Climate justice via just securitization: Problems and possibilities

Abstract

Climate change amplifies and deepens global injustice. Those least able to adapt to climate change – the world’s poorest – are not only the hardest hit, but they are also the least responsible for the rise of carbon emissions and thus global warming. Climate justice designates the process when climate change is addressed fairly and equitably with a view to protecting those most at risk from the adverse effects of climate change. This article examines to what extent securitization, which is to say the use of extraordinary emergency measures, is a permissible tool for achieving a climate just world. Two semi-hypothetical cases are examined: non-state actor securitizations (inclusive of state-led counter-securitization against such efforts) and state-led securitization of the self and relevant others.

1. Introduction

Anyone following the discussion of the climate crisis in the media will know that talk of justice is never far away. Climate change not only affects different states and people unequally but also those that suffer the most from the ill-effects of climate change have contributed the least to its occurrence. In short, acting on climate change is also a matter of justice (cf. Gardiner, 2023). One way to act on climate change is by using extraordinary emergency measures in a word: securitization. In the relevant literature, however, securitization is predominantly seen as a negative development, as a thing or action best avoided (Bigo & Tsoukala, 2008; Buzan et al., 1998; Hansen, 2012). One reason for this is that securitization may not work. Indeed, such action can cause more insecurity than it seeks to avoid, including when it invokes the security dilemma (i.e. the situation when one party’s search for security increases the insecurity of another). Moreover, securitization is contradictory to iterations of procedural justice central to environmental/climate justice (Bell & Carrick, 2018; Okereke, 2010). Securitization is undemocratic, top-down and likely harms innocent bystanders (Aradau, 2004). Moreover, existing work on climate justice and securitization has found that climate securitization pushes a Western-centric quasi-neo-colonial agenda (Kashwan et al., 2023, p. 3).

In short, the relationship between achieving climate justice and climate securitization is anything but straightforward. We also know, however, that securitization can – provided a host of relevant criteria are satisfied – be morally permissible, indeed it can even be morally obligatory of relevant actors (Floyd, 2019, 2024). This, in turn, opens the theoretical possibility that in the pursuit of climate justice, securitization as the exception is, or can be, a relevant and meaningful tool. But when are these times? And who may do what, and when? This article aims to shed some light on these questions. It is informed by the following research question: Is the use of extraordinary emergency measures a valid tool for advancing climate justice?

Climate justice, climate security and climate securitization are distinct concepts not necessarily causally linked (cf. Section 1 below). Climate justice is inseparable from human rights and equity (UNDP, 2023); therefore, strategies of achieving climate justice cannot be at odds with these fundamentals. Concretely, this means that climate securitization – by which I mean not the performative speech act part whereby issues are turned into security threats via the power of the correct words, but to situations when extraordinary emergency measures are used to act on the threat identified in the speech act –must be morally justifiable. This article uses Just Securitization Theory (JST; Floyd, 2019, 2024) to examine the justice of semi-hypothetical cases of climate securitization by non-state actors and by state actors aimed at achieving climate justice. As such, this article adds to existing research that considers whether climate justice is compatible with rhetorical securitization (Albert, 2022).

The focus of this article on extraordinary emergency measures is timely. At the present time, carbon emission targets are being downgraded or pushed back by a range of governments (Srouji, 2025), and the initial baseline of not exceeding 1.5°C of warming could be passé. As the effects of climate change become more visible and acute, it stands to reason that environmental activists who care about the ill-effects of climate change on the disadvantaged, future people, or other living species, are increasingly likely to turn to the use of extraordinary measures to persuade policymakers to address climate change (Coca-Vila, 2024; Joshi, 2023). Indeed, they may even be justified in doing this (cf. Gardiner, 2023). Policy-makers too are ever more likely to try extraordinary measures to combat climate change. In the spring of 2025, for example, the U.K. government announced that it is funding – first of its kind – outdoor experiments modelling solar radiation management, a cooling technique whereby sulphur particles are deposited in the lower stratosphere to block out sunlight (De Freitas, 2025). This short article cannot hope to settle the many questions that arise from this alone (but see Floyd, 2023). What it can do, however, is critically evaluate the role extraordinary measures, especially ‘just securitization’, may play in the pursuit of climate justice.

The argument proceeds as follows. To show that climate justice and climate security exist in two separate domains with very little overlap, the article begins by briefly examining the meaning of climate justice and environmental/climate security as concepts, but also as research fields. This is followed by discussing the ethics of securitization and introducing JST (Floyd, 2019, 2024). This theoretical lens is then used to examine two semi-hypothetical cases of securitization in the context of environmental/climate justice. One of these is concerned with non-state actor securitization of the climate at the level below the state, the other with state-led securitization. Given that we have yet to see climate securitization as the exception, they remain largely hypothetical, but nevertheless plausible (indeed, wherever possible, I also invoke real-world scenarios). The cases reveal a series of surprising things, including that non-state actors such as climate activist’ groups are – under certain circumstances – permitted to securitize, that states are permitted to counter-securitize the same securitization, and that states may be morally obligated to securitize against climate change. Overall, the research doubles up as an examination into the wider utility of theorizing the ethics of securitization; a nascent area in securitization studies.

