Considering ecological security from the perspective of Arctic ecosystemic politics
This brief essay is part of a book forum on Matt McDonald's book (2021) presenting the idea of ecological security. In the essay, I reflect on progress and prospects for Arctic cooperation and governance in order to consider the promise and limitations of McDonald’s ecological security framework. The Arctic is an instructive example for such an exploration. The longstanding post-Cold War cooperation in the Arctic is strongly rooted in an appreciation of the interconnected nature of the Arctic ecosystem, even as the governance mechanisms remain far from what would qualify as an ecological security approach in McDonald’s sense. Nonetheless, I suggest that especially two aspects are instructive from the Arctic example. The first relates to how ecological security would potentially interface with an already quite full landscape of governance practices rooted in ecosystems, and associated power political genealogies and effects. The second point is a reflection on unfolding events, seeking to explore how continued inputs from other forms of security governance could impact on emerging or partial attempts to govern with an ecological security perspective. Here, the status of Arctic cooperative governance after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an illustrative example to consider. Both points can be read as impediments limiting the applicability of the ecological security framework. However, as McDonald argued, impediments are not the same as absolute limits (2021, 192) and potential obstacles are explored here in the spirit of advancing possibilities for ecological security.
Ecosystems and Ordering: Exploring the Extent and Diversity of Ecosystem Governance
This article argues that, to grasp how global ordering will be impacted by planetary-level changes, we need to systematically attend to the question of the extent to which and how ecosystems are being governed. Our inquiry builds upon—but extends beyond—the environmental governance measures that have garnered the most scholarly attention so far. The dataset departs from the current literature on regional environmental governance by taking ecosystems themselves as the unit of analysis and then exploring whether and how they are governed, rather than taking a starting point in environmental institutions and treaties. The ecosystems researched—large-scale marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems—have been previously identified by a globe-spanning, natural science inquiry. Our findings highlight the uneven extent of ecosystem governance—both the general geographic extent and certain “types” of ecosystems seemingly lending themselves more easily to ecosystem-based cooperation. Furthermore, our data highlight that there is a wider range of governance practices anchored in ecosystems than the typical focus on environmental institutions reveals. Of particular significance is the tendency by political actors to establish multi-issue governance anchored in the ecosystems themselves and covering several different policy fields. We argue that, in light of scholarship on ecosystem-anchored cooperation and given the substantive set of cases of such cooperation identified in the dataset, these forms of ecosystem-anchored cooperation may have particularly significant ordering effects. They merit attention in the international relations scholarship that seeks to account for the diversity of global ordering practices.
Introduction: Is the time nigh for ecological security?
Klimaendringer og den pågående ødeleggelsen av jordens økosystemer har i økende grad blitt avbildet som et sikkerhetsspørsmål med det edle, men ikke uproblematiske målet som gir et presserende svar. Disse klima- og miljøsikkerhetsdiskursene har blitt mye kritisert på både empirisk og normativt grunnlag. Men finnes det et etisk forsvarlig og til og med frigjørende alternativ til å se for seg forholdet mellom miljø og sikkerhet? I sin nye bok – Ecological Security: Climate Change and the Construction of Security – argumenterer Matt McDonald for at det finnes og legger ut omfattende normative rammer for å gjøre det. For å se nærmere på McDonalds sak for det han kaller «økologisk sikkerhet», samler dette forumet fire ledende forskere fra antropologi, geografi, internasjonale relasjoner og freds- og bærekraftsstudier. Mens alle bidragsytere stort sett er positive til bokens mål, identifiserer hver av dem svakheter i tilnærmingen som beveger seg fra forslag til hvordan avgrense rammeverket på den ene siden til å stille spørsmål ved om rammeverket risikerer å virke kontraproduktivt på den andre.
Skal forske på venner i Arktis
Stein Oluf Kristiansen
Stein Kristiansen er professor på Handelshøyskolen ved UiA. Han har en bistilling ved NUPIs forskningsgruppe for klima og energi, der han jobber s...
KRONIKK: Statlig eierskap tar lite hensyn til internasjonal uro
Klima, fred og sikkerhet i Jemen
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Jemen
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Jemen
Yemen is facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world due to a combination of prolonged conflict, economic crisis and recurrent climate change-related natural hazards. These hazards include temperature increases, rising sea levels and changing patterns in rainfall, causing floods, droughts, reduced water availability and soil degradation. Climate change exacerbates vulnerabilities, threatens livelihoods and influences existing conflicts.