Climate change and security: forging a cooperative mechanism in South Asia

The traditional notion of security in international relations can be seen as something focusing on a state's concerns with safeguarding territory. The post-cold war era, characterised by issues such as economic dependency, intra-wars, globalisation and environmental degradation, resulted in new views on the definition and nature of security to include non-military security threats. This paper highlights the major impacts of climate change on the overall security aspects for the South-Asian region. The paper explains that climate change is a phenomenon which will increasingly undermine the very essence and existence of national and human security. The paper strongly argues for the broadening of the concept of security to include environmental and specifically climate change dimension with the help of Buzan and Waever's 'securitisation theory'. It further analyses how these non-military threats provide an opportunity and occasion for the nations in South Asia to forge a mechanism for cooperation. The paper also suggests some innovative cooperative security mechanism approaches for the states in South Asia to come together, to address the security threat of climate change.