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with strategic partners over climate security di
erences; a more hard-headed form
of geo-economics; tougher realpolitik against those states seen as problematic from
a climate security perspective; resources dedicated to protecting national borders
and repelling climate migrants; and a drift towards self-help independence. In
contrast, the policy outcomes re
ecting a
liberal
-
cooperative
approach would include
enhanced e
ict
prevention and underlying governance reforms in developing states; increased
development cooperation and a more rules-based set of international economic
policies; a wider network of cooperative security partnerships; and a more partici-
patory system of security governance. These two approaches are useful as heuristic
schema; in practice, the challenge is to determine the mix and combination of
realist and liberal dynamics within European security strategies.
In broad-brush terms, the evidence invites a mixed assessment of each of these
operational questions. In terms of their formal strategic visions and planning,
European governments have certainly taken climate security increasingly seriously.
Far from under-reacting,
orts at multilateral partnership; resources invested in civilian con
ned climate security as a
linchpin issue that conditions all other areas of geo-strategy. Very little climate
security denial remains amongst European politicians and diplomats; the doubts
over climate change
they have increasingly de
s strategic impact that were outlined in chapter two resonate
little among policy-makers. The EU
'
'
s conceptual understanding of climate chan-
ge
cations has become stronger, more sophisticated and admirably
nuanced. The issue has progressively seeped into the policy mindset across the
various di
'
s security rami
erent ministries, departments and commission directorates whose
responsibilities have some bearing on climate challenges.
However, a range of factors has weighed against the practical advance of climate
security policies. The EU has found itself confronted with so many more imme-
diately urgent challenges
that in
practice the issue of climate security has slipped down its list of priorities. It seems
destined to be an issue that is perennially just over the horizon, requiring atten-
tion
-
from the economic crisis to the Arab Spring
-
s well-known institutional complexities
work to the disadvantage of the kind of inter-issue
…
but never right now. The EU
'
challenges of which
climate security is a prime case. The aftermath of the Lisbon Treaty has, if any-
thing, seen such complexities multiply; climate security has fallen between the
wider
'
linkage
'
erent lines of institutional responsibility. The attention
paid to traditional understandings of hydrocarbon-oriented energy security still far
exceeds the more nebulous preoccupations of climate security.
In general terms, the cooperative framework is formally more pre-eminent in
incipient EU policies than the set of outcomes that would be expected of a realist
'
cracks
'
between di
-
rivalry approach. European governments have made the judgement that climate
insecurity renders deeper multilateral cooperation necessary. Indeed, this issue has
