Jon Barnett

Climate dangers and atoll countries

Climate change-induced sea-level rise, sea-surface warming, and increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events puts the long-term ability of humans to inhabit atolls at risk. We argue that this risk constitutes a dangerous level of climatic change to atoll countries by potentially undermining their national sovereignty. We outline the novel challenges this presents to both climate change research and policy. For research, the challenge is to identify the critical thresholds of change beyond which atoll social-ecological systems may collapse. We explain how thresholds may be behaviorally driven as well as ecologically driven through the role of expectations in resource management. The challenge for the international policy process, centred on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is to recognize the particular vulnerability of atoll countries by operationalising international norms of justice, sovereignty, and human and national security in the regime.

Security and climate change

Abstract Despite it being the most studied and arguably most profound of global environmental change problems, there is relatively little research that explores climate change as a security issue. This paper systematically explores the range of possible connections between climate change and security, including national security considerations, human security concerns, military roles, and a discussion of the widely held assumption that climate change may trigger violent conflict. The paper explains the ways in which climate change is a security issue. It includes in its discussion issues to do with both mitigation and adaptation of climate change.

Adapting to Climate Change in Pacific Island Countries: The Problem of Uncertainty

This is a post-print version published in World Development.

The Hazards of Indicators: Insights from the Environmental Vulnerability Index

Since the early 1990s a number of projects have developed indexes to measure vulnerability to environmental change. This article investigates the key conceptual and methodological problems associated with such indexes. It examines in detail an index that explicitly addresses environmental change as an issue of vulnerability, the Environmental Vulnerability Index (EVI) developed by the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC). This examination offers some broader lessons for indicator-based projects, all of which require a simple model of complex and uncertain social-ecological systems, and entail difficult choices about the selection, standardization, weighting, and aggregation of indicators selected to represent important aspects of those systems. We conclude that indexes of vulnerability to environmental change cannot hope to be meaningful when applied to large-scale systems, and so should focus on smaller scales of analysis. We argue that they should not be used as the basis for disbursing funds, comparing countries, or for measuring the performance of countries in environmental management. We also argue that vulnerability is a context-specific rather than a generic condition. Finally, we suggest that because vulnerability is about values at risk, there should be more input from a broader array of people when indexes are being developed and tested.

Climate change and small island states: Power, knowledge and the South Pacific

1. The Trouble with Climate Change 2. Environment and Development in Pacific Islands 3. The History and Architecture of Climate Science 4. Pacific Science Initiatives 5. The Architecture of Climate Change Policy 6. Doing Climate Change in the Pacific 7. Investing in Uncertainty and Vulnerability 8. Discourses of Danger 9. Conclusions

Destabilizing the environment—conflict thesis

The argument that environmental degradation will lead to conflict is a well established concern of international studies, and it dominates the literature on environmental security. This article critically examines theories about wars fought over scarce ‘environmental’ resources, ‘water wars’, and the argument that population growth may induce conflict. One significant research programme—the Project on Environment, Population and Security— is also discussed. The article ends with an evaluation of the theoretical merits and practical effects of the environment–conflict thesis. It argues that the environment–conflict thesis is theoretically rather than empirically driven, and is both a product and legitimation of the Northern security agenda.

From barriers to limits to climate change adaptation: path dependency and the speed of change

Research on the barriers and limits to climate change adaptation identifies many factors, but describes few processes whereby adaptation is constrained or may indeed fail to avoid catastrophic losses. It often assumes that barriers are by and large distinct from limits to adaptation. We respond to recent calls for comparative studies that are able to further knowledge about the underlying drivers of barriers and limits to adaptation. We compare six cases from across Australia, including those in alpine areas, rivers, reefs, wetlands, small inland communities, and islands, with the aim of identifying common underlying drivers of barriers and limits to adaptation. We find that the path-dependent nature of the institutions that govern natural resources and public goods is a deep driver of barriers and limits to adaptation. Path-dependent institutions are resistant to change. When this resistance causes the changes necessary for adaptation to be slower than changes in climate, then it becomes a limit to adaptation.

Climate and security: evidence, emerging risks, and a new agenda

There are diverse linkages between climate change and security including risks of conflict, national security concerns, critical national infrastructure, geo-political rivalries and threats to human security. We review analysis of these domains from primary research and from policy prescriptive and advocacy sources. We conclude that much analysis over-emphasises deterministic mechanisms between climate change and security. Yet the climate-security nexus is more complex than it appears and requires attention from across the social sciences. We review the robustness of present social sciences analysis in assessing the causes and consequences of climate change on human security, and identify new areas of research. These new areas include the need to analyse the absence of conflict in the face of climate risks and the need to expand the range of issues accounted for in analysis of climate and security including the impacts of mitigation response on domains of security. We argue for the necessity of robust theories that explain causality and associations, and the need to include theories of asymmetric power relations in explaining security dimensions. We also highlight the dilemmas of how observations and historical analysis of climate and security dimensions may be limited as the climate changes in ways that present regions with unprecedented climate risks.

Will OPEC lose from the Kyoto Protocol

A range of energy-economy models forecast losses to members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) should the Kyoto Protocol come into force. These forecasts are a powerful influence in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations. They are used by OPEC to advance the agenda on the impacts of response measures, covertly arguing for compensation for lost oil revenues arising from implementation of the Protocol. This paper discusses this issue, and explores the key assumptions of these models and their uncertainties. Assumptions about carbon leakage, future availability of oil reserves, substitution, innovation, and capital turnover are considered. The paper suggests that losses will not affect OPEC countries equally, and that these losses are not likely to be as substantial as the models forecast. A range of policy measures are proposed to lessen any impact the Protocol may have on OPEC.

The Effect of Aid On Capacity To Adapt To Climate Change: Insights From Niue

In the same way that aid can have mixed effects on sustainable development in small island states, aid can also have mixed effects on the capacity of small states to adapt to avoid impacts of climate change. This article describes the influence of aid on the financial resources and governance institutions required for successful adaptation to climate change in the aid dependent island country of Niue. It shows that while aid has generally had positive effects on the availability of finance, it has had generally negative effects on governance, undermining the legitimacy of government actions. The article argues that aid must be delivered with care and purpose if the adaptation it is intended to facilitate is to be effective, and not increase vulnerability to climate change.