A global south perspective on ‘ecological security’

Abstract

In Ecological Security: Climate Change and the Construction of Security, Matt McDonald delves into a normative analysis of climate security using a framework that has been less explored in security studies – ‘ecological security’. Built on the foundation of environmental security studies – developed over the past two to three decades – this book adopts a counterintuitive approach towards ‘security’ in order to carve out a space for consequential discussion on climate change through an ethically framed ‘ecological security’ lens. The author’s defence of ecological security hinges on several factors: (1) viewing ‘ecosystems as the referent object of security’; (2) recognizing ‘the connectivity and interrelationships between human communities and the so-called natural world’ and (3) acknowledging ‘the arrival of the Anthropocene’ (p. 7).

The book does not stop at normative discussion, as it also examines the practical implications of the ‘ecological security’ framework, as well as the means of achieving it. McDonald specifically focusses on three principles – dialogue, reflexivity and humility. He however argues:

Taken together, these principles also suggest that the function of ecological security is less a program of action than a sensibility that should inform how we make sense of the world and act in it. But it is a sensibility that clearly encourages significant changes in the way we view the world, existing institutions and practices, and the nature of ethical responsibility (p. 196).

In the following review, I engage with the normative and practical imperatives of ecological security in the context of climate change, using the Global South as the analytical prism to discuss the arguments presented by McDonald, although the book covers a much wider array of issues. Having used his works in my own research pertaining to the implications of climate and environmental security in India (and broadly South Asia) (Jayaram, 2020, 2021), this review gives me the opportunity to explore the applicability of the ecological discourse in the Global South context. In short, I aim to interpret the implications of ecological security, in parallel with as well as complementary to the existing scholarly approaches and empirical perspectives provided by Global South in relation to climate security.

The construction and politics of climate security

The book offers a comprehensive overview of the evolution of security studies in general, and the conceptualization of climate security specifically. It goes without saying that security studies itself has been mired in differing discourses surrounding Western-led ‘one-size fits all’ model(s) of both traditional and critical security (Ezemenaka and Ekumaoko, 2021; Acharya, 1997). A certain threat matrix emblematic of Global North perspectives has been often attributed to the climate security discourses illustrated through speech, text, images, practices and so on. Whether it is the logics of deepening and broadening security by linking climate change with conflict or shattering state-centric notions of security and calling for greater attention to tackling climate change (agenda-setting in policy-making), or the choice of context and scale while attempting to link the security of countries in the Global North with that of the Global South, a certain sense of privilege, injustice and inequity is considered to be inevitably embedded in how climate security is conceptualized (Detraz and Betsill, 2009; Dyer, 2017).

McDonald identifies three major variants of the climate security discourse – national, international and human – that have also been used to explain the implications of climate security for the Global South. His book conducts a systematic ethical critique of the dominant climate security discourses, including by engaging with discourses related to the Global South. Therefore, he recommends ecological security as the preferred approach to analyse climate security. As he observes, the national security discourse on climate change often excludes ‘populations of developing states’ (p. 67) or in other cases, produces racialized accounts of climate security. For example, in the case of climate-induced migration, climate refugees and/or migrants from the Global South are often portrayed as threats to security (Telford, 2018). In addition, these discourses reinforce and advance the status quo when it comes to security assessments and architectures. This is evidenced by the focus on adaptation, specifically in the case of military preparedness and strategy of countries in the Global North (p. 63). This is also linked with the climate-related insecurities in the Global South countries in causal and/or correlational ways in some peer-reviewed literature and policy prescriptions (to which militaries of the Global North would be expected to respond to).

These international security discourses, as McDonald suggests, follow the ‘shared rules and norms of behaviour among states in the international system’, representing the ‘international society’, (p. 70) which may not even be ‘worth preserving’, considering its inability to bring about ‘fundamental changes arguably required to respond effectively and equitably to climate change’ (p. 79). Indeed, one can readily discern how within this discourse the Global South populations tend to be marginalized or at best represented merely as victims of destabilization caused, triggered or exacerbated by climate change and whose adaptive capacities need to be strengthened through ‘international instruments’ (often dubbed as neoliberal institutional structures established by the West in the post-Second World War era). McDonald refers to the role of international organizations such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in ‘building resilience in vulnerable communities’ through cooperation, technology transfer, climate finance and prevention of climate change (pp. 74–75).

