E3G

Beckett speech: The Case for Climate Security

By Chris Littlecott

The role of the security community

Beckett’s direct pitch to her audience was that their involvement in efforts to address climate change will be required if there is to be a succesful response, for 2 key reasons:

You might ask, what point or value is there in the people in this room – schooled in the world of hard security – in getting involved in discussions about carbon price, wind power and energy white papers?

The answer is a great deal. Because the reality is that – globally – there is a substantial gap between what science and good sense is telling us must be done and what we are actually doing.

And it is my contention that the reason that the political will is still lacking to close that gap is because, despite all the evidence, despite all the warnings, the understanding of the full range and scale of the threat we face is still not there.

Bringing the security community into this debate has two distinct advantages.

The first is that when people talk about security problems they do so in terms which are qualitatively different from any other type of problem. Security is seen as an imperative not an option. People don’t obsess over cost-benefit analyses or about opportunity cost: they get on with what has to be done because they understand that security goes right to the heart of the basic contract between state and citizen.

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Second, the security community has a very direct role to play. The analytical frameworks – the scenario building – that business uses for its long-term planning, was developed right here in the security community and borrowed from it. And it is still the security community – the people in this room – who do it best.”

The future challenge

Beckett’s conclusion reinforced her view that the response to climate change will require cooperative action - an immense political challenge that really does require us to work together in common cause:

Having raised the issue of climate security up the agenda and having put it on the table at the UN Security Council, we now need to go to the next stage. We have reached a broad political conclusion as to the hard security implications of climate change. But to make sure that we take the right action we need to have a more exact and more detailed understanding of that threat, using the expertise of everyone with an interest in this problem.

I have said a great deal today about the threat we face from climate change. I have no doubt that if we bury our heads in the sand we risk our world being engulfed. But if we work now to understand that threat and use that understanding to plan and decide how we will meet and overcome it, then we can forge an opportunity. Not just an economic opportunity - although yes, that too - but an opportunity to renew our faith in humanity’s ability to strive in common cause. Climate change can bring us together if we are wise enough not to let it drive us apart.  And I call on the people in this room to be a part of that shared endeavour.”