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Abstract

Who has responsibility for addressing the security implications of climate change? States and the United Nations justify their existence on the promise of providing security. Yet, although the national and international security implications of climate change are increasingly acknowledged, incorporation of climate change in national security planning or institutional arrangements is far from universal, while debates in the UN Security Council about its role in addressing climate change have been characterized by contestation. This article examines key debates about the responsibilities these institutions have for providing security in the face of the threats posed by climate change, examining the extent to which these institutions accept responsibility for providing security in these contexts. Drawing on Toni Erskine’s notion of institutional moral agency, the article examines a 2017 inquiry into the national security implications of climate change in Australia, and the September 2021 UN Security Council debate on the international security implications of climate change. These two case studies explicitly focus on the question of institutional responsibility – of the Australian Government and the UN Security Council respectively – for addressing the threat of climate change. In both cases these institutions stop short of accepting responsibility for providing security in the face of climate change, with limited policy responses or institutionalization as the result. With the security implications of climate change increasingly apparent, and increasingly recognized by these (and other) actors, the failure to accept responsibility raises potentially significant questions about the legitimacy of these institutions themselves.

Keywords

Australia climate change ethics responsibility security UN Security Council

Introduction

Climate change is increasingly recognized as a security issue. A growing volume of scholarship has pointed to the role of climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’ (Center for Naval Analyses [CNA], 2007), making conflict within or even between states more likely. Here, its role in contributing to population displacement associated with rising sea levels, natural disasters or changes in arable land has been central to concerns about large-scale population movements and (associated) regional instability (see Busby, 2021). If security is viewed in broader terms, meanwhile, the security concerns are even more immediate and apparent, with climate change posing a direct and immediate threat to communities, livelihoods and life prospects (see Barnett et al., 2010). And others have long argued, more simply still, that the capacity for climate change to fundamentally undermine the sustainability of life on earth warrants its consideration as a first order security issue (see Mathews, 1989; Renner, 1996). In short, whether our focus is on the indirect implications of climate change for national or international security in terms of population movement, instability and even conflict or the immediate implications of climate change for human and ecological security, it is becoming harder to challenge the idea that climate change warrants consideration as a first order security issue (see, for example, Black et al., 2022).

But who is responsible for providing security in the face of the threat posed by climate change? Of course, the provision of security is usually seen as the responsibility of nation-states. Indeed the social contract – the raison d’etre for states – is frequently defined in terms of the state’s capacity to provide security (for its citizens) in an otherwise anarchic state of nature (see Williams, 1998). But international organizations, too, warrant consideration here as security providers, not least given the transnational nature of contemporary security challenges (see Burke et al., 2014) and the fact that the UN charter defines its key reason for being as the ‘maintenance of international peace and security’. If we acknowledge the security implications of climate change and acknowledge the central role of states and the United Nations as agents responsible for the provision of security, it stands to reason that these institutions will be central to any discussion of the responsibility for addressing the security implications of climate change.

This article examines this issue, asking whether institutions responsible for the provision of security in international relations accept responsibility for providing it in the face of climate change. It examines the contours of key institutional debates focused directly on the question of whether and how these institutions – states and the UN Security Council (UNSC) – should conceive and approach the security threats posed by climate change. Specifically, it focuses on two key examples: a 2017 Senate Inquiry into the national security implications of climate change conducted in Australia; and a UNSC debate on the international security implications of climate change conducted in September 2021.

The form and focus of these debates provide a unique opportunity for examining approaches to responsibility for addressing the security implications of climate change, and reflecting on whether institutions ultimately accept their responsibility to act as security providers in this context. Although a range of states and/or their security services have embraced and articulated a role for the state in responding to the security implications of climate change, the 2017 Australian Senate Inquiry submissions and associated inquiry constitutes a unique example of national government agencies and government representatives responding directly and on the record to the question of institutional responsibility for addressing the national security implications of climate change. It also resulted in a series of recommendations to the Australian Government for substantive institutional responses to these implications, and a response to these recommendations from the government. In this sense, this inquiry provides a unique case study for examining contestation over questions of responsibility in a (particular) national context.

Similarly, the UNSC discussion of September 2021, a closed debate involving the members of the UNSC only, focused directly on the question of whether and how the UNSC should acknowledge and respond to the international security implications of climate change. This debate was particularly significant as it took place just weeks before an historic vote on a resolution to formally recognize a role for the UNSC in response to climate change (December 2021), and focused on the mooted content of that resolution (McDonald, 2023b).

In this sense, these cases offer a unique window into the extent to which institutions traditionally viewed as key security providers, and who derive legitimacy from that promise, accept responsibility for addressing the security implications of climate change. These cases also serve to shed light on the grounds upon which responsibility is accepted or challenged.

The following analysis demonstrates that recognition of institutional responsibility is partial and contested in these contexts. Although the inadequacy of global responses to the climate crisis to date of course could suggest a substantive failure to address climate insecurity, the problem identified here is arguably more fundamental still: a failure to accept responsibility for addressing the security implications of climate change. This is despite increasing recognition of these implications in academic analyses and policy circles, including recognition by the actors examined here.