However, this discussion could have been further substantiated with a more elaborate critique in terms of the perspectives offered by Global South scholars on these institutions. For instance, the divisions within the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in particular are highlighted by McDonald to underline the limitations of these discourses in advancing climate action (p. 77). The unrepresentative nature of the UNSC, which is indicative of the lack of ability of a majority of developing and least developed countries to influence contemporary decision-making on climate security is rightly reflected upon by McDonald to argue for an ecological security framework. The Global South is divided when it comes to the ethicality and practicality of addressing climate security in the UNSC – partly attributable to the history and unrepresentativeness of the UNSC itself, but also due to fears of the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC) being undermined and the practice of intervention being legitimized (Jayaram, 2021). Importantly, these discourses, including McDonald’s book, largely fall short of engaging with the postcolonial critique of Euro-centric security institutions and practices (Hönke and Müller, 2012), such as ‘traditional development assistance programs’, (p. 74) that also impinge upon conceptualizations and operationalization of climate security. They also to a great extent overlook arguments regarding the historical responsibility of the industrialized countries and other principles that the Global South has been championing for decades.

The final climate security discourse McDonald critiques is the human security discourse on climate change, which is often regarded as closest to the realities of the Global South. Focussing on individuals and communities as well as the underlying causes of conflict, the means for achieving human security go beyond mitigation and adaptation. For instance, McDonald states (p. 84):

There is also clearly a role for broader sets of practices and responses that serve to address the vulnerabilities associated with inequality, impoverishment and marginalization … (through global aid programs and changing modes of national and international governance, for example).

From a Global South perspective, the human security discourse also underscores the need for developing adaptive or resilience capacities of the most vulnerable populations that hinge on international cooperation and assistance (Rayner and Malone, 2000). However, the focus on individuals and communities broadens the means and agents of security to involve non-state actors, including ‘research community, businesses and civil society groups’, apart from ‘international organizations and states’ (p. 87). At the same, there are several dangers in the treatment of vulnerable populations of the Global South as a monolith (Kartha, 2011) and in the appropriation of the human security discourse by some countries in the Global North to advance their hegemonic agenda in parts of the Global South (Suhrke, 1999) or in state and other actors seeking to implement “depoliticized, techno-managerial” solutions (Mikulewicz, 2019). Hence, a Global South perspective would likely concur with McDonald’s that the dominant climate security narratives are problematic and that an alternative approach is warranted. The question is whether his approach can provide it, which may be imbibed appropriately in the Global South context.

Does ecological security offer the much-needed alternative?

In response to the limitations of existing discourses, McDonald offers the framework of ‘ecological security’, but does it represent and/or cater to the discourses in the Global South?

The ecological security discourse, as McDonald states, attempts to ‘move beyond tired and unhelpful anthropocentric–ecocentric binaries’, by not just focusing on the effects on human populations but on the implications for the natural world itself (pp. 96–97). What he and several other scholars before him have identified with the ecological security discourse is a critique of anthropocentricism, which highlights how natural and human systems are enmeshed (via humanity’s ‘embeddedness’ within natural ecosystems) and endorses an ethics that recognizes the rights of other living beings (p. 99). McDonald argues that a focus on the ecosystems essentially allows one to embrace ‘interconnectedness and embeddedness central to the contemporary ecological condition and the Anthropocene’ (p. 111).

In the Global South, several discourses resembling the above-mentioned notions of ecological security have existed for a long time, particularly at the grassroots level. While some of them focus more on ‘worlds’ inhabited by marginalized voices, such as those of indigenous peoples, others reinvent democracy and governance, and the meaning of the ‘state’ through a grassroots approach. For instance, Kothari (2014, pp. 1–2) calls for ‘radical ecological democracy’ built on the foundations of ethics and emotions, firmly anchored in socio-ecological systems. Kothari is borrowing the ideas and values of many grassroots socio-ecological movements in India; aiming at ‘direct democracy, local and bioregional economies, cultural diversity, human well-being, and ecological resilience’. The many successful ‘grassroots democratic units’ (such as villages and cities) in India, according to him, ‘cannot work in isolation’, as they are influenced and influence ‘larger scales’, including regional and planetary, in the era of globalization. The concept of bioregions in particular is based on debunking territorial boundaries/jurisdictions and highlighting ‘fluid, diverse, and overlapping identities’ (Kothari, 2014, p. 4). The worldview of these grassroots mobilizations is rooted in inherent interdependencies between different systems, values and scales.

