World in Transition: Climate Change as a Security Risk - WBGU

22 2 Environmental change in security discourse
Human Security Response Force that is specialized
in humanitarian intervention, to complement the EU
Military Rapid Response Force proposed in the ISS
paper.
In its coalition treaty, the German government
also declares its support for a wide-ranging concept
of security that links foreign, security and development
policy (Große Koalition, 2005). In the face of
new and complex risks, such as international terrorism,
weapons of mass destruction and highly vulnerable
infrastructures, the new security policy of the German
government, the White Paper on German Security
Policy, also speaks of ‘networked security’: ‘Security
cannot be guaranteed by the efforts of any one
nation or by armed forces alone. Instead it requires
an all-encompassing approach that can only be developed
in networked security structures and within the
context of a comprehensive national and global security
philosophy’ (BMVg, 2006). One essential goal of
the new security strategy is to strengthen civil crisis
management and to improve early warning mechanisms.
In order to achieve this, military and non-military
approaches need to be better coordinated and
crisis prevention measures accorded much greater
importance. Security practice so far lacks such an orientation,
however, as indicated, for example, by the
action plan for ‘Civilian Crisis Prevention’, adopted
in 2004, which was poorly funded and limited in scope
(Hauswedell, 2006; Schradi, 2006). Just how difficult
and complex it is to implement a new understanding
of security is also evident when one looks at the German
government’s research programme for civil security
(BMBF, 2007). This, too, opts for a comprehensive
approach and presents a wide-ranging analysis
of risks. However, the solution to the problem is seen
first and foremost in technical innovations tailored to
the needs of the industrialized world.
Security risks that could arise as a result of longterm
processes of global environmental change are
accorded varying degrees of attention in the strategies
put forward by the USA, the European Union
and the German government; overall, however, they
play a rather subordinate role. Statements about
potential linkages between environmental degradation
and security often remain vague, unless they
are focused on those natural resources whose supply
is directly relevant to the interests of the industrialized
countries. As another example, the 2005 status
report from the Worldwatch Institute, entitled ‘Redefining
Global Security’, stresses the significant role
of an oil-based global economy with regard to climate
change and calls for a reduction in dependency
on crude oil (Box 2.2-1). Yet even the Worldwatch
Institute sees the security risks associated with such
an economy as being above all a problem of supply
shortages and the ‘resource curse’; this means that
resource richness can often be associated with negative
consequences for the development of a country
(Worldwatch Institute, 2005).
A similar approach to environmental change
also characterizes the security debate in the United
Nations context, which has been recently conducted
on the basis of reports by UN Secretary-General
Annan (‘In Larger Freedom’, March 2005) and by the
High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
commissioned by Annan (‘A More Secure World’,
December 2004) (UN, 2004; UNSG, 2005). While the
high-level panel argues for a more wide-ranging concept
of security that regards poverty reduction as
an indispensable basis for a new collective security,
environmental degradation is mentioned only as a
marginal issue in the six categories of global threats
to security which the panel defined, namely, as a subissue
under economic and social deprivation.
Given this background, it is remarkable that, in
a recent adjustment of its national security strategy
in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the United
States no longer addresses the scarcity of strategically
important resources alone, but also explicitly
takes account of environmental degradation (White
House, 2006). Germany’s White Paper on Security
Policy also refers explicitly to the potential risks of
global environmental change when it speaks of migration,
natural disasters and environmental destruction
as being causes of instability (BMVg, 2006).
Independently of these pronouncements, the concepts
of ‘environmental security’ and ‘ecological
security’, which relate to environmentally induced
security risks, have already been taken on board by
important international actors, such as NATO, OECD
and UNEP; these have responded to the policy relevance
of the issue by setting up working groups and
special departments. Of particular interest is the
pan-organizational Environment Security Initiative
(ENVSEC), within which the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe – OSCE, UNEP,
UNDP and NATO exchange information and ideas
about the links between environment and security.
The main aim of the initiative is to increase the level
of cooperation and, increasingly, of security between
and within states, not only by examining interactions
between the natural environment and human security
but also by feeding the issue into concrete project
work.
2.3
WBGU’s aims and use of terms
Given the various meanings and the political ambiguity
of the concept of security, the question as to
which concept of security WBGU is referring to is by