Security, Environment and Global Challenges
The Security, Environment and Global Challenges domain tests whether you can widen the idea of security without losing precision. Exam answers should connect armed conflict to climate, pandemics, resources, migration and cyber threats, and explain cooperative responses.
Core concepts
- Traditional security focuses on territorial defence, war, deterrence and alliances. Non-traditional security covers threats that arise across borders and societies: climate change, pandemics, terrorism, cybercrime, refugees, food and water scarcity.
- Collective security assumes aggression against one member concerns all; deterrence threatens retaliation to prevent attack. Both have limits when great powers disagree.
- Climate governance rests on the 1992 UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement. CBDR-RC means common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
- The IPCC assesses science; it does not enforce treaties. Paris relies on nationally determined contributions, transparency and global stocktakes rather than binding emissions targets for each state.
- India stresses equity, finance and technology transfer, renewable energy and adaptation, while opposing caps that would freeze development.
Worked example
Question: Why is climate change a security issue? Reasoning: it can intensify droughts, floods and displacement, undermine food and water supplies, and increase conflict risk. But securitising it can justify military responses rather than emissions cuts. A balanced answer links human security, state capacity and international cooperation.
Traps
Do not say Paris legally binds every state to a specific emissions cut. Do not treat terrorism only as a domestic crime; it has cross-border finance and networks. Do not ignore adaptation and finance when discussing climate justice.