and the Small Island States have been key actors to present climate migration as a matter of security, while the emerging developing countries have actively opposed such a framing. The book argues that much of the division between these states alliances can be traced back to climate change politics. As a next step, the book delves into UK-India interactions to provide an in-depth analysis of these security framings and their connection with climate change politics. This micro-level analysis demonstrates how the UK has strategically used security framings on climate migration to persuade India to commit to binding targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The book examines how and why such a strategy has emerged, and most importantly, to what extent it has been successful.

Climate Migration and Security is the first book of its kind to examine the strategic usage of security arguments on climate migration as a political tool in climate change politics. Original theoretical, empirical, and policy-related insights will provide students, scholars, and policy makers with the necessary tools to review the effectiveness of these framing strategies for the purpose of climate change diplomacy and delve into the wider implications of these framing strategies for the governance of climate change.

1
Introduction

The Securitisation of Climate Migration

Climate change-induced migration (in short, climate migration), as an image of people moving due to sea-level rise, increased drought, and flooding, has been presented as one of the main security risks of global warming. In 2007, for instance, The Guardian opened an article with the headline: ‘Climate wars threaten billions. More than 100 countries face political chaos and mass migration in global warming catastrophe’ (McKie 2007). Alarming statements were made by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), such as Christian Aid, who warned that ‘without urgent action, climate change will make the forced displacement crisis the biggest threat facing developing countries over the next 50 years’ (Christian Aid 2007: 5). Margaret Beckett, the UK Foreign Secretary who served from 2006 to 2007, also discussed the matter through security lenses:

Take immigration. If people find their homes permanently flooded they will have to up sticks and move. Simple as that…. By tackling climate change we can lessen the push factors driving immigration. If we don’t tackle it, we have to brace ourselves for populations shifts on a scale we have never seen before.

(Beckett 2006)

These quotes suggest that climate migration has become the subject of a process called securitisation, broadly defined as the process through which non-traditional security issues (such as climate change or migration) are discussed and/or acted upon in terms of security and thereby drawn into the security domain. This finding raises a number of questions: Has climate migration been securitised? To what degree, and by whom? What are the reasons for actors to present or deal with climate migration in terms of security? Does it benefit their political agenda, their bureaucratic interests, or do they regard climate migration as a serious threat harming their national or human security? How is security defined? Do actors present climate migration in terms of national security or in terms of human security and risk? What measures do actors seek to promote? Does securitisation result in extraordinary security measures in the form of strict border controls and military responses to deal with climate change and migration? Or does it help to raise awareness of action preventing climate change and thereby preventing scenarios of climate migration? To what extent is it successful to engage in securitisation to achieve certain policy goals? Does it produce counterproductive outcomes? Who loses and who gains from the securitisation process?

This book tackles these questions by examining the securitisation of climate migration in the context of climate change politics. This is where security frames on climate migration have emerged and most actively play out (see Brown et al. 2007; Trombetta 2008; Methmann and Rothe 2012; Rothe 2012).¹ As argued by Brown et al. (2007: 1144): ‘it is part of a clear process to invest the international debate with a greater sense of urgency’. This book delves into that aspect of the securitisation of climate migration. It asks: What is the role of the securitisation of climate migration in climate politics? How does securitisation function as a diplomatic technique to push climate change negotiations forward? Who is driving such a strategy and what arguments do they make; and above all, does it work? By climate politics, I do not just refer to the negotiations in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Most securitisation attempts (called securitising moves) take place in the wider context of the actual negotiations: for example, in diplomatic encounters between states, in the media, or in other UN forums seeking to influence the UNFCCC (such as the UN Security Council or the UN General Assembly). The analysis will therefore centre on the broader field of climate politics, and not just on the UNFCCC negotiations.

