Environmental Security Policy Research Articles

Uticaj rata u Gazi na bezbednost životne sredine

This study examines the effects of the Gaza War on environmental security, with an emphasis on both domestic and global issues. The paper finds significant consequences at several levels by examining how national environmental security policies intersected with the Gaza War and its implications for the UN climate change process. It emphasizes the role of military operations and their consequences, underscoring the wider influence of conflicts on environmental security. Additionally, the study clarifies the diplomatic challenges that result from these tensions, especially when it comes to international collaboration on environmental security. Overall, the results highlight how the Gaza War has affected environmental security in a variety of ways and has wider ramifications for international relations.

Understanding the Environmental Security Perceptions of the European Union’s Security Actors

In this paper, we are interested in assessing the different environmental security concepts, policies, and actions of actors involved in the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Through exploratory qualitative research, we interviewed key stakeholders who formulate both the climate security discourse and its policy outcomes. Aiming at finding the different perceptions and practices among various actors, we conducted 27 qualitative interviews with practitioners from 17 different institutions, such as EU bodies and agencies, think tanks, and ministries of defense (MoDs). This article discusses the divergence between announced environmental and climate security strategies and policies related to their actual results. Notably, the findings indicate that the effectiveness of the political directives compared with the practices and the developed capabilities around the environment–security nexus are dependent on individual initiatives and efforts that a developing community of practitioners is attempting to carry out. Our study indicates that tailored environmental security policies and actions are needed to motivate both practitioners and policymakers to develop downstream methods and programs that are suited to resolving security-related challenges associated with environmental issues and especially climate change.

PUBLIC MANAGEMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY OF UKRAINE UNDER MARTIAL LAW

The article discusses the main factors of environmental hazard caused by the consequences of military operations on the territory of Ukraine, and analyzes current approaches and instruments of public administration of environmental safety in Ukraine. The author proves the essential role of public administration in the implementation of the State’s environmental security policy in the context of the risks posed by military operations. The current situation of the national security system of Ukraine necessitates changes in the system of public administration of environmental safety. Establishing an effective system of state control and rapid response to emerging environmental risks caused by military actions is the most important factor in preventing the consequences of military aggression, irreversible disruption of the normal life of the population, and will facilitate the rapid restoration of all spheres of development and normal existence of the country in the post-war period. The purpose of the article is to consider the issues and analyze the aspects and determine further directions for the development of the State management of environmental safety of Ukraine under martial law. It is substantiated that the peculiarities of environmental security are related to many aspects of its provision and the variety of threats which can affect the environment, which is the space of human existence, and the need to form environmental awareness of society. The main forms of environmental hazards arising during a military conflict are highlighted and the tasks facing public authorities in this context are defined. It is noted that ensuring the environmental safety of Ukraine is conditioned by the influence of economic, social and organizational factors that are formative for the public administration system. The author comments on the role of local self-government bodies in overcoming the consequences of military emergencies. Including environmental ones. It is determined that the system of ensuring the environmental safety of the population in the event of military emergencies is a nationwide political, organizational, managerial, socio-economic and legal measures interconnected in time, place and resources, designed to prevent natural, man-made and military emergencies and to combat their consequences. The materials of this article can be used to create a plan for the restoration of Ukraine in the war and post-war period.

Environmental Security Policies of the Russian Federation

Since the earliest times of history, humanity has been known to be fighting an existential war against nature. Although man’s struggle against his natural environment has not caused severe damage to nature for centuries, human-induced natural environmental degradation has begun to be seen with modernization, the effect of which was experienced to a great extent in the 20th century. With both population growth and technological developments, humanity has achieved significant gains in its struggle for survival against nature, but these gains have turned against humanity itself with the irreversible deterioration of nature. This degradation, which started with environmental pollution in the past and resulted in climate changes today, has been taken care of by modern states, which have significant power in the governance of people. These modern states, which previously had a security perspective through their relations, have started to take steps as environmental problems harm their legitimacy and citizens. States had to come together to solve this common problem no matter how different they were in government type and ideology. Since the day it left the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation has not refrained from taking national steps toward the global environmental security regime. Although like many states, the fight against environmental problems has made mistakes and shortcomings, it has cooperated internationally for various reasons. The most important reason is that the Russian Federation is at the top of the list of states polluting nature. But apart from this, environmental security has been the area of interest of the Kremlin administration due to its geopolitical and geostrategic interests in the international system. Therefore, it has set targets on environmental security in documents such as foreign policy and security concepts adopted since the early 1990s. This study aims to examine the national and international environmental policies of the Russian Federation on global climate change. For this reason, firstly, a brief introduction to the subject of environmental security will be made, and the documents containing the political and security perspective of the Russian Federation will be discussed in the next section. In the last part, it will try to summarize what kind of international contribution and cooperation the Russian Federation has made in solving environmental problems.

