Theoretical Aspects of Environmental Security

The orientation of state institutions, including intergovernmental organizations, toward relatively short-term and specific interests stands against the relatively long-term and general nature of the threats raised by environmental change. Thus the concept of ‘environmental security’, if understood in environmental terms rather than state-security terms, is a fundamental challenge to state actors at the level of a value change rather than merely a change in state interests. It is not a new idea that scarcity leads to conflict, or that states and international organizations give attention to socio-economic issues for this reason, but the traditional security orientation towards conflict in the relative short-term reflects a set of underlying values which are in sharp contrast to the set of values underlying environmental concern which points to the need for cooperation in the relative long-term. Because a set of values must underwrite any political interests, it is more important to concentrate on environmental values than on environmental threats to national interest, since the former is what will determine the significance of ‘environmental security’. The concept may mean either the prospect of secured environmental benefits, or simply an extension of state security interests, or it may not mean anything at all, depending entirely on what set of values it is associated with.