Does governments primary view of the environment as a resource prejudice or distort attempts to secure it?

Authors Avatar


Session 8: Conserving the World for Ourselves

International Environmental Security

Does governments’ primary view of the environment as a resource prejudice or distort attempts to secure it?

The environment is a valuable tool that affects each individual’s lifestyle and health – our entitlement to be environmentally secure – and therefore must be saved.  Will individuals become concerned enough with environmental problems to pressure governments to act?

Environmental security is a post-Cold War issue, and there is a definite link between environmental security and economic security.  State’s concerns with economic and military security interlink and have significant consequences for the environment (Dent, 1999).  There has been much debate over how trade and environment should be managed.  It is clear that economic issues hold a higher value than environmental concerns, with trade rules governing the majority of international dealings.  Simply put, multilateral environmental agreements do not have the backing that World Trade Organisation agreements do (such as funding and an unequalled organised structure) and this displays the importance (or lack thereof) put on each.  Economic security comes first - Eckersley (2003, p. 2) states “The onus is on those defending environmental norms to show that they are compatible with [World Trade Organisation] agreements.”

According to Graeger (1996, p. 109), a “multilevel approach to environmental security, involving global, regional, national and subnational decision-making levels [would result in] more dynamic framework[s] for action than the state-centred approach which still dominates security thinking and policy”.   A recent step that the Rudd Government has made to attempt to address the problem of climate change has been to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.  In his first official duty as Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has linked Australia with the other 167 countries to the agreement, in an international attempt to avoid damaging climate change.  This displays that the Australian Government has acknowledged climate change is one of the greatest economic and environmental challenges of our time, with the drying up of rivers, the rising sea levels jeopardising the Islands of the South Pacific, the severity of bush fires amplifying every season and extreme weather conditions becoming more and more apparent (Soderblom, 2008).   The United States is yet to become a party to the Kyoto agreement.  As the world’s number one super power, this creates concerns as to the US government’s commitment to securing the environment for future generations.

Join now!

When considering the security of our environment, there is a definite link between the state-centric ideology of security and that of environmental security (Graeger, 1996).    A shift away from this state-centric method would ensure a clearer understanding of the issue (Litfin, 1999).   State sovereignty over environmental issues remains fluid – it is a social paradigm that is constantly transforming with differing opinions, times and connotations.  Some argue that sovereignty over the environment has Westphalia system qualities, however with the transnational systems of environmental security coming into play more often, others attest to the fact that “it is ...

This is a preview of the whole essay