The article proceeds in three stages. The first examines the question of responsibility for addressing climate change and in particular the security implications of climate change, drawing on Erskine’s (2003, 2008) conception of institutional moral agents to make sense of the role of institutions in this context. After discussing questions of responsibility for addressing climate change in broad terms, this section examines key debates about the nature of the security implications of climate change before discussing the particular obligations of states and intergovernmental organizations as security providers in that context. The second section examines the case study of Australia’s Senate Inquiry into the national security implications of climate change in 2017–2018. Submissions to this inquiry are assessed with a particular focus on government departments and agencies and their position on the government’s role in addressing the national security implications of climate change. The article then explores the Australian Government’s response to this inquiry and implementation of its recommendations.

The third section notes the evolution of debates within the UNSC on this issue, before examining the UNSC debate on the international security implications of climate change in September 2021. Here, the article explores claims by UNSC members about the UNSC’s responsibilities in this context, identifying the contours of arguments made both for and against the acceptance of responsibility before noting the failure of the resolution put to the UNSC soon after this debate.

Both of these case studies demonstrate contestation over the institution’s role and failure to accept responsibility for addressing the security implications of climate change, whether defined in national or international terms. Of course, the institutions – ‘formal organizations’ (Erskine, 2001: 68) – in which these debates took place (Australia and the UNSC) are not equivalent entities for simple comparison in terms of their scope, capacity or mandates. But, as will be noted, both define their reason for being and primary responsibilities in terms of the provision of security, both recognize (to some degree at least) the security implications of climate change, and the particular debates selected allow a systematic examination of engagement with the question of whether (and how) these institutions accept responsibility for addressing the security implications of climate change.

Although this analysis provides an interesting window into recognition of and responses to the security implications of climate change, it also raises fundamental questions about the legitimacy of key institutions of global politics. Simply put, if institutions that derive their legitimacy from the promise of providing security stop short of even accepting responsibility to address this fundamental and existential security threat, we might reasonably ask whether these institutions are fit for purpose.

Climate change, security and responsibility

The question of responsibility for addressing climate change is usually approached as a moral question. Here, responsibility has been approached in terms of different types of agents and different levels of responsibility between agents. Although some have approached this in terms of debates about (differentiated) individual responsibility (e.g. Cripps, 2013; Shue, 2017), the focus here will be on the question of institutional responsibility.

As Erskine (2001, 2003, 2008) has noted in her exploration of moral institutional agency, international relations, as a discipline, has been relatively comfortable about assertions of duty and blame in broad terms regarding global problems, but far less engaged with the critical question of assigning responsibility for addressing these problems to particular institutions. In her assessment the discipline errs on the side of viewing states as purposive agents but largely amoral, whereas morality is often limited to the level of individuals. This informs her attempt to develop an account of institutional moral agents, defined as formal organizations that bear particular sets of responsibilities for addressing transnational challenges.

To the extent that international relations scholars have addressed the question of institutional responsibility for responding to climate change broadly, states have clearly been the central institution identified. States are clearly ascribed with the formal responsibility for coordinating the response to climate change under the UN system, have the capacity to regulate the behaviour of individuals and private entities that contribute to climate change, and remain the most powerful actors in global politics. Indeed, it is for this reason that even critics of state responses to the climate crisis have been more likely to focus attention on how to encourage better state action rather than outline alternative institutions to the state (e.g. Barry and Eckersley, 2005; Eckersley, 2004). And scholars examining the responsibilities of states have been more likely to focus on how to differentiate between the specific responsibilities of different states in addressing climate change, rather than whether states have responsibilities at all (see Eckersley, 2012; Falkner and Buzan, 2022a). Falkner and Buzan (2022b: 4), for example, ask ‘how individual great powers have responded to the climate change challenge and whether they have accepted a special responsibility for stabilizing the global climate’ (emphasis added).

The role of international organizations such as the UN is more complicated in terms of conceiving responsibility for addressing climate change. Clearly, as an international issue there is a case for ascribing a role to the United Nations – the world’s central intergovernmental organization – in responding to climate change. Within the UN system, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) has been endorsed as the primary institution for discussing and addressing climate change. Yet, although clearly constituting a crucial site for the discussion and coordination of international responses to climate change, it would be more accurate to describe the UNFCC – at least at this stage – as an institution that attempts to ascribe responsibility to states (see Dellmuth et al., 2017). This is particularly in terms of assigning responsibility for mitigation through emissions reduction, but also through coordinating the delivery of funds and/or technology, for example (see Bulkeley and Newell, 2023: 26–27). The UN General Assembly (UNGA) has also engaged with climate change and its security implications, though inconsistently and with less obvious responsibility than the UNFCCC in climate terms or the UNSC on the security effects of climate change (see Dellmuth et al., 2017).

Other instruments within the UN system, such as the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Development Programme and the recently established Climate Security Mechanism have all addressed climate change at different points, but these are instruments of the bureaucratic arm of the UN system. As such, their focus has generally been – in this context – on the provision of assessments, research and reports on some of the effects of climate change and responses to it (see Conca, 2015; Dellmuth et al., 2017).

By contrast, the UNSC has more obvious agential capacity. This is partly why a range of states have consistently attempted to promote the issue of climate change on the UNSC’s agenda, citing its capabilities for substantive action in response (Maertens, 2021). The UNSC also, crucially for our purposes, is viewed as the central institution for realizing Article 1 of the UN Charter – to maintain international peace and security. Article 24 of the charter notes:

In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. (emphasis added)

This suggests that if climate change is conceived as a challenge to international peace and security, the UNSC should assume responsibility for addressing that issue.