The conclusion considers the implications of all this for three groups of people: (a) environmental/climate justice scholars, (b) securitization scholars and (c) security practitioners.

2. Concepts, theory and method

The condition of having environmental justice (or else, being free from environmental injustice) is the situation when people harmed by man-made environmental threats have achieved compensation, are being acknowledged to have incurred these prior harms, and/or steps are being undertaken to right the wrong. People also have environmental justice when they are not subject to unjust environmental practices. Notably, environmental injustice is often tied up with poverty and racial divisions (Pulido, 2018; Schlosberg & Collins, 2014).

Climate justice is a part of environmental justice. Definitions of climate justice often refer to the process constituting the achievement of climate justice. For example, the Solutions Project (2025) argues that ‘Climate justice occurs when those who have the most resources to address the climate crisis actually use them to protect vulnerable communities’. Likewise, Friends of the Earth (2025) hold that ‘Climate justice means finding solutions to the climate crisis that not only reduce emissions or protect the natural world, but that do so in a way which creates a fairer, more just and more equal world in the process’. This shows that besides process, there is a second meaning of climate justice, one whereby the term refers to the condition of having climate justice. Or, put differently, when people are free from climate injustice and not subject to processes of achieving climate justice.

Climate justice (both as a process and as a state of being) is increasingly the dominant concern of environmental justice scholars and activists, in the same way as climate security dominates environmental security, and climate change is the central concern in environmental politics. In short, climate justice and climate security are part of wider environmental justice and security agendas, respectively.

Environmental/climate justice, as an area of scholarly inquiry, is concerned with questions of distributive justice (including with who owes what, and to whom, for past or present environmental wrongs, e.g. in the climate crisis), procedural justice (concerning who should be included in decision-making), and justice of recognition (Bell & Carrick, 2018, p. 101; Holifield et al., 2018; Schlosberg & Collins, 2014). While this research is growing, it does not (yet anyway) amount to its own discipline, but rather scholars from a variety of academic disciplines (e.g. political science, philosophy, history, anthropology, sociology, geography) all have a stake and interest in environmental justice research (Holifield et al., 2018). The objective of environmental justice research is unequivocally normative. Even works that ‘merely’ highlight environmental injustice usually do so in the hope to bring about change, or at the very least to criticize the status quo. In other words, many environmental justice scholars seek to undo environmental insecurity, usually of the most disadvantaged. This agenda aligns with critical security theories, notably the Aberystwyth, or Welsh school, who intend to emancipate other scholars, students and practitioners from the – in their assessment – erroneous view that military security makes people secure (Booth, 2007). It does not sit easily with the Copenhagen school responsible for securitization theory, whose work does not have an emancipatory agenda (cf. Buzan & Wæver, 1997).

Environmental security has multiple meanings. Environmental security research is concerned with the interconnections between security and the natural environment. This can take very different forms depending on who is considered the entity in need of being made secure (the referent object), the provider of security and the source of the threat. Notably, some environmental security scholars focus on the possibility of environmental conflict (cf. Barnett, 2001).

The condition of being (environmentally secure) refers to the situation where threats from the natural environment or to the natural environment are either absent or when they are successfully managed. One possible way to manage environmental threats, and thus achieve environmental security, is via securitization. In the literature, securitization has multiple meanings. For some, securitization refers to the identification in speech and rhetoric of an existential threat to a valued referent object via a specific grammar of security (point of no return, necessity, etc.) coupled with audience acceptance of the threat logic (Vuori, 2008). For others, this chain of events merely amounts to rhetorical securitization (Jackson, 2006). These scholars hold that securitization is incomplete unless there are changes in practice (law, policy and actions) that tackle the security threat articulation. Given that the logic of threat and defence allows for the use of extraordinary emergency measures, it is logical to expect exceptional, or ‘abnormal’ (for the actor in question) action to follow securitizing rhetoric; however, this is not always the case (Buzan et al., 1998, p. 34). In this article, securitization refers to threat articulation coupled with an extraordinary security response, partly because extraordinary measures have the potential to cut through all that is being said and to deliver climate action, and quite possibly climate justice.