Temporary autonomous zones, control and security simulations: With regard to the Aguas Blancas (Argentina) – Bermejo (Bolivia) border

A remarkable change in security matters set the course for politics in Latin America in recent years. The putative causal relationship between migration and crime cyclically sustains the discourses that require more safety and police force intervention, police autonomy to suppress, and reduction of the age of criminal responsibility. This panorama, accompanied by the state postponement of prison and security infrastructures, is framed and worsened by the tendency to criminalize borders, which are seen as porous and dangerous zones. The notion that these spaces favor the contamination and corrosion of the nation-state promotes rhetoric about borders that need to be disassembled. Simultaneously, an odd growth of the technological market specialized in border security, suggests specific forms of relationships between the social and environmental conditions, illegal markets, security policies and nationalist discourses in favor of sovereignty. I analyze the municipality of Aguas Blancas, bordering with Bolivia, where the transit between the legal and the illegal shapes specific ways of life and exposes the nets woven through the managing of illegalisms at diverse scales (Goldman 1999; Foucault 2014). My analysis connects ‘simulations’ in Baudrillard’s (1978) sense, performances of imaginary scenarios that become reality, with ‘temporary autonomous zones’ in security matters, areas outside routine legal-administrative governance (Bey 1996). The anthropological approach in this work was based on in situ interviews and observations aimed to understand the relationship between illegal practices and security.

CBERS data cubes for land use and land cover mapping in the Brazilian Cerrado agricultural belt

ABSTRACT The agricultural frontier expansion in the Cerrado biome made Brazil a leader in commodity exports and is changing its landscape. Hence, efforts to accurate land use and land cover (LULC) monitoring in this region are strategic, due to its role in Brazil’s food, environmental, and economic security policy. Thinking on planning and technical sovereignty in the spatial sector, the China–Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS) Program was launched to provide useful data for decision-makers to manage the Brazilian territory independently of external policies. Their data, especially from CBERS-4 Wide-Field Imager (CBERS-4/WFI), are largely applied in deforestation monitoring by remote sensing specialists but less applied than data from other image providers for machine learning-based LULC mapping due to the small number of spectral bands and limitations related to clouds and shadows detection. However, with advances in orbital data analysis, data cubes enabled storing and accessing large spatio-temporal analysis-ready data. Within this scope, the Brazil Data Cube Project (BDC) creates multidimensional data cubes from orbital sensors’ data for all Brazilian territory. We applied BDC CBERS-4/WFI data cubes to generate LULC classifications for the Extremo Oeste Baiano agricultural belt correspondent to the 2017/2018 and 2019/2020 harvest periods, at two levels of detail: broad and crop type, incorporating ground truth samples, crop calendar knowledge, and vegetation indices to a dense time series analysis approach. Overall Accuracies were equal to 0.87 and 0.89 for broad, and 0.91 and 0.94 for crop type classifications. The results indicate CBERS-4/WFI data cubes as a useful tool for improving crop monitoring in the Cerrado biome based on machine learning.

