Climate change as a human security crisis?

Abstract

Climate change is one of the greatest threats to human welfare and national interests. Through three decades of intense negotiations, States have committed to cooperate to mitigate climate change and promote adaptation to its inevitable impacts. States have not recognised climate change as a human security threat, but they have debated the role that the United Nations (UN) Security Council could play in addressing climate change as well as the relevance of international human rights law both in requiring and constraining climate action. Human security may provide an innovative framework to conceptualise international cooperation on climate change in a more comprehensive and persuasive way than either national security or human rights, but this framework should come along with a recognition of the broader impacts of climate change on ecosystems and future generations.