Whichever way we look at things, environmental justice is different from environmental security. Notably, environmental security (the condition) could be achieved unjustly and unfairly; for example, one state could ensure its own environmental security by taking land or resources away from another weaker state or group by force. Likewise, ‘having’ environmental justice does not mean a group of people is environmentally secure. Yes, the group may have been adequately and fairly compensated for a previous environmental harm (e.g. pollution of local waterways by a transnational cooperation), but this same group might still be suffering from climate change or other unrelated environmental degradation, rendering individuals within that group environmentally insecure. ¹ Still, one can envisage scenarios whereby environmental justice – for some – is achieved via securitization. Imagine a case where illegal loggers pollute and destroy the environment home to an indigenous group in the Amazon rainforest. Brazil could securitize this issue, including by tracking down illegal loggers with the help of the military, destroying loggers’ equipment, detaining loggers or exiling them to different parts of the country and so on. Such measures could very well succeed in addressing the threat, and they can bring (issue specific) environmental justice (a wrong has been righted) to the affected group.

The view that securitization can have positive or progressive consequences is relatively new in critical security studies. Most scholars working in the tradition of the Copenhagen school agree with the school that desecuritization (i.e. the return of an issue out of the state of emergency politics back into the realm of normal politics) is the better long-term strategy (Hansen, 2012). Inter alia, the real threats from infectious diseases, energy insecurity (especially following the Russian war in Ukraine) and climate change have made some scholars question the moral preference for desecuritization (cf. Elbe, 2006; Gjørv, 2012; Nyman, 2016; Roe, 2012). Von Lucke et al. (2014) have shown that the securitization of the climate can have positive agenda-setting effects, but they warn that it can lead ‘to the well-known exclusionary practices and may even undermine the goal of a sustainable strategy of reducing GHG emissions’ (p. 876). Matt McDonald is another prominent voice in this space. While his work does include reference to securitization as the exception (e.g. when he discusses geoengineering McDonald, 2023a), his focus is not on determining the (in)justice of extraordinary emergency responses, but on achieving ecological security. A state of being where ecosystems are resilient to withstand the brunt of climate change (McDonald, 2023b).

These works constitute important milestones in pushing the realization that securitization against climate change is not necessarily a negative or immoral development. ² However, these authors do not offer a ‘clear-cut blueprint for action […] because [they argue] securitisation is in itself a normatively ambivalent process that cannot be easily assessed in black-and-white terms’ (von Lucke et al., 2014, p. 876). Arguably, The Morality of Security (Floyd, 2019) succeeds in setting forth a blueprint for a theory of just securitization, and with that a range of criteria that determine the moral permissibility of securitization. In 2024, I have extended this further with the concept of morally mandatory securitization (Floyd, 2024). While this remains the most comprehensive framework for assessing the justice of exceptional securitization, it has not been used to assess whether climate securitization can bring about climate justice. Unlike McDonald, who works in the Welsh school’s tradition, I tend to work in the Copenhagen school’s tradition and am therefore primarily pre-occupied with examining the justice of security as a specific kind of political practice. In other words, so far, no one has considered just securitization’s ability to contribute to climate justice and therefore also likely climate security. This article serves as a valuable correction to this oversight.

JST is modelled on the just war tradition. It contains the following elements: (a) Just cause, referring to the presence of an objective and sufficiently harmful threat to an objectively valuable referent object; (b) right intention, meaning that the securitizing actor must aim at saving the referent object and not be driven by an ulterior motive, (c) the proportionality of ends which holds that the extraordinary measures cannot cause more harm than the harm they seek to stop and prevent, and (d) reasonable chance of success, when measured against the prospects of less harmful alternatives. These are the conditions specifying the just initiation of securitization, which is to say the move from normal politics to emergency politics. This is complemented by just conduct in securitization, designating the rights and obligations of securitizing actors and executors of securitization during securitization.

Readers well-versed in just war theory will notice the absence of legitimate authority and last resort from the just initiation of securitization. While there is no obligation for a theory of just securitization to mirror the just war tradition, it should be noted that here ‘legitimate referent object’ takes the place of legitimate authority (Floyd, 2019, pp. 140–147). Several reasons inform this decision, among them the reality that actors other than states can carry out securitization.

Regarding last resort, I argue that if this is understood as the last thing to be done after other less harmful options have been tried at least once and failed to satisfy just cause, then this principle is outside of the realm of moral permissibility (ibid., 147–149). In such situations, and provided all other criteria of the just initiation of securitization are satisfied, then securitization is morally required of relevant actors. To be sure, depending on the relationship of the should-be securitizing actor and the referent object, this obligation may still be overridable (Floyd, 2024, pp. 100–111). Finally, in social contractual situations, the duty to secure – at the point of ‘must cause’– is overriding (ibid., 122).