This study is done by means of a macro–micro analysis, and focusses on the period of the early 2000s until the end of September 2014, when the New York UN Climate Summit took place. The macro-level analysis provides an overview of the coalitions of states that favour or oppose securitising moves on climate migration, and examines how this intersects with climate politics. This overview is provided through the help of discourse network analysis software (Leifeld 2013), which visualises the relations between actors through the arguments they make. The analysis centres on the 2007 and 2011 debate on the security implications of climate change held in the UN Security Council, in which over 50 countries participated (UNSC 2007, 2011). The debate of 2007 was the first-ever UN Security Council debate on the effects of climate change on world peace and security, and focussed on issues such as food insecurity, water insecurity, conflicts, and also climate migration (Sindico 2007; UNSC 2007; Scott 2008; Detraz and Betsill 2009). The issue of environmental degradation had once before been referred to by the UN Security Council. On 31 January 1992 the Council had issued a statement that ‘[t]he non-military sources of instability in the economic, social, humanitarian and ecological fields have become threats to peace and security’ (UNSC 1992). But never before had there been a UN Security Council debate focussed solely on the issue of climate change and its consequences (such as climate migration). The debate in 2007 triggered follow-ups in the UN General Assembly in 2009, and in the UN Security Council in 2011 under Germany’s presidency. During this latter debate, the UN Secretary General spoke of ‘environmental refugees’ as ‘reshaping the human geography of the planet’ (UN Secretary General 2011). These UN Security Council debates are key settings where many securitising moves on climate migration have been made. Climate migration ‘serves as an argumentative shortcut that substantiates claims about the security impacts of global warming’ (Methmann and Rothe 2014: 162).

The micro-level analysis zooms in on the activities and views of specific actors in this field. The actors analysed in the micro-level analysis are the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the climate change and security community in the Government of India. The FCO is amongst the key securitisers of climate migration (securitiser being the promoter of securitising moves). It initiated the first-ever debate on climate change (including climate migration) in the UN Security Council (see chapter 4 for details). According to Brauch (2009), this UN Security Council debate represented a primary momentum for notions of security to come into prominence in debates on climate change (including climate migration). It is therefore valuable to gain more insight into the origin of the FCO’s securitising move, its activities, and motivations. As I will demonstrate, the FCO’s securitising move on climate migration emerged to promote greater action on climate change amongst the emerging developing countries and the United States (US); specifically, binding measures to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the UNFCCC. In order to promote such action, the FCO raised the issue of climate migration to demonstrate that inaction can create dire circumstances.² India, being an emerging economy not yet subjected to binding mitigation targets under the UN Climate Convention, acts as a key audience to such securitisation attempts. The analysis zooms in on the interactions between the FCO and the Government of India, and will examine whether the FCO’s attempt to influence India’s position on climate change has been successful.

Despite climate politics being a primary context for the securitisation of climate migration, there are risks for it producing aversive policies in the domain of immigration and military policy. A number of academics have warned that security framings of climate migration can lead to the militarisation of climate change or to increased border controls to stop so-called ‘climate refugees’ (Smith 2007; Hartmann 2010; White 2011; Trombetta 2014). For instance, White (2011) demonstrates how Morocco draws on a discourse on climate migration to promote its role of a transit state in the management of migration towards the European Union (EU). Along similar lines, the argument has been made that the reframing of Bangladeshi migrants as climate refugees provides India with an additional reason to reinforce and justify its border controls (see e.g., German Advisory Council on Global Change 2007: 123; Friedman 2009; White 2011: 71–72). To engage with, and add to, that debate, I will delve into that aspect of the securitisation of climate migration in the micro-level analysis of India.

The micro-level analysis conducted in the UK and India is based on in-depth interviews and on a textual analysis of range of primary documents relevant to the debate on climate change, migration, and security (media articles, policy documents, departmental reports, etc.). A total of 51 in-depth interviews have been conducted with key actors in the Indian and UK government between 2011 and 2012. Some of the people interviewed were Margaret Beckett (the UK’s Foreign Secretary most active in promoting a security discourse on climate migration); the FCO’s Climate Security Team; John Ashton (the FCO’s Special Representative for Climate Change from June 2006–June 2012); Shyam Saran (the Indian Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on Climate Change from 2007 to March 2010 and in this period India’s chief climate change negotiator); high-ranked (active and retired) Indian officials working on border management and immigration; and two members of India’s Prime Minister Council on Climate Change. In addition, 33 interviews have been conducted with non-state actors in the UK and India, such as non-governmental organisations working on climate migration and climate change, security-based think tanks, journalists, and researchers. See the appendix to this book, for a full list of interviewees.

