CLIMATE SECURITY
This chapter surveys the evolution of the climate security field that emerged from the broader environmental security field with roots in global environmental politics and other traditional social science disciplines. Since the IPCC published its first findings concerning global warming, social science scholars have sought to understand the security implications of a changing climate and examine the climate-conflict nexus. As the climate security field has matured over the 21st century, it has become more intellectually diverse. The term climate security has evolved into a meta-concept to capture the many complex linkages between climate change and security, most notably the ways in which climate change could affect global stability. This chapter examines early studies that focused on the types of direct and indirect causal relationships that existed between climate change and violent conflict. The chapter then explores how the field has moved from a national security framing to one that engages with human security, vulnerability, livelihoods, and other concepts such as water security, food security, and environmental peacebuilding.