It is not the task of this article to critique or investigate these criteria (others have done this, Gates, 2024; Thumfart, 2024). I use the theory to examine what is or would be required for securitization to be justified. It is possible to apply JST in this way because the criteria it advances are widely shared among ethicists working on the related context of just war, the use of force short of war and alternatives to war (see, Brunstetter, 2021; Pattison, 2018). Put differently, JST’s criteria are new only in the context of securitization.

2.1. Choice of cases

The research method adopted in this article is to apply the distinct criteria of just securitization (just cause, proportionality and so on) to two separate cases – non-state securitization and state-led securitization. The point of doing this is to determine whether, and under what circumstances, the use of extraordinary emergency measures is a valid tool for advancing climate justice. This is based on the dual assumption that: (a) climate justice can only be achieved by just means and (b) just means are not exclusive to the realm of normal politics.

In the existing climate securitization literature, much attention has been placed on the UN and its concomitant institutions; therefore, the global level of analysis (Arias, 2022; Maertens, 2019; Maertens & Trombetta, 2023; Morsut & Rhinard, 2025). The UN is also a prominent actor in climate justice. This pertains both to political practice, where the UN has made major inroads on this issue, ³ but also to the view that the UN and its institutions are the right and best place to achieve climate justice (global solutions for global issues). This research takes the less well-trodden path and examines climate securitizations’ ability to generate climate justice at the level of the state and below the level of the state, by non-state actors. While plenty of work on climate activism and on securitization by state actors exists, they have not been assessed from this perspective. At a time when the relevance of global institutions is challenged by deadlocks (use of vetoes), American isolationism and the demise of liberal values and order, these lower levels of analysis for climate justice provision are increasingly important.

The semi-hypothetical cases chosen are all from the developed world, embellished with real-world examples from the Global North, specifically, Germany and the United Kingdom. This is a deliberate choice. It avoids the post- and de-colonial charge of speaking for the subaltern with Western theories allegedly unsuited for the experiences of the Global South and their conceptions of environmental/climate justice (cf. Álvarez & Coolsaet, 2018).

While uncommon in International Relations and security studies, hypotheticals and thought experiments are a common research method in analytical moral and political philosophy. They are widely used to test, reject and refine moral intuitions without scholars being bogged down in historical or political, and politicized detail (Frowe, 2014, p. 5). In the given case, they are useful because they enable us to talk meaningfully about possible futures ‘without lapsing into prophecy’ (Busby, 2024, p. 45).

3. Climate justice, securitization and non-state actors

As climate change awareness has increased, so has the number of climate change activists’ movements. The global Climate Action Network (CAN, 2025) features ‘more than 1,900 civil society organisations in over 130 countries driving collective and sustainable action to fight the climate crisis and to achieve social justice’. Among these are Extinction Rebellion (XR), who wow and ire with sensational visual stunts, Fridays for Future led by Greta Thunberg, Just Stop Oil and older, generic environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth. All these groups have one thing in common: they demand that governments all over the world start acting on climate change. The Fridays for Future’s (2025) website reads as follows: ‘We demand action. Not enough is being done to limit warming – not even close. This is why Fridays For Future’s mission is to unite behind the science and make those in power take the facts seriously, and act accordingly’.

Some of these groups believe that meaningful change can only be achieved if our societies undergo considerable change. Extinction Rebellion (XR, 2005) campaigns for a version of more direct democracy via devolution and citizens’ assemblies. Most of these organizations seek to achieve change via peaceful disruption – protests, strikes and sit-ins. Some include destruction of property. Notably, Just Stop Oil has damaged private and public property, often by throwing paint over things (Joshi, 2023). How are we to understand all this from the position of securitization theory? It seems to me that even when these activists use extraordinary emergency measures (such as direct methods), they are not accurately described or captured by the label securitizing actors. They do not – via their actions – aim to secure the referent object against climate change. Instead, they aim to convince other, more powerful actors (usually governments, the United Nations, or the international community) to securitize the climate. In short, they function as securitization requesters (Floyd, 2021). They request that governments, etc., prioritize climate change above everything else:

We demand that the U.K. government commits to working with other nations to establish a legally binding treaty to stop extracting and burning oil, gas and coal by 2030 as well as supporting and financing poorer countries to make a fast, fair, and just transition. (Just Stop Oil, 2025)

Considering recent world events, notably the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, but more so trans-Atlantic decoupling, governments are de-prioritizing climate action and carbon emissions reduction commitments. The U.K. has downgraded its carbon targets; the EU is busy thinking about strategic autonomy, while Donald Trump is infamous for declaring climate change null and void. If this continues, then there are good reasons to believe that climate activists will lose faith in governments altogether and seek to take climate action into their own hands (cf. Ide, 2025; Jones & Youngs, 2024, p. 3). Just Stop Oil is an example of a group whose actions have already gone beyond protest. Their activists have targeted the means of the fossil fuel industry, for example, by destroying petrol pumps or by blocking oil refineries and transport hubs (Gayle, 2022).

