Abstracts
Panel: Climate Change, a Security Risk? The Case of South Asia
Climate debt, development and security in the shadow of Pakistan’s war on terror
Climate Change, a Security Risk? The Case of South Asia
From heaven to hell: The impact of climate change
Climate debt, development and security in the shadow of Pakistan’s war on terror
Robina Bhatti
The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between climate change and military conflict using the ongoing war on terror in Pakistan as a case study. In understanding this relationship, issues of refugees, accumulating climate debt and questions of development are analysed in the context of Pakistan’s ecological footprint and the environmental impact of increased military activities centred in Northern Pakistan.
Ecocide in the pursuit of security has been a normalised practice in global affairs. This practice means land and ecosystems are deliberately destroyed to impact livelihoods and the life systems that sustain those targeted. High tech war and emergent military technologies, contrary to claims that they constitute ‘smart’ war, leave visible scars. The tragic impact of Agent Orange in Vietnam and the use of depleted uranium weapons, and burning oil wells in Iraq increasingly reveal the scope and aggressive environmental destruction that is risked for the sake of security.
Discussions of climate change and security risks often focus on the one hand, on ecological degradation attributed to ‘development’ unsustainable expansion and its dependence on fossil fuels. On the other hand, demographic changes and the livelihoods of the poor who live off the land are held responsible. Left out of this picture is politically motivated environmental destruction that occurs in the shadow of war during this twenty-first century.
Military establishments are resource consumptive and generate huge amounts of waste through large-scale built and environmentally-damaging social infrastructures. These sustain the coercive power of states and are increasingly justified in the name of security. It is not only nation states but also transnational non-governmental groups that use environmental destruction as a strategy for their political agendas. This paper explores the environmental impact of the war on terror and terrorist activities in Pakistan as it relates to climate change.
This paper goes beyond populist theories that claim climate change increases conflict among the ‘poor’ to engage ecological understandings of modern warfare and the environmental impact of the war on terror in Pakistan. It will explore connections with recent natural disasters in Pakistan and related issues of refugees, debt, development occurring in the shadow of an ongoing war that is not only socially divisive but environmentally destructive.
Locating security challenges in Pakistan within the larger framework of climate change, this paper will also focus on the panel sub-theme related to the link between security and climate change particularly human impacts on the environment.
 *Dr. Robina Bhatti is a Professor of Global Studies, California State University, Monterey Bay; Department of Global Studies, Chapman Science Academic Center, USA.
Environmental governance and the role of institutions in Pakistan
Aneel Salman*
This paper looks specifically at the institutional mechanisms in place to deal with environmental and climate changes, especially at the formal (state and non-state) and informal (local) levels. Pakistan’s formal institutional environmental framework is explored, followed by a brief examination of the evolution of informal “rules of the game” and their functions at the local level. Based on field survey results and secondary data, the paper finds that the failure of the state to not only build its own capacity in understanding and responding to environmental issues facing the country and the globe, is also non-responsive and has a callous attitude towards helping communities effectively deal with environmental challenges that have caused considerable mistrust and are potentially sowing the seeds of conflict in the country.
Given the gaps in state policies and processes in dealing with a rapidly changing environmental portfolio, the concluding section advocates a shift in the state-centric approaches towards mainstreaming, strengthening and empowering local institutions and communities to build resilience in combating the country’s environmental and climate change challenges. The overarching theme presented is that it makes sense to build on what exists. At the top is the state or government and their departments and non-government organisations or the third sector would do well in resource management, building community resilience, as well as poverty alleviation by working with the state, or alternatively by making the state work. An important insight from literature on NGO-government interaction is an increasing global trend that there is a more cooperative rather than confrontational relationship between the two sectors. As catalysts and facilitators, these non-state actors can be the missing link (or the ‘midwife’) for bridging sustainable development gaps. At the bottom (not in order of importance), are indigenous/local/organic community institutions that have evolved to serve local needs.
 *Dr. Aneel Salman is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Management at the Management Sciences and Humanities Program, Ghulam Ishaq Khan (GIK) Institute of Science and Technology, Pakistan. His areas of research include climate change, welfare and behavioural economics and public policy.
From heaven to hell: The impact of climate change
Kiran Maharjan*
Nepal is a disaster prone country, which is often affected by natural disasters such as, earthquakes, floods, landslides, lightening, Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs) and avalanches causing enormous physical damage and loss of human lives and livelihoods (NRCS 2008). Flood hazards devastate thousands of people's lives in the country each year especially in the monsoons (Buttle and Xu 1988).
The fragile geomorphology of the country is further aggravated by severe impacts of global climate change. Various studies (IPCC 2007; Du et al. 2004) indicate that warming in the Himalayas has been much greater than the global average of 0.74°C over the last 100 years. It is anticipated that increase in temperature might be a serious concern for the areas drained by the Himalayan Rivers in the Himalayan country (Wetherald and Manabe 2002).
Finding out the inter-linkage between climate change and flood hazards and carrying out socio-economic vulnerability analysis of people towards these disasters are the objectives of this study. Inter-disciplinary research methods have been incorporated in the study in order to make it more meaningful and significant. Trend analysis for climate related data have been done for analysing the linkage between climate change and floods. Two VDCs of Nawalparasi District, which lie in the Western Development Region of the country and were severely affected by floods in 2007, have been selected for analysing the socio-economic vulnerability dynamics of the inhabitants by using Sen’s entitlement theory and also for understanding their perception on climate change. Household surveys have been used for collecting basic socio-economic information. In-depth interviews and case study techniques have been employed for collecting interesting and meaningful cases. Focus group discussions were done for triangulating the collected information from the respondents. One of the findings shows that it is not always the entitlement failure that makes people vulnerable but it is also the entitlement collapse that devastates livelihoods. Suddenly losing entitlements due to disasters makes it harder to recover. In addition climate change is related to flood disasters in the study area, which make the people even more vulnerable.
References:
Buttle, J. M. and Xu, F. 1988, 'Snowmelt runoff in suburban environments', Nordic Hydrology, vol. 18, pp. 19-40.
Du, M. Y., Kawashima, S., Yonemura, S., Zhang, X. Z. and Chen, S. B. 2004, 'Mutual influence between human activities and climate change in the Tibetan Plateau during recent years', Global and Planetary Change, vol. 41, pp. 241-249.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007, Climate change 2007: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden and C.E. Hanson (Eds.), IPCC, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Nepal Red Cross Society 2008, Nepal Red Cross Society disaster management policy, Approved by NRCS/CWC meeting no-213, NRCS First revision-2008, Nepal Red Cross Society, Nepal
Wetherald, R. T. and Manabe, S. 2002, 'Simulation of hydrologic changes associated with global warming', Journal of Geophysical Research, vol. 107, D19. doi: 10.1029/2001JD0011945.
 *Kiran Maharjan is presently working as a Research Officer at Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research, South Asia Regional Coordination Office, Kathmandu, Nepal.
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