Securitization rhetoric means that no climate change policy is being made or getting passed- turns case

If the nexus between climate change, conflict, and migration is already wrongly assumed, the question is if the narratives that emerge through this context, which lead to a securitization, are useful for tackling climate change appropriately. It is argued a securitization is useful because it raises awareness of the issue, importantly hoping that the climate change receives greater attention from policy-makers. ‘But even the best of intentions cannot obscure that we don’t live in a win-win world’ (Hartmann, 2010: 239). This essay shows that the securitization of climate change hinders appropriate responses to the issue, while the negative Malthusian view deeply influences the rhetoric about climate change (Hartmann, 2014). Through the securitization, serious efforts of climate change mitigation will be undermined, and developments in foreign policies can be recognized that seem to support climate action but if one takes a closer look, they remain questionable. If climate change is portrayed as a danger to security, it supports those who address climate change through conventional security measures and the securitization serves western security interests (Brzoska, 2009). Accordingly, Brzoska (2015) examines military forces and if climate change leads to their increase. He concludes that the ‘general perception of the importance of climate change […] seems to feed the expectation that climate change will amplify already existing priorities of armed forces’ (Brzoska, 2015: 187), while the military is not getting more sustainable. A military upgrade is expensive – this money could be used to invest in mitigation measures for climate change. In addition, if there is a lack of evidence proving the climate-conflict-nexus, more military is not needed for climate change reasons. Nonetheless, the narratives of climate change, combined with an increase of armed forces, help to justify armed interventions. For the U.S. for instance, it is important to maintain military supremacy. For the actors of the national security, it is important ‘to continue to operate in a world where climate change impacts are increasing’ (Brauch /Scheffran, 2012: 6). Hartmann (2010 / 2014) agrees that the threat narratives serve the U.S. as a security actor in Africa. It is argued that AFRICOM[7] is justified officially through economic and political objectives. In a broader sense, the climate change narrative fits to justify military assistance (Hartmann, 2010). It becomes evident that this is not an appropriate answer to climate change. A militarization will not help to reduce greenhouse gases but it will only enforce the security interests of the respective country. In relation to migration, the term ‘climate refugees’ is too simple. The notion ‘climate refugee’ overvalues the ‘role of demographic pressure’ and as with climate-conflict – the reasons for migration are ‘complex and context-specific’ (Hartmann, 2010: 235). Furthermore, ‘framing migration as a threat leads to policies that do little to control migration but that limit the benefits of migration to migrants and their original and destination communities’ (Commission on Climate Change and Development, 2009 in Hartmann, 2010: 241). Hartmann (2014: 769) goes further and states that the ‘causal chain between poverty, overpopulation, environmental degradation, migration, and ultimately political unrest’ serves a ‘Malthusian Anticipatory Regime for Africa’. This helps the enforcement of defense strategies of western countries, as well as the new land enclosures in sub-Saharan Africa, by the depiction of Africans as a threat (Hartmann, 2014). These narratives about climate refugees imply that ‘we’, the western world, depict ourselves as victims. ‘The silenced ‘Other’, with no agency and driven by desperation, easily becomes the unpredictable, wild ‘other’ that threatens ‘‘us’’.’ (Manzo, 2010 in Bettini, 2013: 70). This colonial thinking leads to the depiction of climate refugees as a ‘destitute victim’ instead of a political subject.’ (Bettini, 2013: 70). Subsequently, the narratives around climate refugees have the potential for policies that affect migrants and not climate action. In addition, the securitization of climate change supports the marketization and militarization of nature (Dunlap / Fairhead, 2014). Climate change creates and transforms access to new markets for carbon, biodiversity, biofuels and climate-secure food. Climate security thus entails more than a concern for ‘bad weather’ but generates new climate commodities that produce ‘climate conflicts’. The emerging conflict occurs as political elites ‘grab’ these environmental markets – animated by the securitization of climate threats. In short, ‘Environmental conflicts intensify with the further abstraction of nature as a service provider and the commodification of these services.’ (Dunlap / Fairhead, 2014: 947) That the neo-liberalization of the nature fuels conflicts is for instance already well-documented and described in cases like Indonesia and Kenya during the PES programme UN-REDD+[8] by the United Nations (Dunlap / Fairhead, 2014: 947). Even if the securitization and the alarmism of climate change leads to a rising awareness in the international politics, a causal relationship between conflict and warming, as is claimed in several studies, combined with the worst-case scenarios, raises yet another question: how shall the reduction of greenhouse gas be central to political decisions, if studies do not properly demonstrate that the negative effects of climate change can be avoided through an appropriate installation of measures (Brzoska, 2009)? The impacts of climate change are convincing and fearsome without the inadequate depiction of climate wars and climate refugees. These dystopian narratives and the increase of armed forces fail to lead to a higher degree of cooperation between states and fail to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases. The securitization runs into the danger of ‘doing very little – and may even obstruct or distract attention from – the huge challenge of […] stemming global anthropogenic climate change’ (Selby / Hoffmann, 2014: 754), while the dramatizing tone could lead to a militarization (Brzoska 2009: 138), the neo-liberalization of the nature (Dunlap / Fairhead, 2014) and the enforcement of western interests (Hartmann, 2014). As shown above, securitization further leads to a stereotypical depiction of ‘othered’ Africans and to isolation policies of western countries. North African states, like Morocco, already cooperate with European states to bring the ‘phenomenon [of climate refugees] under control’ (Hartmann, 2014: 776). This essays argues for a ‘re-politicisation of academic discourse on climate security’ (Selby / Hoffmann, 2014: 752) and demonstrates that framing climate change as a threat has little potential to combat the effects of climate change correctly while supporting climate action. Conclusion The discourse of climate change and its harmful impacts is omnipresent in society. This essay first explained how the security notion shifted after the Cold War while explaining the theoretical framework behind securitization with the CS and the Paris School. A brief overview of the important literature on the topic is the evidence revealed that the topic is controversial and well discussed by international scholars, with varying levels of agreement. The followed section provided information on what climate action is and which measures would lead to a containment of the emission of greenhouse gases to prove the core part of this essay, which pursued the reconstruction of the crisis narratives that emerge through climate change’s securitization. It showed several findings: First, it highlighted that the narratives are futuristic, dystopian and pessimistic, not fact-driven, while these narratives typically connect climate change to conflict and migration. Second, it demonstrated – with examples of Syria and Darfur – that the common assumption of climate change as a driver for violence and conflict is misguided. Third, it critically examined the consequences of the narratives while evaluating if the narratives help or hinder the support of climate action. As it is proven above, these constructed scenarios do not help tackle climate change appropriately. Furthermore, these scenarios advance western interests – it is showed that military forces will increase through existing climate change rhetoric. Furthermore, climate refugees posed as national security threats for western countries, support isolation policies. In general, I would argue for the securitization of climate change only if it would raise enough political awareness for climate action to be properly addressed – not if it were to produce these conflict narratives. Instead, I do not see any smart moves or more climate action as an outcome of these constructed speculative narratives. The national security of western countries becomes the focus of national states when securitizing climate change and the political economy sees monetary incentives in framing climate change as a threat. Due to scholars who identify drawbacks of climate change securitization, the climate-conflict orthodoxy and its dangers are being questioned in newspaper articles[9] and publications of organizations, like the IPCC. One can only hope, that international policy-makers also become aware of the drawbacks of the securitization of climate change and that such critique leads to a reconsideration of the challenging task of climate action. In the words of Selby and Hartmann (2015): ‘[The international community] should drop the climate war rhetoric. Instead, the focus should be on how climate policy can be a road to the international cooperation required for a rapid transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy systems.’ Even though the current climate-conflict logic becomes questioned more and more, the conflict rhetoric is still worryingly present in contemporary political discourse. For the future, I hope for a shift towards an expedient debate with climate action at its core.