The existence of different worldviews has been broached by Inoue (2018), who contextualizes forests as ‘as worlds in and of themselves’, and ‘as a society of societies’, by recognizing the voices of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon. She underscores the possibilities offered by ‘Indigenous knowledge’ to understand how the ‘relational worlds [of Indigenous peoples]…, stories of non-hierarchical and dialogical divinities, make worlds from which we could learn how to relate to the Earth as equals’. Similarly, a feminist perspective (highlighted by McDonald in the book) with a Global South outlook does not necessarily draw upon notions of care and empathy, but relies upon material and ideological aspects of women’s conditions – societal status, livelihoods, politics of development, knowledge of the natural environment, etc. – thereby also emphasizing ‘an intersectional analysis of society-environment relations’ (Resurrección, 2017, p. 77). In short, these underrepresented and underappreciated forms of knowledge at the grassroots level and in the margins have plenty to offer to the discourse on ecological security.

This is where McDonald’s use of the example of comparison between Bangladesh and the Netherlands to illustrate vulnerability in terms of the ‘absence of capacity to adapt’ might also be re-evaluated. More people were killed by the torrential rains in Germany in 2021 than by a deadlier Cyclone Amphan in a more densely populated Bangladesh in 2020. Technological and infrastructural interventions, based on experiential learning, knowledge production, and cultural shifts (including gender-responsive measures) have helped bring the death toll to double digits over the past few decades in Bangladesh. However, in the case of Germany, despite huge investments in climate science and forecast models, the inability of the local governments to send urgent warning messages to the local communities and a lack of timely evacuation, coupled with a lack of risk mapping that also takes into consideration the needs of the most vulnerable populations, led to many fatalities (Niranjan, 2021). This can be attributed to the absence of a culture able to avert disasters of such magnitude, or as others call it, ‘developed-country complacency syndrome’ (Paskal, 2009), which amplifies the industrialized countries’ vulnerabilities, thereby undermining their security. Clearly, certain outdated and decontextualized assumptions about the Global South do not facilitate a more nuanced understanding and construction of ecological security. Again, McDonald’s book and his ecological security framework could have benefited from the current realities that the Global South countries confront as well as literature emanating from the Global South.

Means and agents of ecological security in the global south

Having laid down the ethical foundation(s), definition and contours of ecological security, McDonald then identifies a range of ‘practical responses to ecological resilience’, which as he admits, involves ‘complex ethical challenges’ (p. 125):

Significant mitigation action directly; shifting modes of economic exchange and development to advance mitigation action and adaptive capacity indirectly; adaptive measures oriented towards the most vulnerable, including societal resilience-building; and even radical interventions to ensure resilience, potentially extending to geoengineering.

If one digs deeper into these responses through postcolonial, post-structural, and even constructivist lenses, one cannot ignore the existing systemic hierarchies that enable countries in the Global North to implement them. At the same time, the majority of countries in the Global South still reel under the effects of ‘postcolonial development deficits’, whether it is in terms of emissions reduction or building adaptive capacities (Singh, 2022). These aspects are to some extent underemphasized in McDonald’s book. In the case of mitigation itself, which McDonald considers the fulcrum of the practice of ecological security, the Global South (although divided) holds historical grievances (economic and political) against the Global North and positions that validate the historical responsibility of the latter. Moreover, internal equity in the Global South (especially in some larger economies) resembles the structural realities of the international system. Beyond state-centrism, the most vulnerable communities within those countries tend to have practically little or no agency in these responses – often overburdened by the lack of action (influenced by international climate politics) or mitigation commitments (blanket proposals without exemptions and/or welfare programmes) (Rao, 2014). Ecological security in this context requires a more nuanced, context-specific approach that takes into consideration the nature of societies, economies and cultures. This is why McDonald’s assertion is on the mark (p. 152):

We can, at an abstract level, endorse the idea of both international cooperation and domestic policy settings oriented towards effective mitigation action, equitable per capita emissions and the development of adaptive capacity, consistent with the imperatives of an ecological security discourse. But what this means in practice, and the scale of commitment from states, will be very different.

However, McDonald’s subtle legitimization of geoengineering (even though he expresses deep scepticism) as a potential practical response towards ‘harm reduction’ presents a problematic aspect of his ecological security discourse, especially since the ‘unforeseen, unintended, and uncontrollable consequences’ of geoengineering technologies could significantly harm populations across the world (Adelman, 2017). As argued by several scholars, even a ‘commitment to sustained dialogue’ and ‘reflexivity’ (typologies used by McDonald) cannot ensure equity and justice. They contend that ‘full knowledge integration for the Global South’, and ‘effective and enforceable political control’ would be required (Biermann et al., 2022), especially at a time when discourses of ‘climate clubs’ and ‘coalitions of the willing’ still persist. Above all else, the democratization and systematic engagement with local communities in ‘regulation, governance, and oversight’ (p. 136) of geoengineering technologies could be considered utopian in an increasingly geopolitically fraught international (state-centric) order. Even in terms of the representation of the Global South in global climate governance, the North-South divide over mitigation, finance, etc., and a lack of compliance and accountability (also with reference to the Kyoto Protocol), it is difficult to imagine any framework that can sufficiently address these concerns.