Can a shift to regional and organic diets reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the food system? A case study from Qatar

BackgroundQatar is one of the countries with the highest carbon (C) footprints per capita in the world with an increasing population and food demand. Furthermore, the international blockade by some countries that is affecting Qatar—which has been traditionally a highly-dependent country on food imports—since 2017 has led the authorities to take the decision of increasing food self-sufficiency. In this study we have assessed the effect on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of shifting diets from conventional to organic products and from import-based diets to more regionalized diets for the first time in a Gulf country.ResultsWe found that considering the production system, the majority of the emissions come from the animal products, but the differences between conventional and organic diets are very small (738 and 722 kg CO2-eq capita−1 year−1, of total emissions, respectively). Conversely, total emissions from plant-based products consumption might be around one order of magnitude smaller, but the differences in the emissions between the organic and conventional systems were higher than those estimated for animal products, leading to a decrease in 44 kg CO2-eq capita−1 year−1 when changing from 100% conventional to 50% of organic consumption of plant-based products. Regarding the shift to regionalized diets, we found that packaging has a small influence on the total amount of GHG emissions, whereas emissions from transportation would be reduced in around 450 kg CO2 capita−1 year−1 when reducing imports from 100 to 50%.ConclusionsHowever, these results must be read carefully. Due to the extreme adverse pedoclimatic conditions of the country, commercial organic regional livestock would not be possible without emitting very high GHG emissions and just only some traditional livestock species may be farmed in a climate-friendly way. On the other hand, organic and regional low-CO2 emission systems of plant-based products would be possible by implementing innovations in irrigation or other innovations whose GHG emissions must be further studied in the future. Therefore, we conclude that shifting towards more plant-based organic regional consumption by using climate-friendly irrigation is a suitable solution to both increasing self-sufficiency and reducing C footprint. We encourage national authorities to including these outcomes into their environmental and food security policies.

Environmental water security policy in the EU, Ukraine and other developing countries

Purpose. To determine the key principles of environmental security of aquatic ecosystems in the context of sustainable use of natural resources and socio-economic development. Methodology. Comparative analysis and systematic approach. Findings. Principal aspects of water resources management in the states of the world are analyzed in the context of the provisions of the sustainable development concept. Comparison of countries with different levels of development has allowed identifying key methodological provisions that are implemented in the environmental policy ofwater. An approach to determination of the limiting indices of the impact on the environment is proposed. It was revealed that most post-Soviet countries do not use the concept of ecological system and ecosystem services in their legislative framework, which today are an integral part of the environmental policy and legislation of developed countries. The basic principles of the ecological safety of aquatic ecosystems are as follows: a water body (surface or underground ones) is a complex, functionally integrated and self-regulating ecological system. It cannot be considered as a volume with a resource for biological and amenity needs; priority in the water use should be given to the living components that exist in it and ensure its functional integrity. Any aquatic ecosystem should be economically assessed not only in terms of available water resources, but also considering other ecosystem services, particularly, the diversity of its biotic components. All these principles and the approach presented, if introduced into domestic legislation, will allow achieving progress in the field of ecological safety of aquatic ecosystems and sustainable social economic development. Originality. An approach has been improved which determines the efficiency of environmental policy in the field of water resources safety through a correlation analysis of water consumption and population size. Practical value. The research results allow for quantitative assessment of water resource management. The results of the study on the influence of the factor of freshwater resources on the socio-economic development of countries and regions of the world suggest that there is a strong statistically significant correlation in this system of connections.

Evaluating the efficiency of the environmental security policy in the Russian regions

Subject. Considering the existing environmental situation, it becomes especially important for the State to regulate the anthropogenic footprint on the environment in the Russian Federation. Current amendments to the legislative framework for environmental security are intended to ensure the innovative development of regions concurrently with a reduction in adverse environmental effects and more active environmental policy. Objectives. The research is to devise methodological tools to evaluate the efficiency of environmental policy in regions. Methods. The research employs qualitative and quantitative methods of economic analysis, including statistical and content analysis, rating, matrix zoning. The dataset proceeds from the Federal State Statistics Service, governmental reports on the current environmental situation and environmental protection in the Russian Federation. Results. We propose our own approach to evaluating the efficiency of environmental policy. It may help trace the correlation between the quality of strategic documents and changes in environmental indicators for a certain period, flag the challenging areas in terms of the environmental policy implementation and outline possible development paths. The approach extends the list of quantification indicators in line with those ones adopted internationally and presented in the Environmental Security Strategy of the Russian Federation up to 2025. We evaluated the efficiency of the environmental policy referring to the regions of the Northwestern Federal District for the period from 2012–2016. Conclusions. Having analyzed the evaluation results, most of the Northwestern regions tend to be controversial and ambivalent in setting environmental goals and achieving them. The findings may prove useful as the analytical and data basis for articulating the environmental and economic policy of the regions.