Governments have clamped down hard on climate activism (cf. Conca & Dabelko, 2024, pp. 520–523). In parts of Germany (a federal system where individual states (Bundesländer) oversee the judiciary and policing), state governments have resorted to pre-emptive detention, whereby activists vowing to continue with direct action have been pre-emptively locked up, often for weeks at a time (Kühne, 2023). The combination of government inaction on climate change, harsh government action on climate activism, and the acute sense of running out of time is likely to encourage (some) climate activists to take matters into their own hands (Coca-Vila, 2024; Jones & Youngs, 2024, p. 3).

It is possible that – in the future – we will see a shift, whereby non-state actors do not simply demand climate action from government, but non-state-led securitization in the name of climate justice. Consider the case of ‘Shut the System’. Formed in 2024, this group aims ‘to shut down key actors in the fossil fuel economy’ (Gayle, 2022). They do this by acts of sabotage, criminal action against actors in the fossil industry – forcing them to change tack (Shut the System, 2024).

Many of the climate activists’ movements also have ideas for a reordering of government to be informed by citizen assemblies (Mellier & Smith, 2024; Simpson, 2021). Whatever else one might think of such movements, most of their members will be concerned with achieving climate justice (cf. Gardiner, 2023). In short, their motives and intentions are morally good – they seek a fairer, more equitable world for today and the future. This raises the question, whether such groups are – from a moral point of view, permitted to securitize? JST – like the Copenhagen school’s securitization theory (Buzan et al., 1998) does not rule out non-state actors as securitizing actors. Doing so would prohibit self-defence of non-state actors against unjust states (Wolfendale, 2022). However, it is also the case that states hold a monopoly on violence for good reasons, namely security, order and safety (Altman & Wellman, 2009). In a state that upholds the social contract by providing these goods, non-state actors are not normally permitted to self-securitize. This changes when states fail in their obligations. The Hobbes scholar Peter Steinberger (2002) has argued that the social contract is ‘nil and void’ when the state fails to provide that for which it was created, namely, security (p. 859). In the case of climate change, this could be the case when states refuse to take meaningful and genuine climate action. This wording makes it clear that these are details to be worked out on a case-by-case basis. What I want to suggest is simply that non-state actors below the state level are permitted to self- and other-securitize ⁴ against climate change, when their own state manifestly fails to provide climate security.

In line with JST, however, this is morally permissible only when the referent object is morally justifiable (Floyd, 2019, pp. 99–121). In the case of climate activism, the referent object tends to be human beings, future generations and sometimes the biosphere. Since JST attributes the moral value of referent objects to their contribution to human well-being, only ecosystems that contribute to the human well-being of a sufficiently large group of people are of value to warrant securitization. In short, JST places limitations on the size of ecosystems deemed valuable enough. In the case of climate activism, this threshold is usually met. People, in turn, are morally valuable in virtue of being human.

Right intention simply tracks just cause. It aims to ensure that actors do not have ulterior motives. In cases of climate activism, this is considered highly unlikely. Considering how hard governments have clamped down on such behaviour, it is unlikely anyone would do this lacking the right intention (cf. Coca-Vila, 2024).

Proportionality is the trickiest part of evaluating the justice of securitization. It requires analysts to make judgements on whether the harm that is caused because of securitization is less than the harm such action seeks to avoid (cf. McMahan, 2015, in the context of proportionality in war). In the case of climate change, this means evaluating whether the harm caused by the sabotage of infrastructure, blocking of fuel depots, cyber-attacks to disrupt air and rail transport and so on, is less than the harm caused by climate change. One difficulty here is timescale. The harm caused by environmentalists would be immediate (e.g. monetary loss of the aviation industry), whereas the harm avoided is not visible, especially because we do not have the counterfactual, or indeed immediate results. Either way, there comes a point when the harm – even to the many from losing their jobs, etc. – would be less than the harm from climate change that such measures would avoid. The logic here is like that found in Stern’s (2006) review on the economics of climate, which held that: ‘The [economic] costs of stabilising the climate are significant but manageable; delay would be dangerous and much more costly’ (p. vi).

The final criterion for just initiation of securitization is a reasonable chance of success. It is important to understand that this criterion does not track absolute chances of success; instead, it tracks whether securitization has a greater chance of succeeding than less harmful alternatives (cf. Uniacke, 2014). This means here one needs to weigh up whether violent protest and bottom-up political reform have a better chance at achieving just cause than peaceful measures. As before, the answer to this question depends on how far advanced the damage to the global climate is. The greater the damage, the more permissible the exceptional securitization.

