Great Power Responsibility for Climate Security in the United Nations Security Council

Abstract

A system of great power management of climate change, and the full securitization of climate change, will have occurred if and when the UN Security Council identifies climate change as a threat to international peace and security and responds with its Chapter VII emergency powers. This has not yet happened, despite increasing formal and informal responses on the part the council, for several reasons. The council was not set up with environmental issues in mind and the P5 are not united on the desirability of the council assuming such a responsibility. Accepting a great power responsibility for climate security may come at their own economic cost, while many developing countries are wary of the council misusing an environmental mandate and some scholars have sought to disprove a climate change-conflict nexus. Acceptance of a great power responsibility for climate security in the UN Security Council has increased in tandem with some modest convergence of views regarding the boundaries around any potential response and could potentially increase suddenly as a result of the perceived inadequacy of the Paris Agreement, major climate-related crises, or approaching tipping points.