A Lot of Talk, But Little Action—The Blind Spots of Nordic Environmental Security Policy

Despite an increasing recognition that environmental change may have implications for security, there only are few policies to address the issue. This article will look at environmental security policies in Finland and Sweden and propose ways to develop more effective measures. It relies on a three-level framework that aims to enable the identification of environmental security impacts by categorising them into local, geopolitical and structural ones. The article will examine present environmental security strategies and policies in Finland and Sweden, consider their efficacy for addressing various kinds of impacts and point out approaches that are currently missing. Based on the discussion, it argues that a comprehensive policy approach is needed to tackle environmental security impacts. This requires closer coordination and interchange between sectors as well as strategic intent. In addition, further research is needed on the structural impacts of mitigating and adapting to environmental change.

Geothermal Energy as an Alternative Source and a Countermeasure Against Low Emission in the Ecological Security Strategy

This paper considers the implications of geothermal energy as an alternative source for the counteracting of low emission, as part of the ecological security strategy. The issue has received considerable critical attention for several reasons. The primary problem is fulfilling the social and living needs of households. The growing consumption of energy and problems resulting from it are the natural consequence of and the price to be paid for economic growth and the progress of civilisation. Secondly, there is the problem of the fuel poverty (or energy poverty) of Polish households, which is one of the factors contributing to low emission. The third aspect is the effect of low emission on ecological security levels expressed in high levels of atmospheric air pollution, which is directly connected with the fourth aspect – the increasing importance of air protection against pollution. The significance of environmental protection against pollution is visible on the national, European and global scale through a number of environmental safety policies, such as the Clean Air for Europe Directive (CAFE). The directive in question imposes the obligation on EU member states to develop air protection plans for areas where air pollution concentrations exceed normative values, thus affecting the quality of human life. Finally, the fifth pillar is the use of geothermal energy as an alternative source of thermal energy as a measure to reduce low emission and diminish its consequences from the viewpoint of ecological security. These activities address the national environmental security policy, as well as EU requirements that oblige its members to proliferate renewable energy, which includes geothermal resources.

Evaluating the efficiency of the environmental security policy in the Russian regions

Evaluating the efficiency of the environmental security policy in the Russian regions

Rural Environmental Registry: An innovative model for land-use and environmental policies

Large-scale land governance and environmental monitoring are huge challenges for tropical countries with significant forest cover. In this discussion paper, we analyzed the conditions and achievements of the implementation of the Brazilian Rural Environmental Registry (CAR). CAR was an important breakthrough of the Native Vegetation Protection Law for environmental monitoring in Brazil. CAR is the mandatory and self-declaratory registry for rural properties. Owners must provide georeferenced delimitation of their property’s boundaries and legally protected areas, such as Areas of Permanent Preservation and Legal Reserves. We used the example of the State of Mato Grosso (transition between the two largest biomes in Brazil – Amazon and Cerrado) to discuss how CAR and its national information system (called SICAR) provide important inputs for land-use, environmental, economic, territorial, and food security policies. Future policies should include increasing investments and coordination between different sectors to integrate CAR and conservation efforts with agricultural production and sustainable management.

Letter from the Editor

China is now poised to achieve its national aspiration of becoming an innovation economy. As it seeks to greatly increase equality in wealth creation, it also aims to assert global leadership in the development of all transforming economies, lead an expansion of international trade, and contribute to global environmental security policies. President Xi Jinping gave voice to these aspirations in his opening speech to the nineteenth national congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October 2017.

