Content uploaded by Cesare M. Scartozzi
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Cesare M. Scartozzi on Aug 10, 2022
Content may be subject to copyright.
International Studies Perspectives (2022) 23 , 290–312
Climate Change in the UN Security Council:
An Analysis of Discourses and Organizational
Trends
CESARE M. SCARTOZZI
Abstract: The UN Security Council has published about eighty-three thou-
sand documents between 2001 and 2021. This study analyzes this large
corpus of text to identify, map, and trace the evolution of discourses on
climate change and their impact on the organization. The article analyzes
diplomatic speeches and other primary sources to identify instances of
climatization of security and securitization, riskification, and mainstream-
ing of climate change. To fulfill its aim, the article introduces a mixed
method that combines an automated content analysis with a discourse an-
alytic approach. The findings suggest that, despite the stall in high-level
discussions on climate security, the Security Council is de facto moving to-
ward a climatization of security and riskification of climate change in daily
practices, procedures, and operations.
Resumen: El Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU ha publicado alrededor de
ochenta y tres mil documentos entre los años 2001 y 2021. En el presente
estudio, se analiza este gran corpus de textos para identificar, relacionar
y hacer un seguimiento de la evolución de los discursos sobre el cambio
climático y su impacto en la organización. En este artículo, se analizan los
discursos diplomáticos y otras fuentes primarias para identificar casos de
“climatización” del campo de la seguridad y la “securitización”, el análi-
sis de riesgos y la integración del cambio climático. Para cumplir con su
objetivo, en este artículo se introduce un método mixto que combina un
análisis de contenido automatizado con un enfoque analítico del discurso.
Las conclusiones sugieren que, a pesar del estancamiento de los debates
de alto nivel sobre la seguridad climática, el Consejo de Seguridad está
avanzando de facto hacia la “climatización” del campo de la seguridad y el
análisis de riesgos del cambio climático en las prácticas, los procedimien-
tos y las operaciones diarias.
Résumé: Le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU a publié environ quatre-vingt-
trois mille documents entre 2001 et 2021. Cette étude analyse ce vaste
corpus de textes pour identifier, cartographier et retracer l’évolution
des discours concernant le changement climatique et leur impact sur
l’organisation. Cet article analyse les discours diplomatiques et d’autres
sources primaires pour identifier les cas de climatisation de la sécurité
ainsi que les cas de sécuritisation, de « risquification »et de sensibilisation
du public au changement climatique. Il introduit une méthode mixte al-
liant une analyse automatisée du contenu à une approche analytique des
discours pour remplir cet objectif. Les résultats suggèrent que, malgré le
blocage des discussions àhaut niveau sur la sécurité climatique, le Con-
seil de sécurité évolue dans les faits vers une climatisation de la sécurité
et une « risquification »du changement climatique dans ses pratiques,
procédures et opérations quotidiennes.
Scartozzi, Cesare M. (2022) Climate Change in the UN Security Council: An Analysis of Discourses and Organizational
Tre nd s. International Studies Perspectives , https://doi.org/10.1093/isp/ekac003
©The Author(s) (2022). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association.
All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
CESARE M. SCARTOZZI 291
Keywords: climate change, Security Council, discourse analysis, se-
curitization, climatization, riskification
Palabras clave: Cambio climático, Consejo de Seguridad, análisis
del discurso, securitización, climatización, análisis de riesgos
Mots clés: changement climatique, Conseil de sécurité, analyse de
discours, sécuritisation, climatisation, risquification
Introduction
Climate change is a transformative process that affects every aspect of policy prac-
tice. Within the United Nations (UN) system, a plethora of organizations delve into
the topic according to their mandates and capacities. The UN Security Council
(SC or Council hereinafter), albeit not part of the international climate regime,
has been contributing to the debate on climate change for more than a decade
through a series of meetings, presidential statements, and resolutions. Its contribu-
tion, however, has not been shy of controversies. The Council is not a representative
and inclusive organization nor it possesses specific institutional know-how on envi-
ronmental issues. For these and other reasons, which will be analyzed in length in
this article, a few UN member states have pushed back against the Council’s agenda
on climate security.
As of writing, the Council has discussed the implications of climate change on se-
curity during seven ad hoc open debates and six informal Arria-formula sessions. In
addition to these appointments, climate change has been featured in other meet-
ings on topics ranging from food security to peacekeeping operations (see online
supplement appendix I). Since 2001, climate-related topics have been featured in
333 meeting records, 292 letters and note verbales, and 154 reports. In 2020, 5.34
percent of all the 2,863 documents published by the SC were mentioning climate-
related topics at least once. Yet, in terms of deliverables, the Council still has to
make a meaningful contribution. There are only eleven presidential statements and
twenty-two resolutions where climate change is referenced. Moreover, the official
position of the Council on climate security has remained undefined and open for
interpretation ( UNSC 2011b ).