To what extent can these debates be brought to bear to help us understand responsibility for addressing the security implications of climate change? This requires, of course, some discussion of what these implications are.

For some, the role of climate change in undermining prospects for survival warrants its consideration as a security issue. For those pointing to the threat climate change poses to human security (Barnett et al., 2010) or ecological security (McDonald, 2021a), the focus is on the direct and immediate implications of climate change for human welfare or eco-system resilience in terms of warmer temperatures, natural disasters, the spread of (vector-borne) disease, ocean acidification, changing rainfall and challenges to sustaining livelihoods in the face of these effects. When security is understood in more traditional terms – as protection from threats to national or international security – the focus is often on indirect or secondary implications of climate change for population displacement, state fragility, international stability or even conflict (see, for example, Black et al., 2022; McLeman, 2011). Here the effects of climate change potentially contribute to heightening existing tensions and grievances within societies, increasing the possibility of armed conflict.

Yet the relationship between climate change and security, although increasingly recognized by political actors and analysts alike, is a contested one. This contestation operates at broadly three levels.

First, there is contestation over whose security is under consideration, which clearly has implications for how we conceive of the nature of the threat and responses to it. If we focus on the implications of climate change for human security or ecological security (see Barnett et al., 2010; Dalby, 2022; McDonald, 2013, 2021a), then the threats to security are clearly immediate and direct. The response to these types of (security) implications of climate change is clearly urgent mitigation efforts and the mobilization of resources for facilitating adaptation to climate effects, which in turn suggests that responsibility for addressing these challenges resides with a vast array of actors all capable of minimizing greenhouse gas emissions.

Alternatively, we might emphasize the threat posed to nation-states and international society, for example, and assess the impact of climate change on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state (national security) or the rules, norms and stability of international society, for example (see Diez et al., 2016; McDonald, 2013). In this schema our focus is more consistent with a traditional security agenda, and the (predominantly indirect) implications of climate change in triggering or contributing to destabilizing population movements, armed conflict, or challenges to state and international capacities associated with manifestations of climate change. These challenges often involve assessing the exposure of defence infrastructure to climate effects (like rising sea levels or natural disasters), and the preparedness of personnel and equipment for warmer temperatures, changing fuel availability or new types of missions (see Busby, 2008; Depledge, 2023). Crucially, and regardless of our choice of referent object, the preceding account of responsibility suggests that the scale of the challenge and the capacities of national and international institutions points to a key role for them in addressing the security implications of climate change.

The second key issue of contestation to note here is whether climate change does indeed threaten security in ways proponents would suggest. This particularly applies to the more traditional security agenda, with some challenging accounts that climate change contributes to armed conflict in particular.

Climate change has been linked to conflict in Darfur (UNEP, 2007) and Syria (Gleick, 2014), and more recently to instability in the Sahel (Brown, 2019). In the case of Darfur, the argument presented here was that climate-induced drought and desertification triggered population movements as people sought arable land, in turn bringing Arab herders and African farmers into contact and ultimately conflict with each other (UNEP, 2007). In the case of Syria, again the suggestion was that a drought associated with climate change drove up food prices and compromised livelihoods, encouraging urbanization and large-scale protests, with violent crackdowns ultimately leading to internal conflict (see Gleick, 2014). And in the context of the Sahel, a prominent recent argument has been that the loss of income and livelihood associated with the loss of arable land has contributed to state fragility in the region and enabled recruitment to militant organizations such as Boko Harem (Crawford, 2015). In all these cases, the specific role played by climate change – and the significance attached to it – is contested (see Daoust and Selby, 2023; Selby et al., 2017). But the idea of climate change serving as a ‘threat multiplier’ (CNA, 2007) – as a force likely to contribute to armed conflict, state fragility and/or regional instability – is more widely accepted. And whereas some states have questioned the climate-conflict linkage, over 70% of states developing national security strategy documents have ultimately identified climate change as a key national security concern (Scott, 2015; Vogler, 2023), including as a potential contributor to armed conflict.

The third point of contestation is more normative than analytical, and focuses on the question of whether linking climate change and security is a good thing. Some analysts, echoing concerns consistent with the securitization framework (see Floyd, 2010; Wæver, 1995), warn here against securitization on the basis that such a representation serves to enable militarized and problematic responses to the issue by actors with a vested interest in securing their own funding, for example (see Buxton, 2021; Marzec, 2015). Others suggest that although a security ‘framing’ may be deliberately chosen to enable urgent responses, those responses might be either inappropriate for the cooperative approach to global issues required (Deudney, 1990) or unhelpful for mobilizing an effective political response to the issue (see Hayes and Knox-Hayes, 2014).