Environmental Security Policy - Morphological - Functional Analysis, Alternatives and Optimization of the Choice of Solutions

Environmental Security Policy - Morphological - Functional Analysis, Alternatives and Optimization of the Choice of Solutions

Book Review: Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security Policy by Rita Floyd

Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security Policy by Rita Floyd. Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. 230. $99 (Hardback). ISBN: 9780521197564[Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http: //www, trans formativestudies. ors ©2013 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved. JThe aim of the book Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security Policy is to devise a stronger and even more compelling securitization theory. This book proposes a revision of the Copenhagen School's influential securitisation theory that both allows insights into the intentions of securitising actors and enables the moral evaluation of securitization and desecuritisation in the environmental sector of security. Securitisation theory holds that in international relations, an issue becomes a matter of emergency politics/a security issue not because something constitutes an objective threat to the state or to some other entity, but rather because a powerful securitising actor argues that something constitutes an existential threat to some object that needs to be dealt with immediately if the object is to survive.The idea that security is a self-referential practice is not only the essence of securitisation theory; it is also the secret of the theory's popularity and its explanatory potency. More readily than rival security theories, it allows the security analyst to account for the essentially contested nature of security where one and the same concept may mean entirely different, and even opposing, things. Yet although this is a clear, strong point on the part of securitisation theory, the Copenhagen School's preoccupation with it two major shortcomings. According to Floyd, a Fellow at the Institute for Environmental Security and British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, UK, the securitisation analyst studies who can securitise on what issues, under what conditions, and with what effects, whilst questions beyond the practice of security, such as those concerning the intentions of securitising actors (e.g. 'why do actors securitise?'), are ignored.And also, the idea that security is a self-referential practice allows no conceptual room for the theorising of what really is a security issue, nor for what ought to be securitised. Under the Copenhagen School's theoretical framework, the security analyst and the securitising actor are 'functionally distinct' entities with the security analyst in no position to assume the role of the securitising actor at any point of the analysis. This, however, does not mean that the Copenhagen School feels 'obliged to agree' with any given securitisation. On the contrary, the school holds strong views about the value of both securitization and also of desecuritisation. They argue that, in all but a few circumstances, securitisations are morally wrong, whereas desecuritisations are morally right. Notably, they arrive at these conclusions by way of what they take to be the effects or consequences of either action.In the case of securitisation, they take the consequences to be dedemocratisation, depoliticisation, the security dilemma and conflict. In the case of desecuritisation, they expect politicisation, understood as a general opening up of debate. Although it is not the securitization analyst's aim to bring about desecuritisation, the securitisation analyst is potentially able, by providing insights into the effects of securitisation, to reduce both the scale and number of escalations and security dilemmas found in the world. The Copenhagen School anticipates that the securitisation analyst will arrive at the very same conclusions regarding the outcomes of securitisation and desecuritisation.This book, by use of the example of the environmental sector of security, shows that securitisations are not categorically morally wrong, but, rather, that depending on the beneficiary of environmental security policies, securitisation can be morally permissible. …

Book Review: International Relations: Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security Policy

Book Review: International Relations: Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security Policy

Climate Change and National Security: A Country‐Level Analysis – Edited by Daniel Moran. Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map – By Cleo Paskal. Security and the Environment: Securitization Theory and US Environmental Security Policy – By Rita Paskal

Review of Policy ResearchVolume 29, Issue 4 p. 579-584 Climate Change and National Security: A Country-Level Analysis – Edited by Daniel Moran. Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map – By Cleo Paskal. Security and the Environment: Securitization Theory and US Environmental Security Policy – By Rita Paskal Michael M. Gunter Jr., Michael M. Gunter Jr. Rollins CollegeSearch for more papers by this author Michael M. Gunter Jr., Michael M. Gunter Jr. Rollins CollegeSearch for more papers by this author First published: 03 July 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-1338.2012.00577.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume29, Issue4July 2012Pages 579-584 RelatedInformation

Book Review: General Politics: Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security Policy

Book Review: General Politics: Security and the Environment: Securitisation Theory and US Environmental Security Policy

The political economy of environmental and social security policies: the role of environmental lobbying

Social security provides retirement benefits to the old at the expense of the working young, while environmental investment benefits the future of the young at the expense of the old. This paper presents a model incorporating this intergenerational conflict on public spending and considers the political determination of environmental investment and social security by focusing on the Markovian political equilibria. It is shown that (1) the political equilibria are generally inefficient, and (2) the introduction of environmental lobbying into politics may improve environmental quality but degrade lifetime utility in the long run.