Security and Environment in Contemporary World Politics
Security and Environment in Contemporary World Politics
The exam tests the shift from purely military security to non-traditional security, and the politics of climate and environmental agreements. Expect comparisons of treaties and questions on why cooperation is uneven.
Core rules and concepts
- Traditional security focuses on state sovereignty, territorial threats, deterrence, alliances and balance of power. Non-traditional security includes terrorism, insurgency, migration, pandemics, cyber threats, energy, food, water and climate change.
- Nuclear proliferation: the NPT (1968) recognises five nuclear-weapon states, relies on IAEA safeguards and has near-universal but not universal membership. India, Pakistan and Israel are not parties; North Korea announced withdrawal. The CTBT is not in force. The TPNW (2017) bans nuclear weapons but India has not signed.
- Climate: UNFCCC 1992; Kyoto Protocol 1997 set top-down targets for developed Annex I countries; Paris Agreement 2015 uses nationally determined contributions, transparency and five-year reviews, with the 1.5-2°C goal and CBDR-RC.
- Ozone: Montreal Protocol 1987 phased out CFCs. Biodiversity: CBD 1992. Sustainable development: Rio 1992 and the SDGs 2015.
- Environmental scarcity can fuel conflict, but it can also produce cooperation; the water-wars claim is contested.
Worked example
Compare Kyoto and Paris. Reasoning: Kyoto imposed legally binding emission targets mainly on developed states, but the US did not ratify and Canada withdrew. Paris widened participation through voluntary NDCs and review, improving legitimacy but weakening enforceable targets. So the trade-off is participation versus bindingness.
Traps
Saying Paris targets are legally enforceable; treating climate change as only pollution; confusing Montreal with a climate treaty; saying the NPT bans all nuclear weapons.