Environmental Conflict and Sustainable Development: A Conflict Model and its Application to Climate and Energy Policy

Abstract

In recent years, the environment has become increasingly a topic of security policy. While in the 1980s, the harmful effects of armament and war on health and the environment were at the center of the scientific and public debate (Krusewitz 1985, Westing 1990). With the end of the Cold War, it became more and more apparent that environmental degradation and resource scarcities themselves can be the objects or (additional) triggers of conflicts, which can lead to the use of force (Homer-Dixon 1991; Homer-Dixon et a1. 1993; Baechler et a1. 1993, 1996). So it is not surprising that a discussion of concepts of expanded or environmental security was initiated, which are meant to extend beyond narrow military concepts of security. It was criticized, among other points, that transferring a security mentality dominated by the military to the environmental sector would at the same time provide a gateway for the redefinition and relegitimization of military activities in environmental policy (Daase 1993, Brock in this volume).