All three of these points of contestation feature in debates about institutional responses discussed in the following sections. But what does this mean for the issue of responsibility for addressing the security implications of climate change? A case can be made that even if our focus is on human or ecological security, states and intergovernmental organizations have some responsibility as security agents, given the scope of the challenge and their capacities (see McDonald, 2021a). But if the security implications of climate change for national or international security is recognized, the responsibilities of these institutions are immediate, and speak to their reason for being. Simply put, states and the UN system are founded upon, and define their primary responsibilities as, the provision of national and international security respectively. The Australian Government, for example – the subject of the subsequent case study – noted in its most recent Foreign Policy White Paper that ‘the Government’s first duty is to do everything possible to keep Australians safe and protect our freedoms, our way of life and our values’ (Commonwealth of Australia [CoA], 2017: 6). And as noted, Article 1 of the UN Charter defines the key purpose of the UN as the maintenance of international peace and security, with ‘primary responsibility’ for that provision falling to the UNSC. These points suggest it is possible to form what Erskine (2003: 8) has described as an ‘ex ante’ judgement of institutional responsibility: an account of responsibility linked to the ‘tasks that the agent in question ought to perform’.

In this context, the failure to accept responsibility for addressing the national or international security implications of climate change should encourage pointing fingers directly at those institutions that not only claim to provide security, but ground their legitimacy and reason for being on this promise. Of course, these organizations do understand and approach security – and threats to it – in different ways, suggesting that the failure to identify climate change as a threat necessitating a response need not be viewed as a fundamental challenge to their legitimacy. But increasing recognition of the fundamental threat posed by climate change, and recognition of these threats by these actors, suggest it should be harder for these institutions to evade responsibility for addressing these implications without in turn questioning their reason for being. As debates over Australia’s approach to the national security implications of climate change and the UNSC’s debates regarding climate change suggest, however, recognition of responsibility is far from evident, institutionalized responses have tended to be partial and limited, and debates about responsibility are characterized by significant degrees of contestation.

Australia

In 2017 the Australian Senate’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade held an inquiry into the implications of climate change for Australia’s national security. This committee – made up of senators (parliamentary representatives) from the government and opposition parties – invited public submissions on:

The implications of climate change for Australia’s national security with particular reference to:

a. the threats and long-term risks posed by climate change to national security and international security . . .;

b. the role of both humanitarian and military response in addressing climate change, and the means by which these responses are implemented;

c. the capacity and preparedness of Australia’s relevant national security agencies to respond to climate change risks in our region;

d. the role of Australia’s overseas development assistance in climate change mitigation and adaptation more broadly;

e. the role of climate mitigation policies in reducing national security risks; and

f. any other related matters. (Senate Committee, 2017)

Although clearly one specific national context, this inquiry provides a unique opportunity to examine formal, institutional debates about whether a state (in this case Australia) recognizes the challenges to national security associated with climate change and their responsibilities for addressing these.

This inquiry received 70 submissions from a combination of government departments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), private corporations, think tanks, researchers and private citizens.¹ Given the focus of this article, however, the analysis here will examine three components in particular: the submissions/statements of representatives of government departments; the recommendations advanced by the committee in their final report; and the response of the government itself to those recommendations. This inquiry is particularly significant for this analysis because the question of responsibility, which as Erskine (2001, 2003) notes is often ethereal or implicit in discussions of agency in international relations, was central to the terms of reference for the inquiry itself.

A range of government departments submitted to the inquiry, including the Department of Defence (DoD), the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP), the Department of the Environment and Energy (DEE) and the Attorney-General’s Department. Of these, the most detailed were the submissions from the DFAT and the DoD. A range of themes were evident in these submissions. First, they ultimately recognized climate change as a threat. Second, they generally detailed specific responses to these implications. And third, they consistently stopped short of either explicitly accepting responsibility for addressing the security implications of climate change identified or suggesting policy changes to enable them to do so more effectively.

The DFAT and DoD submissions to the inquiry both outlined in some detail the potential (national) security implications of climate change. The DoD submission identified the role of climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’, while pointing to the challenges posed for defence missions and defence infrastructure (DoD, 2017: 2–3). The DFAT submission, meanwhile, consistently noted the department’s (and the government’s) ‘recognition’ of the security implications of climate change. The DFAT (2017) submission further noted that ‘successive Australian governments have recognized the threats and risks posed by climate change to national and international security’ (p.5).

This broad acknowledgement of the security implications of climate change did come with caveats, however. In their submission – focused on climate-induced migration – the DIBP (2017) noted that it was ‘extremely difficult, if not impossible, to single out environmental factors’ in driving displacement (p.1). The DFAT (2017) submission also noted that care should be taken in linking conflict with climate change, because focusing too heavily on climate causes ‘could lead to inappropriate policy responses or harm the credibility of the actual climate change-related risks and threats to security’ (p.8).

While discussing the threat posed, these submissions focused predominantly on detailing their department’s activities in response. The DFAT (2017) submission emphasized the role of its foreign aid programme in advancing regional and national security, while also outlining its contribution to international climate negotiations and coordination of international humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) missions in response to natural disasters. At this level, the DFAT (2017: 11) recognized the importance of ‘mitigation, adaptation, resilience-building and disaster risk reduction’ in order to ‘reduce the need for humanitarian response to climate impacts’. The Attorney-General’s Department (2017) submission focused on its role in overseeing institutional arrangements and facilitating collaboration between departments, while the DIBP (2017) submission noted the department’s role in assessing, anticipating and responding to potential population movements in response to the effects of climate change. The DoD (2017) submission was the most detailed in this regard, outlining its assessment of risks to defence infrastructure, its role in executing HADR missions and broadly ‘embedding climate change in its core business functions’ (p.3).