The lack of decisive actions, however, should not be confused with lack of in-
tent or lack of importance. Despite the absence of consensus among member
states, climate security is slowly being mainstreamed in the work of the Coun-
cil while novel policy initiatives (and workarounds) are pushing the boundaries
of its mandate. The discussions within the SC also serve to showcase a complex
web of national interests, discourse coalitions, and ontological perspectives. These
discussions, in turn, reflect debates occurring within nation states among policy-
makers and civil society at large. Thus, whether through action or inaction, the
work of the SC is deserving of utmost attention as it exposes set languages and
modus operandi used by nation states to address the security implications of climate
change.
In recent years, several scholars have looked at the work of the Council from
different angles. Ng (2010) , Scott (2015) , and Hardt and Viehoff (2020) have pub-
lished overviews of the work of the SC on climate security, focusing on various as-
pects such as the evolution of debates and the conceptualization of climate security.
Tinker (1992) , Penny (2007) , and Sindico (2007) have adopted a jurisprudential
perspective to question the mandate of the SC on environmental security, while
Warren (2015) and Cousins (2013) have studied the SC role within the broader
292 Climate Change in the UN Security Council
international climate regime. Maertens (2019) , Vivekananda, Day, and Wolfmaier
(2020) , and Ide et al. (2021) have instead focused on the operational aspect of the
SC, also analyzing the intersections between climate change and peacekeeping.
Debates and discourses occurring in the Council have received a lot of attention
from scholars. Detraz and Betsill (2009) , Brzoska (2012) , and McDonald (2013)
have investigated environmental security discourses. Rothe (2012) and Allan (2017)
have analyzed cataclysmic discourses related to climate security, while Trombetta
(2012) has studied discourses on climate conflict. Speeches have also been studied
from the perspective of securitization and climatization theory by several authors,
including Kurtz (2012) , Oels (2012) , Conca (2018) , Peters (2018) , and Maertens
(2021) .
Taken all together, the existing literature has done an excellent job in synthesiz-
ing early debates on environmental security, mapping states’ positions, and high-
lighting tendencies of securitization and climatization in the Council. There still
are, however, important research gaps and limitations in the existing literature.
First, discourse analytic approaches have been limited in their analysis to a small
sample of documents due to issues of methodological tractability. Qualitative ap-
proaches to discourse analysis are limited in the number of documents that they
can analyze and are ill-suited to assess organization-wide processes such as discourse
structuration and institutionalization (i.e., whether a discourse becomes dominant
or translates into policy) ( Hajer 2006 ).
The aim of this article is to fill the existing research gaps and provide an up-to-
date analysis that covers virtually the entire spectrum of Security Council activities
during the past twenty years, analyzing data from January 2001 to April 2021. The
article will identify, map, and trace the evolution of discourses, discourse coalitions,
and organizational trends. To fulfill its objective, it introduces a mixed method that
employs an automated content analysis informed by the discourse analytic approach
of Hajer (2006) and Dryzek (2013) . Using a “text as data” approach, the study will
try to answer the following three research questions. First, how do discourses inter-
play with each other and develop with the support of discourse coalitions? Second,
which discourses on climate security are structuralized and institutionalized in the
Security Council? Finally, what is the state of securitization, climatization, riskifica-
tion, and climate mainstreaming in the Security Council?
The first section of this study introduces key concepts on climate security and
explains the mandate and structure of the Security Council. The second section
briefly outlines the research design and defines its limitations. Finally, the third sec-
tion presents and discusses the findings. Overall, this work generates fresh insight
into the work of the Council on climate security, introducing new methodological
approaches and analytical perspectives. In doing so, it aims to contribute to the
fields of international studies and public policy.
Climate Change in the Security Council
Mandate
The Security Council is composed of fifteen member states: five permanent mem-
bers (P5) and ten elected by the General Assembly (GA) for a two-year term. Deci-
sions in the Council are taken via “the affirmative vote of nine members including
the concurring votes of the permanent members” ( UN 1945 Art. 27.3). Resolution
and presidential statements issued by the Council are, therefore, always representa-
tive of the will of P5. Nonpermanent members, however, play an important role in
the Council’s work via agenda setting. As Maertens (2021 , 9) has shown, it is par-
tially thanks to nonpermanent members if climate change is becoming a recurrent
topic of discussion in the SC.
Issues of human security and nontraditional security (NTS) were not a pri-
mary concern when the SC was founded. In 1945, member states were primarily
CESARE M. SCARTOZZI 293
concerned with military confrontations and state disputes (i.e., what today is labeled
as traditional security). This somewhat outdated conceptualization of security was
reflected in the mandate of the SC, which is the maintenance of international peace
and security in accordance with the principles and purposes of the UN ( UN 1945 ).
