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Security and Conflict / Policy Brief

Beyond Copenhagen: Securitising climate change

02/12/2009 By Richard Youngs

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The December 2009 Copenhagen summit (COP 15) will agree new targets, new mechanisms and funding – even if not for the moment in the form of a binding treaty. But in political terms this may all be something of a diversion. The broader politics of climate change are not essentially about such target-setting and large-sweep negotiations.

One of the main imperatives beyond Copenhagen will be to incorporate the geopolitical dimensions of climate change fully into a broadened external energy security policy. On this matter, Europe is a laggard not a leader.

In this Policy Brief Richard Youngs points out that the EU needs urgently to build systematic consideration of the strategic impact of climate change into its mainstream foreign policy decisions. The broader question of how climate change is likely to fundamentally challenge what we mean by security remains to be addressed.

Climate change requires a more engaged and geostrategic foreign policy, not just renewables targets.

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Keywords

Energy Security European Union

Bio author: Richard Youngs

Richard Youngs is Director General of FRIDE. He also lectures at the University of Warwick in the UK. He studied at Cambridge (BA Hons) and Warwick (MA, PhD) universities.