In the context of outlining these practices, however, it was telling that government departments stopped short of explicitly acknowledging their responsibilities to provide security in the face of the security implications of climate change. Rather than responsibilities or obligations linked to the tasks these agents ‘ought to perform’ (Erskine, 2003: 8), practices in the service of climate security were largely couched in terms of contribution or ‘responses’ to government demand (e.g. DEE, 2017: 5–6; DFAT, 2017: 2). The DFAT (2017) discussion of its contribution to (regional and national) climate security through official development assistance (ODA), for example, was couched less in terms of international obligation than humanitarianism, even charity. The DoD (2017) submission, meanwhile, consistently noted that it might expect to be ‘called upon with greater frequency’ in the context of instability linked to climate change or the direct implications of natural disasters. More directly still, however, the DoD (2017) submission noted that those expecting ongoing and increasing commitments to HADR missions should be aware that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) ‘is primarily designed and structured to provide for the physical security of the nation’ (DoD, 2017: 8). The submission went on to note that ‘due to the nature of its capabilities [the ADF] is able to make a contribution to HADR. Importantly, though, the force is not structured around this task’ (DoD, 2017: 8). This suggested a reluctance to embrace ‘responsibility’ for addressing this particular effect of climate change, also a feature of a 2023 Defence Strategic Review under a subsequent government. That review acknowledged climate change as a security threat while making the case that the ADF should not be viewed as responsible for responding to domestic natural disasters (DoD, 2023)

The final report arising from the inquiry made 11 recommendations. It recommended a Climate Security White Paper, emissions reduction targets for the military, and greater investment in disaster relief capability and multidepartmental action (from science funding to regular communication among departments) to integrate awareness of the security implications of climate change across all branches of government (Senate Committee, 2018). The report also pointed to submissions indicating that the ‘government response to climate security concerns has not been sufficiently coordinated, including in comparison with other countries’, that Australia’s ‘climate security policy responses overall can be described as parts lacking a whole’ and that Australia’s action on climate security compared ‘unfavourably’ with that of other states (Senate Committee, 2018: 29–30).

In response to the report and the recommendations made, government senators rejected the need for these changes or questioned their distinctiveness from existing practice. They variously indicated that the government already ‘sufficiently recognise[s] the importance of climate change in strategic considerations’; denied the ‘need for a dedicated leadership position’; and rejected the recommendation for ‘internal emissions reductions [sic] targets for Defence’ (Australian Parliament House [APH], 2018).

The broader government’s response to the recommendations of the inquiry was telling. First, as former Chief of the Defence Force Chris Barrie (2019) noted in October 2019, the government ‘has yet to table a response to the report more than a year later’, suggesting that the government ‘just doesn’t care enough’. This remained the case throughout the term of the conservative government, which lost office in mid-2022. Second, pursuit of policy or practice consistent with these recommendations was also ultimately limited. No new leadership positions were established, no White Paper produced and no emissions targets for defence established (see McDonald, 2021b).

The inquiry itself was prompted by concerns that Australia’s policymakers and leaders were not taking seriously the threat posed by climate change to national security. This was evident in statements made by senators announcing the inquiry and in the inquiry’s terms of reference, but was broadly evident too in the report produced. Government departments were generally willing to acknowledge the threat posed and detail their efforts in response to these challenges, but appeared less willing to acknowledge their responsibility for addressing climate security risks or threats. This reluctance was even more starkly evident in the government’s response to the inquiry, which consistently downplayed the need for substantive policy action or change, and then failed to implement the recommendations of the report. In this context, the inquiry and response to it demonstrate an ultimate failure of the government to accept responsibility for providing security in the face of the threat posed by climate change.

Of course, Australia’s position is not assumed to be representative of the way states generally approach their institutional responsibilities as climate security providers. A range of states have demonstrated a greater inclination to recognize this challenge, institutionalize some form of response and engage in practices consistent with advancing security in the face of climate change. Some states have prioritized disaster relief measures undertaken by armed forces in response to manifestations of climate change (e.g. France, New Zealand); others have focused on integrating climate concerns into aid programmes (e.g. Germany). Some states have emphasized the need to prepare the military itself for a climate-changed world (e.g. USA, UK), while others have emphasized the imperative of cooperative efforts through multilateral fora to address the threat posed by climate change, within the state and beyond (e.g. Sweden) (see McDonald, 2023a).² These states remain relative outliers in international terms, however, especially in terms of institutionalization or committing resources to this issue.

Australia’s Senate Inquiry is particularly illuminating in examining the extent of formal recognition of the state’s obligations in this context. The September 2021 debate in the UNSC similarly provides an important window into the extent to which that institution recognizes its responsibility to address the security implications of climate change.

The UNSC

The UNSC first discussed the international security implications of climate change in 2007, sponsored by the UK. Since then, at the time of writing, there have been nine further thematic debates within the UNSC, in 2011, 2018, 2019 and 2020, with three in 2021 and two in 2023. These debates were initiated respectively by Germany (2011), Sweden (2018), Dominican Republic (2019), Germany (2020), the UK (February 2021), Ireland (September 2021), Niger (December 2021), Malta (February 2023) and UAE (June 2023).

