Climate Change as a Security Challenge in a Warming World: A Case Study of Pakistan

Abstract

Climate change has become one of the most important non-traditional security threats of twenty first century. Whereas traditional security issues are mostly related to wars and territorial disputes, climate change is a problem that impacts human societies by threatening them with environmental degradation, resource depletion, natural hazards, food shortages, migration of populations and economic insecurity. With the rising number and severity of climate-induced disasters, scholars and policymakers have had to rethink the notion of security, which long has focused on state security. Climate related risks are more severe in developing countries than in well-developed ones because of their vulnerability to climate impacts and constrained adaptive capacity. While Pakistan is among the least contributors to global GHGs, it is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. Pakistan's socio-economic stability and national security is at greater risk due to increasing temperatures, irregular rainfall, glacier melting, floods, droughts and heat waves. The catastrophic floods of 2010 and 2022 demonstrated serious impacts of climate change on human security, on infrastructure, on agriculture and governance. In this paper, multidimensional nature of climate change as a security challenge is discussed, focusing on case of Pakistan. The study draws on the concepts of environmental security theory, human security theory and securitization theory to examine impacts of climate change on water security, food security, energy security, economic security and national security. It also assesses climate vulnerabilities in Pakistan, Government response to climate change, policy measures and recommendations for increasing climate-resilience and sustainable development. The paper calls for a coordinated, national and international response to climate change and states that it is a holistic security challenge that is not simply an environmental concern.

Keywords: Climate Change, Environmental Security, Human Security, Pakistan, Global Warming, National Security, Water Security, Food Security.