Transcript ES 2007 - The Millennium Project

Emerging Environmental Security Issues
• legacy of conflict undermines livelihood restoration and
ability to adapt to climate change
• increasing hazardous waste
• climate change (water and food insecurity, natural disasters, forced migration)
• population growth & living standard (by 2050 human demand = 2 planets)
• poverty and social insecurity
• national instability (fight for sovereignty)
• growing resentment and distrust in industrialized world because of
inaction on climate change & environmental pollution
• militarization of strategic natural resources
• emergence and convergence of technology (NBIC/BANG)
• new weapons and weaponizable technologies
• outerspace debris
Overstating Climate Change
Climate change + Political situation
Warming
Rising sea levels
Highly populated
coastal area
State of security
Natural disasters
Desertification
Water/Food scarcity
Ecological damage
No Agreement on the Arctic Yet
1.2 mill square km
(c) BBC
Areas of Disagreement
• access to the polar regions, off-coast resources,
and their use
• enforcement of MEAs
• monitoring systems and models
• security implications of environmental aspects
• biodiversity protection
• synthetic biology and nanotech safety strategies
• implications of new weapons technology
• nuclear non-proliferation
• climate change and post-Kyoto strategy
• outer-space security
Recent Environmental Agreements
• Convention on Cluster Munitions opened for signature in December 2008
• European Parliament Resolution for Global Ban of DU Weapons
• Biological Weapons Convention enforcement (biosecurity, codes of
conduct)
• Chemical Weapons Convention (use by nonstate actors; destruction
deadlines)
• E-waste Declaration for Basel Convention on the Transboundary
Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal
• Stockholm Convention on POPs expanded with new chemicals, adopted
evaluation mechanisms, compliance mechanism expected for 2011
• network of marine protection areas, to be adopted by 2012
• global ban on some heavy metals (in negotiation)
• mandatory emissions targets at country, regional, local levels
Trends
•
increased protection of the environment and “common spaces”
•
adoption of precautionary principle versus reactive actions
•
expansion of polluter pays principle, and environmental liability and redress
actions
•
international negotiations focus on enforcing MEAs, more synergistic
environmental policy; simpler and clearer frameworks, and training
•
improving environmental governance and enforcement (UNEO)
•
•
international “coalitions of the willing” negotiating international treaties
“competition” for local environmental, energy, and emissions reduction
strategies
•
increased participation of civil society in the design of policies
•
alliances between private companies, govs, NGOs and IOs to increase ecoefficiency
•
improving analytical tools for environmental assessment
•
new watchdog bodies
•
sovereignty vs human rights and environmental security
•
environmental diplomacy for conflict prevention