Although these debates have seen different interlocutors and different outcomes, some trends can be observed since 2007. In general, we have seen majority support for the discussion of the security implications of climate change in the UNSC, particularly from European members and states vulnerable to the effects of climate change, with concerns raised by two permanent members – Russia and China – and a range of developing states over time (see Scott and Ku, 2018). Significantly, because of this opposition from permanent members with veto power, extending to the Trump Administration in the USA from 2016 to 2020, we have seen no formal thematic resolution on the security implications of climate change. Indeed, speaking to the concerns of this article, it would be fair to say that these debates have been characterized by contestation over the extent to which the UNSC had responsibility for discussing and addressing the security implications of climate change (see, for example, Conca et al., 2017; Hardt, 2021; Maertens, 2021; Security Council Report [SCR], 2021; Scott, 2015). In this sense, the failure of the resolution on climate change in December 2021 – vetoed by Russia – was not a significant surprise (see McDonald, 2023b).

The September 2021 UNSC debate took place just weeks before the start of the Glasgow CoP26 (26th Conference of the Parties) summit. Initiated by the Irish during their presidency of the UNSC, the debate involved the then current 15 members of the UNSC (with the Secretary-General and an invited NGO representative from Somalia offering initial statements). Significantly, in its opening statement to the UNSC, Ireland flagged that it would convene subsequent discussions on a thematic draft resolution on climate and security. This draft resolution proposed to outline the UNSC’s goals and responsibilities in response to the security implications of climate change. It was ultimately tabled on 30 September (International Crisis Group [ICG], 2021), and voted down on 13 December. Given this context, the September debate within the UNSC focused expressly on the question of what the UNSC could and should do in response to climate insecurity, with the possibility of a Resolution committing the UNSC to these responsibilities. As noted, although there are clear differences in institutional remit and structure, the terms of this debate are broadly comparable to the focus of Australia’s Senate Inquiry into the security implications of climate change and responses to it.

In many ways, and as noted, the key axes of debate (and the key position of interlocutors) aligned with prior debates within the UNSC. Most voices ultimately spoke in favour of explicit recognition of the UNSC’s responsibilities in this context, identifying avenues of practical response within the UNSC that were subsequently articulated in the draft thematic resolution produced the following week.

For some representatives, it was the capacity of the UNSC and the scale of the challenge of climate change that suggested the UNSC bore responsibility to act on this issue. This position aligns with Erskine’s (2001) argument that the capacity to discharge a duty is central to broader questions about whether we can meaningfully assign responsibility to particular actors. In this context the Estonian delegate noted that ‘the Security Council has the scope and tools to address climate-related security risks effectively and systematically’ (UNSC, 2021a: 7). The UK delegate noted that ‘all the arms of this great institution that is the United Nations, including the Security Council, have a critical role to play to meet this existential threat’ (UNSC, 2021a: 16). Perhaps most directly, the US representative noted that ‘we have to stop debating whether the climate crisis is a subject that belongs in the Security Council and instead ask how the Council can leverage its unique powers to tackle the negative impacts of climate on peace and security’ (UNSC, 2021a: 10).

Most notably for our purposes, a range of states explicitly invoked the UNSC’s mandate and its core obligations to maintain international peace and security. France noted that ‘the Security Council is fulfilling its proper role when it looks at the new threats linked to climate change with a view to anticipating and trying to deal with them’ (UNSC, 2021a: 11). The St Vincent and the Grenadines delegate argued that ‘the Security Council must not sidestep its responsibility to address the security implications of climate change’ (UNSC, 2021a: 18). For Norway, ‘addressing climate risk and resilience [are] part of our common responsibility to maintain international peace and security’, and ‘the Security Council must show leadership and fulfil its responsibility as set forth in its mandate’ (UNSC, 2021a: 13).

For the Irish delegation, meanwhile, ‘[i]f the Security Council is to meet its responsibility to maintain international peace and security, it must have the information and tools to analyse and address climate-related security risks’. The Irish delegate further noted that

The mandate of the Council is to consider threats to international peace and security. We must move past theoretical debates and respond to the reality that climate change is exacerbating conflict. The [C]ouncil can – and must – do more. It has the mandate, and it has the tools. The failure to use them is an abdication of our responsibility. (UNSC, 2021a: 6)

Substantively, most delegates spoke in favour not only of a role for the UNSC generally, but for specific forms of response. Here, delegates variously made a case for the establishment of a special envoy position on climate and security; the incorporation of climate change considerations in peace operations; and/or the development of regular reporting – through the Secretary-General – on security risks associated with climate change. Those making the case for these responses, usually all three of these initiatives, included France, Ireland, Estonia, Niger, Mexico, the USA, Norway, Kenya, Tunisia, St Kitts and the Grenadines and the UK. Significantly, all initiatives were central to the draft Resolution tabled by the Irish to the UNSC the following week (ICG, 2021).