What does all this show? It shows that climate activism in the pursuit of climate justice can be morally permissible. Of course, this does not mean that all actions are permissible. What precisely is done falls under the criteria of just conduct in securitization. These specify that – inter alia – the specific security measures adopted must cause the least amount of harm possible, and that people who do not pose a direct lethal threat to an objectively valuable referent object cannot be targeted with lethal force.

In many countries, climate activism has been very much suppressed. Climate activists have been treated on a par with terrorists (cf. Lederer et al., 2024). In the United Kingdom, but also in parts of Germany, governments (national or regional) have securitized against climate activism. If, however, such climate activism in the pursuit of climate justice is morally permissible, are the counter-securitizations by governments unjust? In what follows, I want to suggest that government-led securitization against activist-led securitization is not categorically morally impermissible even in cases where the non-state actor’s securitization is just. Instead – as with all other cases – its (im-) permissibility depends on what is done. In other words, what is suggested here is that securitization and counter-securitization (e.g. use of extraordinary measures in response to securitization) can be morally justifiable at the same time. Climate activists can cause an existential threat to political security, but potentially also to the lives of people by inhibiting the transport of certain goods and services; they also cause an existential threat to some industries and employers. Governments can, indeed they must, protect citizens from such threats (Altman & Wellman, 2009). If politicization does not have the desired effect, then the use of extraordinary emergency measures (detention, etc.) might very well be morally permissible, even required. There are, from a moral point of view, restrictions on what governments are permitted to do when dealing with climate activism. In Germany, where this is most widely practised, pre-emptive detention of known activists who have declared their intention to ‘protest’ in Germany is considered unconstitutional (Poscher & Werner, 2022). If, however, climate activists do more than disrupt and protest peacefully, then the threshold of permissible counter-action shifts upwards.

To summarise, this section has shown that (1) non-state actors situated below the level of the state are permitted to self- and other-securitize when states manifestly fail to do this; (2) state actors are morally permitted, depending on circumstances required, to counter-securitize against the securitizations of non-state actors described under point (1). In short, securitization and counter-securitization can be morally justifiable at the same time.

4. Climate justice, securitization and state actors

‘Climate justice, means finding solutions to the climate crisis that not only reduce emissions or protect the natural world, but that do so in a way that creates a fairer and more just and more equal world in the process’ (Friends of the Earth, 2025).

Conceived as a process, climate inaction is a form of environmental/climate injustice. Climate action can take many different forms. So far, state-led and systemic international organization-led climate action has been at the political level. The actions taken to address climate change tend to take the form of subsidized green schemes (e.g. enabling households to make greener choices in their energy provision or in their choice of car, transport). It has taken the form of global environmental regimes with states committing themselves to carbon emissions reductions and so on (Falkner, 2021).

The action of climate change taken registers a sharp disconnect from the rhetoric used on climate change (cf. Howarth et al., 2021). For some time now, leading politicians’ language suggests that climate change is the number one global security issue. For example, in 2018, France’s Emmanuel Macron (2018) declared that ‘By polluting the oceans, not mitigating CO₂ emissions and destroying our biodiversity, we are killing our planet. Let us face it, there is no planet B’. During the COP27 summit 2022, Secretary General of the UN António Guterres (2022) declared that the world is on a ‘highway to climate hell’. Ahead of COP 29 in 2024, the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (2024) declared ‘There is no national security. There is no economic security. There is no global security. Without climate security’. Similarly, in 2025, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen (2025) said ‘We know that the fight against climate change is truly existential’. Moreover, by the end of March 2025, ‘2,366 jurisdictions in 40 countries have declared a climate emergency. Populations covered by jurisdictions that have declared a climate emergency amount to over 1 billion citizens’ (CED, 2025). These acts of rhetorical securitization have not been followed up with extraordinary emergency measures (see Warner & Boas, 2019 on the potential disastrous effects of this). As already mentioned, globally, carbon emissions reduction is voluntary. On many national levels, states have committed themselves to significant reductions, framing the energy transition as an economic opportunity we need to grasp. Moreover, it is not clear what not following through with reductions would mean for rule-breakers. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this conduct. Indeed, if it works, it is preferable to coercive strategies inherent to securitization. The point I wish to make here is this: If climate inaction produces environmental injustice, then insufficient climate action also perpetuates climate injustice.

JST holds that if less harmful alternatives to achieving climate justice fail, and the criteria of just cause, right intention and proportionality of ends are satisfied, then securitization is not merely morally permissible but morally obligatory of relevant actors (Floyd, 2024, chapter 1). Relevant actors include states who are socially contractually bound to protect their own citizens. But what might such a securitization entail?

