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

flict situations, and assessing the effectiveness and
sustainability of policy interventions.
3.1.1.5
The German research scene and WBGU’s syndrome
approach
German conflict research has adopted a critical stance
in relation to the international debate about widening
the concept of security, particularly with regard
to the securitization of environmental policy (Daase,
1991, 1992; Brock, 1992, 1998), and the debate was
taken up from the late 1990s onwards by researchers
specializing in the field of environmental policy. This
is exemplified by the work done by Carius and his
colleagues (Carius and Lietzmann, 1998; Carius et al.,
1999, 2001; Carius, 2003; Carius and Dabelko, 2004),
and in particular by the approach developed mainly
by Biermann, Petschel-Held and Rohloff (1998) that
is based on an analysis of syndromes and on theories
of conflict.
This innovative approach is based on a combination
of the syndrome approach, developed mainly at
the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
(PIK) under the auspices of WBGU, and the Conflict
Simulation Model (COSIMO) of the Heidelberg
Institute for International Conflict Research. It
involves the use of both quantitative and qualitative
methods. The 16 syndromes of global environmental
change thus identified by WBGU describe specific
dynamic patterns of human-environment interaction,
which together capture the main problems of global
change (WBGU, 1997, 1998, 2001).
By linking in with the COSIMO approach, these
syndromes can be correlated with existing empirical
findings as examples of environmental situations
likely to lead to conflict. This makes it possible, for
example, to confirm the relevance of the Sahel Syndrome
in relation to violent intrastate conflict. Evaluation
of the COSIMO database in this context points
to a clear correlation between violent social conflict
and the vicious circle typical of the Sahel Syndrome,
namely, increasing rural impoverishment, intensification
of low-level agriculture and dwindling natural
resources. It is indeed the case that above-average
numbers of countries severely affected by the
dynamic of the Sahel Syndrome are also affected
by intrastate or interstate violent conflict; this linkage
is most evident in the case of the countries bordering
on the Sahel, that is, Senegal, Niger, Algeria,
Burkina Faso and Mali. What is needed as well,
though, are studies on Mongolia, for example, where
the Sahel Syndrome exists in a state of high criticality
but has not led to a violent escalation of conflict.
Assumptions regarding the high probability of inter-
State of conflict research at the interface of environment and security 3.1
state ‘ water wars’, by contrast, have not been confirmed
unequivocally by the syndromes and conflict
approach (Carius et al., 2006).
Overall, this approach makes it possible to assess
the extent to which specific syndromes are likely to
lead to conflict. Unlike the Zurich group’s ENCOP
project, for example, which works inductively, the
environmental situations considered to be critical
are established and typologized not on the basis of
observed conflicts, but rather independently of conflict.
Since this involves including environmental situations
that may be considered critical without having
led to conflict, it becomes possible to make plausible
statements about the likelihood of environmentally
induced conflicts (Carius et al., 2006). This
represents considerable progress compared to previous
environment and conflict research, and underlines
the special value of interdisciplinary research
in analysing environmental change in the context of
global political processes.
3.1.1.6
Fundamental critique of environment and conflict
research
As the empirical research described above developed
further, critical voices began to be raised in
the scientific debate, calling into question the very
notion of dealing with ecological issues in the context
of security discourse (Deudney, 1990, 1991; Brock,
1992; Levy, 1995). Both Daase and Brock, for example,
argue that overloaded concepts such as environmental
security are suitable neither as a means of
scientific description nor as a way of explaining new
critical developments. The lack of high analytical resolution
that characterizes such approaches makes it
difficult to make empirical distinctions; it levels the
differences between relevant fields of policy and suggests
that the interests of one party coincide with the
interests of all others (Daase, 1992, 1996; Brock, 1992,
1997, 2004). In the view of these authors, environmental
security is less a theoretical innovation than
an empty formula that serves different political agendas.
Discourse about ecological security can therefore
serve to legitimate new areas of military deployment,
while lessening the problem of public acceptance of
the armed forces and promoting repressive tendencies
in the sphere of internal security policy. In addition
to preventive conflict resolution, then, efforts
aimed at achieving environmental security are also a
means of legitimating violence. Critics appeal instead
for peace and conflict research that avoids the concept
of security, in order to pre-empt political instrumentalization
of the concept and to do greater justice
to the complexity of environmental change.
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