Ultimately, however, there was no consensus on the question of responsibility (ICG, 2021), and the draft Resolution was voted down in December 2021. The Chinese, Russian and Indian delegates all spoke against a thematic resolution and a more systematic and substantive role for the UNSC in addressing the security implications of climate change. These objections, familiar to those following UNSC debates on climate security since 2007 (Conca et al., 2017; Maertens, 2021; Scott, 2015), focused on the appropriateness of the UNSC as a forum for discussing climate change; the potentially problematic implications of a climate-security role; the questionable relationship between climate change and conflict; and the need to focus attention on development (and the obligations of developed states) rather than security (see McDonald, 2023b).

The issue of the appropriateness of the UNSC as a forum for discussing climate change has long been a central objection, as a range of analysts have noted (Binder and Heupel, 2018; Conca et al., 2017; Maertens, 2021; Scott, 2015). The suggestion here has traditionally been that the UNFCCC is the appropriate forum, as it was established to coordinate discussions about the international response to climate change; that the UNSC’s remit is too narrow to address a multifaceted problem like climate change; and/or that the narrower membership of the UNSC risks enabling partial, undemocratic or illegitimate responses to a genuinely global challenge (see Maertens, 2021). The Chinese delegate, for example, noted the institutional primacy of the UNFCCC and the need for a cooperative global solution in arguing that ‘[c]limate change is a shared challenge facing humankind that requires a global response. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement constitute the most authoritative platform.’ China further noted that ‘[i]t would be inappropriate for the Security Council as a forum to replace collective decision-making by the international community’ (UNSC, 2021a: 21).

For India, who ultimately voted against the December resolution, the necessarily partial nature of a security focus was a concern. The Indian delegate noted that ‘picking one aspect of climate change – namely climate security – and dealing with it in this forum, which is not designed to address a multifaceted problem of that nature, would not be desirable’ (UNSC, 2021a: 17). Russia, meanwhile, pointed to the myriad institutional responses to the climate crisis at the international level, noting that there was a danger that the UNSC may be involved in ‘duplicating the main bodies of the United Nations . . . [or] impeding their efforts’ (UNSC, 2021a: 19).

A distinct argument advanced by some opponents to the discussion of climate change in the UNSC was that linking climate change and security might encourage problematic responses, even ushering in (presumably inappropriate) extraordinary measures. The Indian delegate, for example, invoked ‘securitization’ directly–as they had in the 2019 debates (see Maertens, 2021: 640) – warning that addressing climate change in the UNSC could serve to ‘justify extreme policy measures’ (UNSC, 2021a: 17).

The Russian delegate went further, questioning the motives of those who were raising the issue in the UNSC:

Perhaps our colleagues, by involving the Security Council, simply wish to raise the profile of the climate discussion. However I think that they would agree that the inclusion or non-inclusion of any theme or issue on the Security Council agenda should not be a gauge of its importance or relevance. (UNSC, 2021a: 19)

The Indian and Chinese delegations also questioned the link between climate change and either instability or conflict, in the process challenging the appropriateness of a climate change discussion in the UNSC. The Indian delegate argued that ‘to view conflicts in poorer parts of the world through the prism of climate change will serve only to present a lopsided narrative, when the reasons for the conflict are to be found elsewhere’ (UNSC, 2021a: 17). The Chinese delegate, meanwhile, noted that ‘not all of the countries on the Council’s agenda have been plunged into war and chaos because of climate change’ (UNSC, 2021a: 21), further pointing out that ‘the relationship between climate and security is very complex’ (p.20). While certainly claims that find support in criticisms of environmental determinism in much environment-conflict literature (see Busby, 2022), this was also an argument that supported denying responsibility.

Finally, and following the above, these same delegates also suggested that a focus on the security implications of climate change took attention away from the necessary focus on development imperatives and the developed world’s responsibility. The Indian delegate noted that ‘what we need . . . is to enhance action on all important policies that address climate change, including fulfilling the commitments on climate financing and technology transfer’ (UNSC, 2021a: 17). For China, meanwhile, it was ‘essential for developed countries to earnestly fulfil their international obligations and commitments. Developed countries bear a historical responsibility for climate change. In discussing climate change and security . . . we should not lose sight of this very basic fact’ (UNSC, 2021a: 20).

The objections outlined above point ultimately to significant contestation over the UNSC’s responsibility for addressing the security implications of climate change. Indeed, at times we saw an explicit rejection of the idea that the UNSC could or should play a role in this context. Contestation and denial of responsibility was evident, too, in subsequent debates about the draft Resolution in December. The UNSC’s (2021b) own account of the debate noted: Members of the Council, speaking before and after the vote, expressed pronounced disagreement on the content of the resolution, the consensus process and the very notion that it should appear on that organ’s agenda.

Over time, we have seen growing support for action on climate change through the UNSC and increased acceptance of responsibility to recognize and potentially address the security implications of climate change. We have seen an increasing number of debates on this topic, a Presidential Statement (in 2011), the use of informal (Arria formula) debates since 2013 and the establishment of some institutional presence within the UN system (the Climate Security Mechanism). And although some states have shifted in their views over time (most notably, of course, the USA), the position of others (e.g. Russia) have arguably ossified. The Russian delegate expressed some degree of frustration that UNSC members continued to raise this matter in the UNSC:

We believe that the persistent and insistent attempts to advance the premise of climate change as a threat to international peace and security in the Security Council at all costs introduces a completely unnecessary political component to an already complicated and sensitive discussion. (UNSC, 2021a: 19)

Viewed in this light, and even while recognizing that objecting voices constituted a minority in the September 2021 debate, it would be difficult to conclude that the UNSC has accepted its responsibility to recognize and address the security implications of climate change. Certainly, this has not been reflected in the passage of a Resolution or substantive institutional arrangements, as the December 2021 vote attests (see also McDonald, 2023b).

