Understanding global security - Peter Hough

ENVIRONMENTAL THREATS TO SECURITY
The failings of individualistic, rather than collective rationality in decisionmaking
in certain problem-solving situations is familiarly portrayed in game theory
analogies such as the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’ (Box 6.2). The Prisoner’s Dilemma can
easily be re-cast as a ‘polluter’s dilemma’ facing states operating in the international
system when confronted with certain environmental issues. The question of whether
‘to pollute or not to pollute’ the atmosphere or waters can yield different ‘rational’
answers. The economic costs incurred by curbing pollution allied to the fact that the
negative effects of the pollution might be slight or even borne elsewhere, could lead
the rationally acting state to favour continuing to pollute, particularly if other states
choose to curb pollution and lessen the collective problem. If all states were to take
such a selfish stance, however, the results for the polluter may become negative,
with ‘environmental costs’ exceeding the costs of political action. Recent political
diplomacy on measures to combat global warming illustrate this dilemma neatly,
particularly since the potential costs of failing to think and act collectively are
catastrophic.
Towards ecological security?
The Copenhagen School’s summation of the state of play in 1998 with regard to global
environmental policy was that: ‘Securitization moves at the global level have resulted
in considerable politicization, but successful securitization has been limited’ (Buzan
et al. 1998: 91). This seems to be a very fair assessment. Myriad international regimes
have emerged since the high water mark of environmental governance at Rio in 1992,
but global policy today stands in stark contrast to the domestic environmental
laws of Western European and North American states which are marked by precautionary
consumer standards and non-human conservation measures. Where
successful international environmental regimes have emerged it has been where a
clear and direct human health threat is apparent.
It is far rarer for the value of environmental protection to be prioritized at global
level than it is at domestic level. Global politics is such that international agreements,
to which governments remain the signatories in spite of the growing role of pressure
groups, are still somewhat reliant on a perception of utilitarian gain. Although it is
becoming ever more blurred, a ‘high politics–low politics’ distinction is still evident
in international politics. Governments are still prone to taking blinkered decisions
informed by economic interest in the face of epistemic consensus and longer-term
utilitarian calculations of ‘national interest’, as witnessed by the USA’s stance on
global warming.
There is a need for global environmental policy to go beyond knee-jerk reactions
to disasters or imminent disasters if it is to properly enhance human (and indeed
non-human) security. The evolution of global governance should eventually realize
this. Only through the holistic management of environmental threats can the
Prisoner’s Dilemma scenario be escaped and states be freed to act in their and their
people’s real interests rather than being compelled by domestic political constraints
to conserve harmful human practices. The European Union’s Common Fisheries
Policy is hated in most of the member states because it stops fishermen fishing as
they have always done, but is still a highly necessary system since it prevents the
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