Nevertheless, McDonald provides an appealing framework for characterizing the means for achieving ecological security that are extremely relevant to the Global South contexts. These include the role of dialogue in ‘the process of translating broad principles for action into specific measures and instruments, tailored to local contexts’ as well as ‘continual learning about the effectiveness and implications of practices’ (p. 140). They involve local voices, thereby minimizing ‘the dangers of embracing a particular discourse’ and co-option and imposition of certain (‘universalistic’) principles (p. 144). Similarly, on reflexivity, McDonald’s focus on improving and/or transcending the existing ‘institutional structures and arrangements’ (p. 142) provide a way forward for the ecological security discourse to cater to the longstanding demand of the Global South to reform the existing international organizations (that they view as remnants of the colonial and imperial struggles) (Chimni, 2004). As he himself admits, despite being the ‘central international mechanism for coordinating global responses’ to climate change, it needs to be more representative, diverse, and inclusive in its approach (pp. 157–158). At the same time, it also gives an opportunity to recognize, legitimize and promote alternative institutional (informal and formal) arrangements that have thrived for long in the Global South countries and could provide solutions for current and future crises.

Most importantly, as McDonald also observes, ‘humility’ is an essential aspect of the ecological security discourse, as it reinforces complexity and uncertainty (pp. 142–143). This is acutely pertinent in the Global South context, wherein the systemic nature of climate security – clearly intersecting with cross-cutting issues and sectors – is more evident (Godfrey and Torres, 2016). Finally, McDonald’s emphasis on prevention and CBDR stresses a shift from the existing climate security discourses ‘to one oriented towards ecosystem resilience and the rights and needs of the most vulnerable’ that go hand in hand (p. 190). While the focus on the most vulnerable brings to attention the increasingly complex nature of risks posed to structurally weaker communities (more so in the Global South), a closer look at equity within nations and communities could provide diverse perspectives on ecological security. In addition, the question of how certain instruments such as financial ones (for example, programmes of the International Monetary Fund) advance the ecological security framework requires further investigation of the earlier-mentioned systemic hierarchies that essentially hamper ‘prevention’ in the Global South countries as they do not sufficiently take account of climate risk (Lustgarten, 2022). In fact, considering that finance is an unavoidable component of climate action itself, especially from the perspective of the Global South, McDonald’s book would have benefitted from a broader discussion on how these issues impinge upon the feasibility of the ecological security framework.

Conclusion

Matt McDonald’s book is a compelling tour de force, when it comes to outlining the various discourses on climate security – their meanings, processes and shortcomings. It also provides a persuasive account of how the concept of ecological security – depending on its conceptualization—is the best way forward for ethically developing the climate security discourse and responses to climate change. The book traverses a range of narratives—navigating decades of research on environmental and climate security through different lenses as well as applying conceptions and impressions from sub-disciplines beyond security studies itself, including political ecology, ecological feminism, and green political theory. This accentuates the need for the climate security discourse to engage with other disciplines, which could also advance methodological and epistemological pluralism.

However, Ecological security, as conceptualized by McDonald, while being committedly attuned to the realities of the Global South, still falls short of creating a realistic space for integrating the diverse voices of the Global South. Perhaps, the book could have benefitted from a slightly more cross-disciplinary and empirical approach. This would also have been an appropriate and holistic way of circumventing the paucity of literature emanating from the Global South on climate security. The ‘critical’ aspects of ecological security could be further studied through a better understanding of security discourses and practices in the Global South.

Footnotes

Author biography

Dhanasree Jayaram is a Research Fellow at Centre Marc Bloch (CMB) and Guest Researcher at Freie Universität Berlin – under the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s International Climate Protection Fellowship 2022-23. She is an Assistant Professor, Department of Geopolitics and International Relations, and Co-coordinator, Centre for Climate Studies, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Karnataka, India. She is also a Research Fellow, Earth System Governance; Member, Climate Security Expert Network; and Member, Planet Politics Institute. Her research focusses on climate politics and diplomacy, environmental security and military, regional environmental policy in Asia, and environmental peacebuilding. She is the author of Breaking out of the Green House: Indian Leadership in Times of Environmental Change (2012) and Climate Diplomacy and Emerging Economies: Indian as a Case Study (2021).

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