Climate Change Law
| Date | 01 December 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663911414240 |
| Published date | 01 December 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Social & Legal Studies
20(4) 499–513
Climate Change Law:
ª The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663911414240
Social and Economic
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Insecurity
Angela Williams
University of Sussex, UK
Abstract
This article considers how climate change law, global politics, and governance structures
facilitate and sustain economic and social insecurity. Climate change itself targets existing
environmental and social vulnerabilities and creates additional pressures on communities
already subject to vast degrees of inequity. However, the legal framework developed in
response to climate change is increasingly causing concern regarding the extent to which
it similarly sustains inequity and insecurity for those most vulnerable. Climate change
displacement is considered as a case study scenario to highlight the difficulties faced in
creating an adequate and effective legal response that acts to remedy existing insecurity,
rather than further sustaining it. Both the way in which ineffectual climate change law
fosters insecurity, and the extent to which law creates the structural conditions for
insecurity, are examined.
Keywords
clean development mechanism, climate change law, common but differentiated
responsibility, displacement, insecurity
As the problem of climate change continues to escalate, the effects experienced by both
humanity and the natural environment are becoming increasingly prevalent. A recent
report into the human impact of climate change indicates that climate change is already
responsible for 300,000 deaths each year and is affecting 300 million people worldwide
(Global Humanitarian Forum, 2009). Furthermore, global economic losses due to climate
Corresponding author:
Angela Williams, Friston Building, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9SP, UK
Email: a.j.williams@sussex.ac.uk
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Social & Legal Studies 20(4)
change amount to more than $125 billion annually. Unfortunately forecasts for future
development provide further cause for concern. Current scientific predictions by the Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate that average global temperatures
are likely to increase by at least 3.5C above mid-nineteenth-century levels, although an
increase of up to 5C is not unlikely (IPCC, 2007). One of the key challenges in relation to
climate change is the scientific uncertainty surrounding climate modelling and future fore-
casts. Nevertheless, the estimates provided by the leading scientific climate research body,
the IPCC, are if anything, conservative and should accordingly be considered the very bare
minimum of expected climatic change.
The effects of rising global temperatures are likely to be experienced across every
aspect of human life and will vary depending on the extent of the temperature increase.
Whilst a 1C increase in temperatures may initially support localized advantages – such
as modest increases in cereal yields in temperate regions, or a reduction in winter mor-
tality in higher latitude areas of Europe and the United States – there are likely to be
equally disadvantageous impacts – such as the disappearance of glaciers in the Andes
which would threaten water supplies for more than 50 million people (Stern, 2007).
In any event, localized benefits are likely to be short-lived before serious negative
climate change is experienced. The availability of water is perhaps one of the most prob-
lematic consequences of a changing climate: a temperature increase of 3C could lead to
up to four billion people experiencing water shortages. Some of the most immediate
knock-on consequences of such water shortages are severe impacts regarding food avail-
ability and health as agriculture yields decline, placing millions of people at risk of hun-
ger and thereby inflating rates of death from malnutrition. However, at the same time as
severe water shortages develop, some areas will experience enormous gains in water,
typically in the form of flooding which threatens hundreds of millions of people, particu-
larly those living in coastal areas. In addition to water and food availability, the changing
climate has direct consequences on human health. Malnutrition poses perhaps the biggest
risk, but the spread of vector-borne diseases also demonstrates a considerable threat: a
4C increase in global temperatures would expose an additional 80 million people in
Africa to malaria. As such, climate change poses an imminent and significant threat that
escalates drastically with only minimal rises in average global temperatures.
The impacts of climate change and its effects on the environment and humanity are
now generally well known. Furthermore, the influence climate change has on existing
social and economic vulnerabilities emphasizes the resulting inequity experienced by
many communities and states as adaptation capacity remains hugely variable. However,
this article primarily seeks to highlight the way in which climate change law, the behav-
iour of states, and emerging legal mechanisms are responsible for further promoting
social and economic insecurity. As there is a move away from more traditional social
bonds and community solidarity towards greater social independence and individual
responsibility, there are indications of increased social and economic insecurity among
people, communities, and states. Moreover, the law, legal institutions, and the state are
playing a pivotal role in promoting this insecurity and the area of climate change offers
no exception to this development. As it stands, the law is not only ineffectual in addres-
sing climate change, but it also can be seen to actively promote insecurity. Both of these
legal weaknesses are discussed below.
Williams
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Climate Change and Insecurity: Conceptual Ideas
The concept of security has received increasing attention in recent decades as concerns
over armed conflict and the national security of states have been the subject of increased
focus by both governments and the media. Moreover, in line with this development there
has emerged an expanding body of research examining the role of the environment, both
in terms of how degradation leads to conflict and consequently prompts security issues,
as well as how armed conflict leads to environmental damage (e.g. UNEP, 2009).
The concept of ‘environmental security’ reflects many of the situations where conflict
has been linked to natural resources, from oil and diamonds in Angola, to conflict over
coca in Peru, or timber in Cambodia (UNEP, 2009; for an introduction to environmental
security see, e.g., Falk, 1971; Brown, 1977; Ullman, 1983; Myers, 1986). The approach
adopted regarding security in this article, however, is different from that described
above. What is of concern in the present context is human security; namely how envi-
ronmental degradation creates economic and social insecurity across communities,
regions, and countries.
The idea of human security has been embraced as a concept for recognizing how
vulnerable communities are affected by (environmental, and other forms of) change to
the extent that social and economic insecurity is established or enhanced (Page, 2000).
The idea of vulnerability is central to a discussion on human security; in its most
basic form, vulnerability is considered the potential for loss or harm due to some form
of external stress (Weichselgartner, 2001; Brown and McLeman, 2009). The vulner-
ability of communities, or ‘potential for loss’ depends not only on factors of environ-
mental change, but also on broader social factors. Issues such as poverty, access to
economic opportunities, social cohesion, and supportive (or discriminatory) measures
provided by the state are all important social factors that determine ‘people and com-
munities’ entitlements to economic and social capital’, which, in turn, determines their
capacity to adapt to environmental change (Barnett and Adger, 2007). Moreover, the
determinants of human security exist both temporally and spatially; as Barnett and
Adger (2007: 642) explain, ‘past processes such as colonisation and war shape present
insecurities, and ongoing processes such as climate change and trade liberalisation
shape future insecurities’.
Central to the problem of insecurity is risk and vulnerability. As such, Barnett (2001:
129) suggests our focus should be on pursuing ‘environmental security’, that is, ‘the
process of peacefully reducing human vulnerability to human-induced environmental
degradation by addressing the root causes of environmental degradation and human inse-
curity’. Accordingly, attention must be focused on addressing existing social, economic,
and environmental vulnerabilities in order to enable people and communities to have
greater capacity to adapt to change that would otherwise foster and further promote
social and economic insecurity. As Barnett (2001: 129) notes, however, ‘Environmental
security as an absolute condition is arguably impossible, not least because security is a
highly relative concept’. Nevertheless, it has important normative value in creating an
objective that encompasses a multitude of qualities. In a similar vein to the principle
of sustainable development (Cordonier Segger and Khalfan, 2004), environmental
(or human) security is a process-orientated objective which will inevitably prove
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problematic in identifying when the completion threshold has been met (i.e. how do we
know when we have achieved sustainable development, or human security?).
...
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