Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
8
THE GEO-ECONOMICS OF CLIMATE
SECURITY
A crucial set of strategic considerations derives from the questions of who has
control over low carbon technology and the kind of rules that govern its inter-
nationalisation. An incipient geo-economics of climate change will be of inordinate
importance in reshaping the international system. What form will that geo-
economic dynamic take? Will globalisation deepen, tying erstwhile fractious rivals
together in networks of cooperative and mutually constraining interdependence?
Or will governments seek more mercantilistic autarchy as the preferred means of
tempering the uncertainties of climate change? How will the international devel-
opment and distribution of renewables technology be managed? How will the
deployment of geo-engineering solutions be controlled and decided? Is security
best guaranteed by cooperation in low carbon technologies, or do European gov-
ernments perceive a need to temper markets in order to retain control and reduce
dependence on external sources of renewables?
In exploring these questions, this chapter shows that climate change is now
approached as a core pillar of European economic security. In some ways, this geo-
economic dimension has
ltered into European Union (EU) policy responses to a
greater degree than have hard security aspects. The feedback of cause and e
ect
increasingly intertwine: governments
attempts to manage climate change have
pushed them to modify geo-economic preferences; the latter are in turn one of the
factors that act increasingly strongly upon climate security. The EU collectively and
member states through their national foreign economic policies have inched towards
a geo-economics of climate change. However, a fundamental tension remains evi-
dent: freer markets are seen as necessary to get scarcer resources to where they are
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