The Charter of the United Nations (Charter hereafter) outlines the methods that
the Council may adopt to reach a pacific settlement of disputes (Ch. VI, art. 33-38)
and respond to threats to peace, breaches of peace, and acts of aggression (Ch. VII,
art. 39-51).
Climate change fits within the mandate of the SC as long as what constitutes “in-
ternational peace and security” remains open for interpretation. Over the years,
the Council has widened its authority to an array of issues that include intrastate
conflict, human rights, terrorism, crime, and public health ( Penny 2007 ; Scott
2015 ). In 1992, the SC adopted an NTS perspective and acknowledged that “non-
military sources of instability in the economic, social, humanitarian and ecological
fields” had become “threats to peace and security” ( Tinker 1992 , 787; UNSC 1992 ).
Around the same time, the concept of human security began to gain traction among
member states, thanks to the work of the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) and the GA ( Oels 2012 , 194). These developments have meant that the
word “security” has become all-encompassing in the UN system.
Ultimately, the boundary of action for the SC lies in its legitimacy ( Scott 2015 ).
The Council operates with the support of member states, and its efficacy, as high-
lighted by Cousins (2013 , 197), is correlated with the perceived legitimacy of
its work. For this reason, despite a broad conceptualization of security, the SC
has remained a conservative institution that only sporadically delves into issues
of NTS and human security. Exceptions to the norm, as listed by Penny (2007)
and Vivekananda, Day, and Wolfmaier (2020) , included the resolutions on terror-
ism ( UNSC 2001 ), weapons of mass destruction ( UNSC 2004 ), natural resources
( UNSC 2005 ), HIV/AIDS ( UNSC 2000 ; 2011a ), Ebola ( UNSC 2014 ), and COVID-
19 ( UNSC 2020e ). These precedents are often recalled by member states wishing
to discuss climate change in the SC.
Developments on Climate Security
Since 2007, the Council has discussed the agenda topic of climate security during
six open-debates sessions and six informal Arria-formula meetings (see online sup-
plement appendix 1). Besides these meetings, climate change and related topics
have been discussed in a plethora of other occasions, which will be reviewed in the
following sections. Overall, the discussions in the Council have resulted in the inclu-
sion of climate change in eleven presidential statements and twenty-one resolutions.
From the various debates, four trends have emerged. The first two are the securiti-
zation and riskification of climate change, the third is the climatization of security,
and the fourth is the mainstreaming of climate change.
Securitization, according to the theoretical perspective of the “Copenhagen
School,” is built on the premise that security problems are not given but constructed
( Allan 2017 ). In the words of Wæver (2008) , securitization is a “discursive and polit-
ical process through which an intersubjective understanding is constructed within a
political community to treat something as an existential threat to a valued referent
object.” The objective of securitization, according to Wæver, is to warrant urgent
and exceptional security measures that elude political and democratic processes.
Securitized issues, in other words, lead to a Schmittian state of exception that legit-
imizes extralegal force ( Orsi 2017 ).
A quick analysis of the Council from the perspective of securitization theory
shows that no extraordinary measures have been taken in the name of the climate
crisis, and thus climate change has not been successfully securitized. Securitiza-
tion, however, should not be assessed in binary terms but rather on a spectrum.
294 Climate Change in the UN Security Council
Bigo and Tsoukala (2008) and the group of scholars of the “Paris School” have
shown that securitization below the threshold of exceptionality can have important
consequences in shaping security debates ( Thomas 2017 , 10:8).
Looking at the findings of this article, it can be argued that the partial securitiza-
tion of climate change has established an epistemic community within the Council
that articulates global warming as a security problem and adopts an environmental
perspective to its everyday security practices ( Zwolski and Kaunert 2011 ; Oels 2012 ,
185). This bureaucratization of global warming by the security establishment has, in
turn, yielded two major consequences: the climatization of security and the riskifi-
cation of climate change. Climatization, as explained by Oels (2012) and Maertens
(2021) , involves the use of (or encroachment of) climate science and policy ap-
proaches to deal with military and security issues. When contextualized to the SC,
climatization can be evinced in the framing of policy discussions. For instance, cli-
mate mitigation is often outlined as a security approach to address the root causes
of so-called climate conflicts. Similarly, adaptation policies and climate finance are
discussed in reference to conflict prevention and pathways for threat minimization.
Riskification, according to Corry (2012) , involves the construction of security
risks to legitimize precautionary measures and risk-management approaches. Like
securitization, riskification is a discursive process that occurs in the realm of political
communications. Riskification is less controversial and problematic than securitiza-
tion because it does not call for extralegal courses of action. However, it does call
for risk governance, which, in turn, presupposes an enlargement of responsibilities
of the SC and promotes top–down solutions to local climate problems. Examples of
riskification include the proposals of adding climate risk assessment in peacebuild-
ing operations, managing climate-induced natural disasters, and governing fluxes
of climate refugees ( Corry 2012 ).
