Sovereign Power and Climate Change

The sovereign power discourse securitises climate change in a direct and highly visible way, often using ‘national security’ conceptions and its equivalents or similar concepts such as

‘regional security’, ‘territorial security’ or ‘military security’ (see the keyword⁴ list in able 3.3a). It renders climate change governable as a traditional security issue with a focus on sovereign actions of the state and military/defence actors. Although in its general conceptualisation, sovereign power is broader, and the focus is not exclusively on state defence

4 As already briefly explained, while these keywords have some relevance as heuristic tool, it is the overall argumentation that is more important for the identification of each power form, which can point to a specific power form without explicitly using these words.

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matters or the military, in a securitisation context, it is justified to understand it in a narrower fashion. Thus, the sovereign discourse is similar to what others have called ‘neo-Malthusian’

(Hartmann 2010) or ‘environmental conflict’ discourse (Detraz and Betsill 2009) but also goes beyond it especially concerning the political consequences.

Operational Dimension

The sovereign power discourse focuses on security threats for states and their territory, which can also pertain to the international system of states itself. Because climate security arguments connected to national security have often been brought forward by actors from industrialised countries that are less vulnerable to the direct effects of climate change, the emphasis of the sovereign discourse is mostly on second-order socio-economic effects of climate change.

However, this does not entirely preclude the construction of the first-order physical effects of climate change, such as extreme weather or sea level rise as threats to national security, as has happened for example in the case of the small island states.

Nevertheless, one of the core arguments within the sovereign discourse is about climate change – in combination with population growth and degrading resources – leading to violent conflict and therefore threatening the territorial integrity, stability and thus national security of states. Whereas extreme climate change could also contribute to such problems in relatively stable countries of the Global North (especially concerning geopolitical tensions in the Arctic), for the time being these violent conflicts are primarily projected to break out in the Global South. However, this does not prevent actors from the Global North to construct a threat to the national security of industrialised states or the international order for instance due to increased political instability, the growth of terrorism or the need for military interventions. A common example for this causal chain is the prediction of water and food scarcity in Africa or Asia, which could lead to violent conflicts and undermine already instable states even further, eventually leading to the spread of failed states and the destabilisation of whole regions. Beyond that, the sovereign discourse constructs large-scale migration, the growth of terrorism, and an increase in fragile as well as failed states as possible consequences of climate change.

Power Effects

A securitisation of climate change drawing mainly on the sovereign discourse increases the attention for the issue to a considerable extent, elevating it into high and traditional security

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politics. Thus, it is no longer only the environmental ministries or equivalent agencies that exclusively handle climate change, but increasingly the foreign and defence ministries and authorities get involved. Until a certain degree of intensity, this could be beneficial in terms of effective climate policies. It could (quicker) legitimise ‘normal’ sovereign solutions to the climate threat such as binding emission cuts, the legal ban of GHG emitting technologies, a CO2 tax or the increased governance through executive orders and regulations by government agencies. However, in its more extreme form it could also go beyond this legislative realm and facilitate extra-legal decisions of the sovereign similar to what the CS has described as effects of securitisation. Examples are the suspension of laws, the acceleration or even bypassing of democratic procedures or the involvement of the military. This could entail military or political interventions to destroy GHG emitting industries or the states that harbour them (Trombetta 2008: 599; Hartmann 2010).

Furthermore, the sovereign climate security discourse constructs climate change as a problem of traditional national security and thus has a tendency to point to solutions in the military and defence sector. This could mean the preparation of military bases and critical infrastructure towards climate change effects or the expansion of border security measures to keep out climate migrants. It could also mean to increase military planning activities for geopolitical conflicts fuelled by climate change or simply for the altered mission scenarios around the world. In this vein, increased state efforts to secure its territory against climate threats could also reinforce political boundaries between nation states and fuel nationalistic tendencies and othering dynamics. Furthermore, while binding top-down induced emission cuts would certainly address the root causes of climate change and fall within the mitigation dimension of climate abatement measures, the immediacy and scope as well as political weight of threats to the national security of states often legitimise short-term solutions to tackle the immediate security threat. Thus, the sovereign discourse often facilitates solutions that aim at the symptoms only (the immediate national security threats) and often fall within the adaptation category of climate measures (military intervention, border security). While these solutions do not have to entail a military component, military interventions in countries that are in danger of being destabilised or overwhelmed by climate change can be legitimised in such a discourse.

Moreover, a sovereign power based securitisation narrows down the actor spectrum and focuses on the state and its agencies (and here particularly the security, defence and intelligence sector), as the legitimate actors to tackle the problem. It thus empowers particularly these actors

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and at the same time excludes non-state and civilian actors such as environmental or human rights NGOs from the debate. This narrowing down of the actor spectrum is reinforced by the tendency to secrecy that often comes with evoking national security. The following table 3.3a summarises the features of the sovereign climate discourse.

Table 3.3a: Sovereign Climate Discourse

Transformation of the Debate and of Governance Practices Climate change as high politics, acceleration of procedures, decisive, effective and radical measures (possibly bypassing democratic procedures). Focus on short-term and adaptation measures that tackle the immediate symptoms. Focus on binding targets and direct interventions of the government, tendency to secrecy.

Most important actors and referent objects are states and their governments and particularly the security, defence, and intelligence sector.

Exemplary Policies

Binding emission reduction targets, CO2 taxes, ban of GHG producing industries and technologies, direct political and military interventions to coerce climate laggards or to defend against secondary socio-economic dangers, military planning, prepare for geopolitical and regional tensions, secure military bases and critical infrastructure against adverse climate effects, increase border security against climate migrants