As Conca et al. (2017: 3) note,

there is a poor fit between the climate challenge and the Council as it currently operates. The Council’s tendency toward reactivity and its hierarchical structure, poor information dynamics, and chronically weak monitoring and follow-through all bode poorly for both its effectiveness and the avoidance of political controversy.

Yet as these authors also suggest, whether the UNSC can continue to stop short of embracing a role in addressing the international security implications of climate change is another matter, especially as the impacts of climate change worsen. As Scott and Ku (2018: 2) note, perhaps rather than asking whether and how the UNSC can act in response to climate change, we should be asking ‘how the Council could legitimately and realistically refuse to contribute to governance solutions’ without bringing its legitimacy into question.

Conclusion

Climate change clearly raises fundamental questions regarding responsibility. As a genuinely global problem with origins in international institutional arrangements, everyday individual behaviour and a range of dynamics in between, ascribing responsibility for addressing the problem itself is an inherent challenge (see MacDonald 2023). Indeed, it is perhaps inevitable that any attempt to do so will be defined by debate, contestation and disagreement. We see this, of course, in academic engagement with questions of responsibility, but even more profoundly (and consequentially) in international climate negotiations themselves.

Yet the extent of contestation and ultimate reluctance of key institutions to accept responsibility for the provision of security in the face of climate change is both more telling and in some ways more significant for the institutions themselves. Here, we move from abstract questions of moral responsibility for action to the core purposes of key actors of global politics: to the ‘tasks that the agent in question ought to perform’, in Erskine’s (2003: 8) terms. The failure of key institutions to clearly and explicitly recognize obligations and responsibility to provide security in the context of climate change ultimately comes to the heart of their reason for being. If climate change constitutes a threat to (national and international) security, then organizations whose existence is founded on the promise of providing security must accept responsibility for doing so. There is, of course, scope for such institutions to define security and threats to it in different ways, potentially enabling them to evade responsibility for addressing an issue such as climate change. This becomes harder to sustain, however, as the security implications of climate change become more evident and more accepted, and are acknowledged even by these institutions themselves.

Both the state of Australia and the UNSC have come to view the scope and meaning of security in different ways over time. In both cases the security agenda has broadened, evident in Australia’s recent focus on cyber-security as a national security issue (Department of Home Affairs [DHA], 2022) and in the UNSC’s recognition of the international security implications of HIV/AIDS, for example (see Elbe, 2006). In the case of both institutions there is increasing recognition of the importance of prevention and precaution as means of addressing security concerns, evident in Australia’s Defence Strategic Review (DoD, 2023) and the UNSC’s embrace of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (Bellamy, 2014). And, of course, in both cases we have seen increasing engagement with climate change as a security issue, apparent in the debates addressed here. Alongside the significant capacity of these (albeit very different) institutions, and their more fundamental reasons for being, this reality should ensure strong action on their part to address the increasingly recognized security implications of climate change. Yet not only do we see limited action in this regard – certainly nothing approaching what securitization scholars would understand as ‘emergency measures’ (Wæver, 1995) – we see a failure even to accept responsibility for pursuing these.

Recognition of the need to address the security implications of climate change is clearly growing. It is evident in academic analyses, in national security strategy documents and (albeit heated) debates on the international security implications of climate change in the UNSC. The number of states recognizing the security implications of climate change is increasing (see Scott, 2015; Vogler, 2023), and some (as noted) are moving to institutionalize this agenda and enact substantive responses to it (see Depledge, 2023). But this is far from universal, the positions of those states still lag well behind the scale and immediacy of the climate threat, and the scale of differentiation in agenda, institutional engagement and practices points to the partial and piecemeal nature of this recognition across the state system. On the UNSC’s engagement with the (international) security implications of climate change, we have seen an increasing number of debates within the UNSC. Yet ultimately, as Conca (2015: 20) has noted, on the issue of climate change ‘the Security Council . . . has been both very late to the game and not much interested in playing’.

In these contexts, climate change raises fundamental questions about the extent to which key institutions of global politics – established and deriving legitimacy through the promise of providing security – are ultimately fit for purpose.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

For helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this article I would like to thank the reviewers and editorial team as well as Nicklas Bremberg, Toni Erskine and Sofia Kabbej. I also received constructive feedback from participants at a Climate Security workshop in Hamburg, organized by Delf Rothe, in September 2022.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Research for this manuscript has been funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant (DP190100709) on ‘Climate Change and National Security: International Responses’.

ORCID iD

Matt McDonald

Notes

Matt McDonald is Professor of International Relations at the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland, Australia. He researches on critical theoretical approaches to security, the global politics of climate change, and in particular the security implications of climate change. He has published widely on these themes and is the author of three books, most recently Ecological Security: Climate Change and the Construction of Security (2021, Cambridge University Press).

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Accepting responsibility? Institutions and the security implications of climate change

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Climate change, security and responsibility

Australia

The UNSC

Conclusion

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

References