The book places itself in, and seeks to contribute to, securitisation theory. I adopt a relatively broad understanding of securitisation. The aim is to encompass the various theoretical insights on securitisation as provided by the four schools on this subject: the Copenhagen School, the Paris School, Critical Security Studies, and the Risk School. This is relevant since each of these schools provide a relatively restricted, yet valuable, understanding of securitisation. They rely on a narrow concept of security and assume that securitisation has a certain set of outcomes. For instance, the Copenhagen School assumes that the concept of security is about existential danger, urgency, and survival (Wæver 1995; Buzan et al. 1998). In contrast, Critical Security Studies emphasises positive and progressive ways in which issues can become securitised through the notion of human security (see e.g., McSweeney 1999; Wyn Jones 1999; Booth 2007).³ To take another example, the Copenhagen School assumes that securitisation induces a state of exception in which the issue under securitisation can be dealt with through emergency measures (Buzan et al. 1998). In contrast, the Paris School points towards more subtle security measures that can emerge in a securitisation process, such as surveillance measures to control immigration (Bigo 2002; Huysmans 2006; see chapter 2 for a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the different schools).

In contrast to a more narrow view on securitisation, this book argues that the securitisation of climate migration takes on various forms and meanings. These meanings and understandings are shaped by the context in which the securitisation process is situated and can be affected by interaction processes between the actors involved (the securitiser and the audience). A narrow understanding of securitisation, as provided by the individual schools, does not allow for an in-depth analysis of securitisation processes in which different concepts of security and security practices can be traced. In order to analyse a complex and dynamic process of securitisation, this book develops a new pragmatic framework for analysis, while recognising the existing theoretical insights on securitisation. This framework integrates the four main schools on securitisation: the Copenhagen School, the Paris School, Critical Security Studies, and the Risk School. It provides a practical approach to the study of securitisation by creating a structure that allows for a flexible use of their theoretical insights. It thus does not aim to propose a new theory on securitisation, but instead creates a framework in which all insights on securitisation as provided by the four schools can play a role, and can interact, in the analysis of securitisation. The applicability of these insights depends on their fit with the case under study; each informed by a particular context. The aim is to understand how a securitisation process unfolds, with all its meanings and complexity, instead of trying to prove the explanatory value of a certain school on securitisation.

The framework for analysis is divided into three stages to allow for an interactive analysis of a securitisation process: Stage one is the securitising move by the securitiser (the starting point of the securitisation process); Stage two is the response to this move by the audience(s); Stage three is the outcome of the examined securitisation process. I apply this framework in the empirical analysis of the securitisation of climate migration. Attention is given to the audience’s reaction to the securitising move and to the manner in which its response affects the final outcome of the securitisation process. Securitisation is treated as a dynamic process in which different actors (and not just the securitiser) can influence its course.

Some Background: The Climate–Migration–Security Nexus

In the 1980s, the debate on the climate change, migration, and security nexus emerged with a focus on environmental migration; environmental migration being a broader category than climate migration by encompassing migrations caused by a wider range of environmental impacts than just climate change. The concept of environmental refugees was popularised in the 1980s in a report by the UN Environment Programme (El-Hinnawi 1985); a term which was also used in the 1987 Brundtland report, ‘Our Common Future’ (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987, chapter 11, points 6 and 8) and in ‘Agenda 21, the Programme of Action for Sustainable Devel...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: The Securitisation of Climate Migration
• 2 Comparing the Schools on Securitisation
• 3 A Pragmatic Framework for Analysis
• 4 Stage One: Securitising Moves on Climate Migration
• 5 Stage Two: The Response from Emerging Developing Countries
• 6 Stage Three: The Outcome of the Securitisation Process on Climate Migration
• 7 Conclusion
• Appendix: List of Interviews
• Index