Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
cials in Brussels and the member states admit that the focus has been
almost entirely on restructuring internal institutional structures rather than
developing a comprehensive multilateralisation of climate security. An Institute
for Environmental Security (IES) report found that the
O
security dimension of
climate change is not as widely covered in bilateral policy dialogues with third
countriesasitcouldbe
'
.
56
Europeandiplomatslamentthatthereremainsaneed
for one overarching body to coordinate the broader e
'
ects of climate change.
They have advocated some kind of joining together of OPEC, the IEA, the
International Renewable Energy Agency and the Major Economies Forum
(renamed from the Major Emitters Forum in 2009). In practice, little progress
has been made. European states have not invested any great e
ort in prioritising
this issue within their multilateral diplomacy. Such oversights belie the EU
'
s
commitment to a broad, multilateral, cooperation-based prioritisation of climate
security.
Participative security governance?
What of the assumption that climate security pushes in the direction of more multi-
actor clusters of security governance? On the broad issue of climate change, a
strikingly large number of initiatives has proliferated involving non-governmental
organisations (NGOs), companies, municipal authorities, consumer groups and indi-
vidual citizens, some local and some transnational. Arguably, this has injected greater
momentum than anything achieved through UN negotiations. Some observers argue
that this range of non-state activity now extends beyond an ad hoc collection of
initiatives into an increasingly organised alternative structure of climate governance.
57
The US National Intelligence Council and EU Institute for Security Studies concur
that climate change is an issue that has begun to engender looser forms of govern-
ance based on target setting, peer pressure and informal codes of conduct. Over 300
public
private partnerships have been created since the 2002 Sustainable Develop-
ment conference, providing a foundation from which these types of venture can
begin to in
-
uence the more geopolitical dimensions of climate change.
58
The
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reports that the picture is no
longer one of purely northern civic activism in the environmental
eld; rather,
south
-
south links between advocacy NGOs have come increasingly to in
uence the
.
59
global climate agenda and advance the notion of
'
ecological citizenship
'
that
links together governments, international bodies, social networks, entrepreneurs,
NGOs, knowledge institutions, advocacy and interest-based groups. Incipient
coordination in Brussels between environmental, development and human rights
NGOs has broadened the perspectives
Many member states certainly claim to be in favour of a
'
new diplomacy
'
taken by the longest-standing climate
