Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
securitised over-commitment appears to be the most salient feature in European
con
ict prevention units.
Doubts also persist over the way in which
'
access to energy
'
is understood;
sceptics fear that well-meaning initiatives aimed at tempering
may
worsen societal tensions over the longer term. The relationship between develop-
ment and security aims is still disputed among EU policy-makers. For many, the
security-development linkage still needs to be inverted. The
'
energy poverty
'
ner detail of Eur-
opean climate funding reveals that in qualitative terms continuity prevails over the
adoption of new approaches. Much new funding is devoted to very traditional
projects of long pedigree and part of a broadly de
ned environmental agenda more
than they are targeted systematically at the now-emerging political and geo-strate-
gic spill-over of climate change. The risk is of governance-driven con
ict, com-
pounded by climate change, rather than of directly climate-driven con
ict per se;
but this is not how the EU has approached the challenge in any really signi
cant
manner. Indeed, the danger exists that the way in which the EU is spending its
climate aid might inadvertently be worsening security dangers. Developing state
diplomats still express fear that despite all the EU
'
s rhetorical stress on civilian
con
ict prevention policies, climate security is a code for more hard security
interests
this is despite the fact that the EU is hardly straining at the bit to send
troops abroad to
-
t
into this pattern, although the lack of linkage between climate security concerns
and this area of policy remain striking. Migration is already highly securitised, so
any additional impact from climate planning has been modest. In sum, the relative
paucity of climate-speci
'
deal with climate change
'
. Restrictive measures on migration
ict prevention funding suggests some fundamental
choices still need to be made: whether, in security terms, it is more important to
focus resources on in
c con
uencing the major emitters or on con
ict-prone societies.
Notes
1 N. Mabey,
'
Climate change and global governance
'
, E3G memo, October 2009, www.
e3g.org, p. 10.
2 C. Lever-Tracy,
Confronting Climate Change
, London, Routledge, 2011.
3 Swiss Peace,
Environmental Peacebuilding: Managing Natural Resource Con
icts in a Changing
World
, Swiss Peace report, 2011, p. 68.
4 European Council,
Council Conclusions on Con
ict Prevention
, COSDP 611, June 2011.
5 www.eplo.org/assets/les/2.%20Activities/Working%20Groups/EEAS/EPLO_Review_
Gothenburg_Programme.pdf.
6 European Commission,
2011 Annual Report on the Instrument for Stability
, COM (2012)
405, 2012; plus for details on programmes, the four volumes of the accompanying Sta
Working Document.
7 www.eeas.europa.eu/ifs/docs/c_2011_4451_en.pdf.
8 http://ec.europa.eu/echo/les/media/publications/annual_report/annual_report_2010.pdf.