It is important to realize that securitization would impinge very heavily onto previously taken for granted freedoms. Mandatory emissions’ targets would be enforced by prohibiting carbon intensive behaviours. These could include a ban on travelling for leisure by plane for, however, many times personal budgets allow. Instead, permits to travel in this way could be awarded in a postcode lottery, or alphabetically by surname, or by other ways of reducing numbers. Driving could be outlawed or reduced by tracking cars with satellite systems and putting a levy on excess milage (past a certain minimum allowance). This could incentivize people to move closer to their place of work and enable/push companies to permit working from home whenever possible.

Governments could ban the possession of certain energy intense non-essential leisure objects including patio heaters and hot tubs. Governments could also elect to ban the production, import and sale of such goods. Dairy products and meat could be rationed, allowing individuals to buy only a certain amount per week. Iavor Rangelov and Marika Theros (2025) quite rightly warn that such measures amount to a form or eco-authoritarianism.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, anyone reading this would have considered these suggestions far-fetched and implausible. COVID, however, has taught us differently. During the pandemic, Panama, for instance, had a policy whereby people of different genders were allowed to leave the house on different days of the week to reduce the number of people out and about (LGBTQ+Nation, 2020). In general, the securitization of health during COVID showed that governments can ensure the security of people by enforcing measures that significantly curtailed the freedom of individuals, including to move around, mix and do as they please (cf. Kirk & McDonald, 2021). Securitization here was written into emergency legislation, enforced by police (in some states by the military (BBC, 2021)), but also by an army of people reporting offenders to the authorities (BBC, 2020). Evidently, the fear of being reported by neighbours and others served as a deterrent. Carbon-intensive leisure pursuits could be reported and policed similarly. Offenders could be issued with on-the-spot fines, community work and criminal records.

The banning of the possession of personal items in the name of security is not uncommon; however, this is more commonly done regarding weapons. For example, in September 2024, Britain introduced an amendment to the Criminal Justice Act 1988 banning zombie-style knives and machetes (NPCC, 2024). While this is a different kind of security threat, the principle remains the same: outlaw something to ensure greater security for all.

Likewise, rationing to ensure security has precedent. When Cape Town suffered from a severe drought in 2020, the local authorities responded by rationing water usage to 50L per person per day (approximately 1/3 of daily consumption in the United Kingdom) (cf. Krause et al., 2024). In climate change, the equation is different insofar as the rationing of dairy and meat is not there to combat a shortage, but rather to curtail excessive consumption in an age of abundance. Still, the principle is the same.

All these measures have one thing in common: they drastically curtail and interfere with people’s liberties. This is one reason why securitization is considered a negative development (Van Munster, 2004; Huysmans, 2006). JST suggests that such measures could be morally permissible in cases when there is an objective existential threat to a valuable referent object. Compared to other security threat scenarios (cf. Aradau, 2004), this assertion is less controversial in the case of climate change because (a) global warming is a real threat regardless of whether we acknowledge this; and (b) most people believe in the intrinsic moral value of humans (Theunissen, 2023). In other words, the exceptional securitization of the climate to save human lives is thinkable.

In JST, just cause alone is insufficient. Like many versions of just war theory, JST attributes greater weight to proportionality than to just cause. The reason for this is simple. Many objectively valuable things can be existentially threatened, but in themselves they might be too small, or too insignificant, to warrant defence by extraordinary emergency measures. The simple rule, adapted from just war theory, is this: you cannot cause more harm by securitizing than by not securitizing at all (cf. Orend, 2006, pp. 59–61). Extraordinary measures cause harm to most people living within the state that enforces such measures. In some cases, such harm could be significant, especially the inability to travel – by plane – abroad at will, for example, to visit family. For the most part, however, the harm caused by climate securitization would amount to inconveniences and is not detrimental to anyone. Indeed, people might very well learn to reengage in more simplistic lifestyles (cf. Soper, 2020). Climate scientists show that the harm avoided is likely to be much more significant, and even lethal (cf. Romm, 2022), than the harm incurred by these measures.

There is another way to securitize the climate, one that impinges less on individual liberties. This approach is geo-engineering. Geo-engineering refers to a range of measures, some are to do with capturing carbon, including sequestering carbon in underground disused coal mines or growing plankton in the sea by fertilizing the ocean with iron. Other methods focus on deflecting sunlight from reaching Earth (cf. Nicholson, 2024). One such method is solar-radiation management, whereby sulphuric particles are released in their millions into the stratosphere, where they deflect sunlight. Another – more futuristic one – is by placing gigantic mirrors up in space (cf. Baum et al., 2022). While these methods do not affect individuals’ liberties, they too cause harm, quite possibly more harm to those less able to adapt to climate change. Scholars point to the possibility of changed weather systems, including in far-flung places, depletion of the ozone layer, and much else besides (cf. McDonald, 2023a, 2023b; McLaren & Corry, 2023). And yet some scholars hold that targeted geo-engineering could remedy climate injustice for states hardest hit by climate change (Fruh & Hedahl, 2019).

