The UNFCCC, the EU, and the UNSC: A research agenda proposal for the climate security question

Abstract

This study proposes climate security: a research agenda proposal with certain research significance. It acknowledges the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as current institutional case studies (and key actors) for international climate politics. It answers the question of the extent to which climate security scholars have mapped the field with respect to these three institutions. To do this, it reviews relevant literature of climate security and concisely summarizes the literature views. Although climate security scholars have studied how these specialist institutions have understood global climate governance, a comparative coverage of how the institutions have conceptualized climate security is missing in existing literature. The key finding shows the concepts of epistemic communities, climate securitization and climate-riskifications as appropriate analytical themes for interpreting the emerging norm of climate security. Arguing that conceptual development persists even though the institutions original mandates did not require such conceptualization, the study uses discourse analysis of relevant literature on climate security to orient future research on climate change and climate security given the knowledge that speech-acts on climate security (henceforth speech-acts) now seem like potential policy consideration in the foreseeable future.