Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
European strategic cultures show limited signs of addressing the broader inter-
national factors that play into risk calculations. For example, one danger is that
climate change will encourage Asian states to build up militaries to have available
the equipment to defend against climate insecurity, and that this will have dele-
terious spill-over e
ects in terms of a general militarisation of regional dynamics.
The ASEAN Regional Forum has already held mock military exercises to deal
with region-wide environmental disasters; the US but not the EU was invited to
participate. The EU and ASEAN tried but could not
succeed in agreeing a
common declaration on climate change. The 2012 EU
ASEAN summit achieved
little in this area: climate security was not prominent in the Enhanced Action Plan
agreed between the two regions. European o
-
cials stress that they have made little
headway in getting Japan and Australia to partner on climate security initiatives,
although Korea has been keener on military-to-military cooperation.
As outlined in chapter four, particular e
ort has been made to develop a strategic
alliance with Beijing; indeed, this has relegated the importance of other areas of
policy in relation to which the EU and China have for many years not seen eye to
eye. It is widely recognised that in climate policy, all other challenges pale along-
side the need to cooperate with China on low carbon. An EU
China Partnership
on Climate Change embraces a range of activities related to clean energy technol-
ogies. A more speci
-
ciency
and Renewable Energies promotes industrial cooperation relevant to protecting the
global environment. A biennial EU
c and targeted China
-
EU Action Plan on Energy E
-
China energy conference brings
together
high-level representatives
from European and Chinese industries and govern-
ments.
43
A big EU
China CCS initiative is seen as such a promising model that
the EU has been keen to extend a similar initiative to India. However, diplomats
acknowledge that the hard security dimensions of climate change have still not
been incorporated into the EU
-
China relationship, beyond generic conversations
about potential threats ahead. Catherine Ashton has commenced a new regular
strategic dialogue with Chinese o
-
cials, and has pushed hard to incorporate cli-
mate security issues into this. In general, however, China robustly rejects any kind
of security multilateralism in its region; EU member states for their part admit that
trade and investment with China have been by far the overwhelming concern
during the eurozone crisis.
Where concrete hard security dangers have begun to manifest themselves, Eur-
opean defence and strategic planners have struggled to in
uence overall EU policy
in any tangible fashion. By way of illustration, one such apparently imminent
s new water plan, that risks causing massive instability
upstream in the Nile Basin across several neighbouring states: the upper Nile states
now insist that they want to renegotiate terms and take more water from the Nile.
The Nile Basin accord is breaking down as Egypt refuses to talk to Ethiopia about
ashpoint derives from Egypt
'