A concern with environmental/climate justice demands climate action of relevant actors. That is, actors in positions of power are enabling them to bring about change. If climate action at the political level fails, states have an obligation to securitize the issue.

In The Duty to Secure, I have suggested that certain actors have duties regarding securitization not only towards those with whom they exist in a relevant contractual relationship, but also towards friends and allies, provided they have the means to help (Floyd, 2024, p. 119). A duty to secure and make safe does not mean that relevant others must be saved with recourse to extraordinary measures. Such measures are morally required only once less harmful measures have been exhausted (Floyd, 2024, chapter 1). All of this means that states and other actors (notably collectives of states such as military alliances) can have a moral duty to use extraordinary measures to address climate emergencies affecting third parties. Scholars working on just war theory and the natural environment provide insights on what this might look like. Adam Betz (2019) suggests that:

There could be enforcement of “no drill zones” in the Arctic regions, or perhaps limited attacks on oil refineries and coal plants. […] A further possibility is kidnapping or targeted attacks on individual fossil fuel lobbyists, oil company executives, leading skeptical propagandists, or even politicians financed by offending industries. (p. 241)

Other suggestions include formation of coalitions of the willing to address illegal logging (Walt, 2019) or geoengineering to save small island states from rising sea levels (Fruh & Hedahl, 2019). Noteworthy is that all just war scholars focus on the jus ad vim, which refers to the use of force short of full-scale war and includes things like drone strikes and no-fly zones, but also economic sanctions and kidnapping are considered justifiable (Meisels, 2025, p. 33). Another way to describe such measures is securitization.

5. Conclusion

Climate justice refers to both the process whereby action is taken to address the source of climate injustice and the state of being wherein people are free from climate injustice. This article is about the nexus between the use of extraordinary emergency measures (securitization) in achieving the condition of having climate security. The research shows that a just aim, which the pursuit of climate justice undoubtedly is, does not permit the use of unjust means. Consequently, this means that only morally right (just) securitization can inform climate justice as a process. Two semi-hypothetical cases reveal a range of things on the connection of just securitization and climate justice as both a process and a state of being. The research shows that the condition of having climate justice does not yet depend on just securitization. In other words, the situation is not yet so bad that securitization is morally obligatory for relevant actors. ⁵ However, the research also shows that the use of extraordinary emergency measures is – as climate change worsens – increasingly morally permissible, including – when relevant authorities fail – by non-state actors. In other words, climate change and its concomitant injustices have the potential to reshape what actors can do, must do and who counts as a legitimate actor.

By way of a conclusion, I want to focus on what the analysis means for three groups of people: (a) scholars of environmental/climate justice, (b) securitization scholars and (c) security practitioners. I will consider each group in turn. Although scholars of environmental/climate justice may not take to the streets with one or more of the various climate activist groups, their academic work in teaching and research intends to further climate justice. In short, research on climate justice is necessarily normative. As is the case for many critical scholars, climate justice scholars consider theory a form of practice (George, 1994). I want to suggest that theories of just securitization usefully further the “climate justivists’” cause. Of course, JST is not a theory of distributive justice. My claim is that environmental justice scholars can use theories of just securitization to bring about a more climate just world. Such theories enable climate justivists to evaluate the justice of securitizations in this space and to demand securitization of climate justice in an informed way. Moreover, in certain circumstances, just securitization can help to address environmental injustice.

The second group of people this research is relevant for are securitization scholars. Climate justice is one of those issues that powerfully dents the dominant view that desecuritization (i.e. addressing security threats with normal politics) is ceteris paribus, better than securitization. One reason for this is that climate change is a real threat. It occurs regardless of the scholar’s social construction (in language) of climate change as a threat. The existence of real as opposed to socially constructed threats demands that securitization scholars think about ethics and securitization much more carefully. This research shows that JST offers a starting point for evaluating the justice of securitization.

I do not want to go as far as to suggest that policymakers and practitioners should make climate justice their priority. Policymakers always have multiple issues of priority to juggle. Still, this research shows that if significant action on climate change is not taken, two things follow: First, securitization by non-state actors becomes morally permissible. Second, for state actors who have a social contractual duty to protect their citizens, securitization of the climate could even become morally required. The question for practitioners and policymakers is whether that really is a desirable future. I think not. Securitization may work, but it is ultimately a failure of politics. Not only of normal politics, but a failure to act decisively and in time. Environmental justice scholars, I think, do not want these futures, and neither do securitization scholars. Practitioners should heed these warnings before we reach a point of no return.