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Our Common Security
We must resist using climate change to justify securitizing human migration
“The movement to preserve the habitability of the planet for future generations must directly challenge the tribal power of nationalism and the chronic militarization of public discourse.” — Daniel Deudney, “The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security”
Consider some sobering statistics. First, studies confirm that rises in temperature by as little as half a degree Celsius correlate with notable increases in the likelihood of violent conflict (Burke et al; Mach et al). Second, in 2020, six of the United Nations’ ten largest peace operations were stationed in countries most affected by climate change. Furthermore, by the middle of 2020, the U.N. Refugee agency determined that the global number of displaced people had surpassed eighty million. Related then, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that migrants appear to be significantly more affected by extreme climate events than other people.
These facts suggest that climate change and any resulting conflict will continue to spur global migration. Just as conflict and climate change are intertwined, so is migration with both. As such, if climate change continues at its current rate, it will prompt sizable movements in human migration…
