Environmental Security in South-Asia

The proposition that climate change will engender anxieties for international security has become profound in public discourse over two decades. This paper discusses the concerns of environmental security in South Asia. It examines different meanings of environmental security to explain how it is associated with national security of the states in the region. Three major factors of environmental security problems are considered. Firstly, how environmental change can affect human security. Secondly, how environmental change can turn into violent conflict and thirdly, how the combined impact of these two variables affect the developmental concerns and national security of the individual state in South Asia. Introduction Environmental security is one of a number of non-traditional security issues that has served to widen the concept of security. It deepens and broadens the concept of security in terms of resource conflicts and risks associated with environmental change. South Asia is becoming sensitive to a range of environmental security concerns, which have assumed considerable significance. Firstly, there is serious concern about the stripping forest cover in South Asia due to intense commercial ‘logging’ and subsistent farming. Secondly, there is emerging concern of the shrinking of the glacial cover in the Himalayas due to global warming. Thirdly, there are indications that the changing climate is significantly impacting upon the weather patterns resulting into food insecurity and water-borne diseases. These three changes threaten to disturb the ecological system of the whole region. The loss of the forest cover is drying out the resource base of the poor who depend on the forests for their livings. This has also adversely affected the cycle of the monsoons and therefore the agricultural pattern and climate change is playing the role of threat accelerator. The melting of the Himalayan ice cover appears to adversely affecting the water systems of South Asia and the availability of fresh water in the water-stressed region. Studies estimate that many of the rivers originating from the Himalayas would become dry by the first half of the twentyfifth century. The melting of the ice in the Himalayanregion will lead to a rise 18 Journal of International Affairs Vol. 1, No. 1, 2016 in the sea level potentially inundating all of the Maldives and nearly half of Bangladesh’s paddy planting area.This paper argues, albeit military security issue between India-Pakistan-China is still relevant, that environmental security is one of the most prominent concerns of security studies in South Asia, therefore, the states need to attend to environmental problems to address the problematics of environmental security. In the following sections of this paper, we revisit the critical debates of security studies to contextualize that environmental security is one of the most significant issues of contemporary security studies. Then we present the environmental problems of South Asia and its impacts upon issues of human security in the region. Next, we debate how environmental problems/security issues affect the national security of the states in South Asia followed by a conclusion. Critical Debate on Security: A Review The concept of security is highly contested as the concepts of democracy, power and justice. Wolfers(1962)pointed out that while the concept of (national) security is paramount, it is subjective and ambiguous in nature, and it may not have any precise meaning at all.According to Richard Ullmann(1983) the conception of traditional security is too narrow and military-oriented, as it does not give importance to basic human needs and resource scarcity. Ullmann(1983)argues that the redefinition of the conception of security is only possible through the change of mindset of civil society and policy makers. The debate of security steps forward in People, State and Fear(1983) a seminal book by Barry Buzan in which he argued that the concept of security is essentially contested. Buzan broadened the concept of security by presenting a list of five categories of security: military, political, economic, environmental, and social. Baldwin (1997) counters Buzan’s concept of security as ‘essentially contested’ and posits that the concept of security is simply inadequately explicated. Baldwin (1997) agrees that security is subjective but specifies security in terms of ‘security for whom’, ‘security of which values’, ‘how much security’, ‘from what threats’, ‘by what means’, ‘at what costs’ and ‘in what time period’. Ken Booth (1991) argues that the referent object of security is individual and the concept of security should be understood in terms of ‘emancipation’— the freeing of people from all types of constraints including not just wars, but also issues of poverty, education and political oppression. Stephen Walt (1991) challenges that the attempt to expand the concept of security by including poverty,