All the developments that have been highlighted so far concur with the trend
of mainstreaming climate change. Mainstreaming is a process of organizational
change, strongly advocated by Secretary-General António Guterres, which aims to
force the adoption of an environmental perspective in all institutional activities.
Mainstreaming invokes cooperation among different UN bodies on environmental
issues and the inclusion of climate mitigation goals across all policy areas, including
policy development, research, resource allocation, projects implementation, and
evaluation.
In conclusion, within the SC there are a multitude of intertwined and inter-
connected processes related to climate change. Some, like securitization, attempt
to push the boundaries of the mandate of the Council to introduce radical ap-
proaches to climate security. Others, like climatization and riskification, attempt to
change the modus operandi of the Council to include environmental policies and risk-
management approaches in security operations. Last, the mainstreaming of climate
change attempts to shift the institutional culture to incorporate an environmental
perspective.
Research Design
The dataset introduced in this study was compiled by filtering the text of 83,614 doc-
uments published in the UN Digital Library for keywords related to climate change
and climate security.
1 A total of 835 documents were identified to be relevant for
the scope of this study and downloaded in their English-language version via a scrap-
ing algorithm. The text in the original PDF files was then extracted, cleaned, and
1
The “full text search” of SC documents was made in April 2021 via the website of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library
using the following query: “climate change” OR “global warming” OR “climate-sensitive” OR “threat multiplier” OR
“threat-multiplier” OR “climate security” OR “climate and security” OR “climate conflict” OR “climate war” OR “sea-
level rise” OR “greenhouse gas” OR “GHG” year:2001- > 2022 ( United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library n.d. ).
CESARE M. SCARTOZZI 295
structured in a data frame based on the following categories: meeting records, let-
ters and note verbales, reports, resolutions and decisions, treaties and agreements,
and speeches. Finally, meeting records related to the agenda item of climate secu-
rity were further processed to extract and cluster speeches from individual member
states. This last step was made necessary to allow for a country-specific content and
sentiment analysis.
Given the comprehensive scope of the dataset, which includes 3,608,349 words,
the study used natural language processing (NLP) tools to identify relevant key-
words and discern discourse patterns. Python Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK)
was first used to remove stopwords and tokenize the text and then to tabulate fre-
quencies of words and bigrams ( NLTK Project n.d .). In the following step, NLTK
was employed to draw concordances, collocates, and co-occurrences. Finally, parts
of the text were analyzed using VADER, a lexicon and rule-based sentiment analysis
package for Python ( Hutto and Gilbert 2014 ).
In order to make sense of the ambiguity of diplomatic speech, this article opted
to use a discourse analytic approach àla Hajer (2006) and Dryzek (2013) in sup-
port of the content analysis. According to Hajer (2006) , a discourse is “an ensemble
of ideas, concepts, and categories through which meaning is given to social and
physical phenomena.” Thus, the purpose of a discourse analytic approach is to un-
derstand how meaning is constructed from the interaction of written text, syntaxes,
rhetorical devices, lexical choices, and narratives. The way meaning was inferred
from speeches was to use the Dryzek method of discourse analysis, which is struc-
tured on the identification of constitutive elements of discourses, including agents,
motives, and ontological perspectives. As it can be inferred, this approach had to be
qualitative and could only be used for a small subset of documents in the original
corpus.
Findings
Corpus Analysis
The main dataset, which includes twenty years of documents related to climate
change in the SC, was divided into three sub-corpora and analyzed to identify word
collocates, lexical trends, and sentiment. The first sub-corpus exemplifies the voice
of member states and actors participating in SC activities. It includes 333 meeting
records and 292 letters and note verbales. The second sub-corpus represents the in-
stitutional voice of various organs of the UN (e.g., Secretary-General and the Peace-
building Commission) and various subsidiary organs of the Security Council (e.g.,
Missions). It includes 154 reports addressed to the SC. Finally, the third sub-corpus,
which includes thirty-three resolutions and presidential statements, represents the
deliberative voice of the SC. Altogether, the dataset allows the content analysis to
observe organization-wide processes, such as discourse structuration and climate
change mainstreaming.
Meeting Records, Letters, and Note Verbales
This sub-corpus represents the unfiltered voice of member states, engaging in pub-
lic debates via speeches and letters. Figure 1 shows that the number of documents
mentioning climate change and related topics started to rise in 2007, peaked in
2011, and then began an upward trajectory in 2015. These dates coincide with the
organization of open debates and Arria-formula meetings in the Council (see online
supplement appendix I). The first open debate on climate security was organized in
2007 by the United Kingdom and was followed in 2011 by a second debate hosted
by Germany. The two debates led, in 2011, to the drafting of the first presidential
statement of the SC on climate change (see online supplement appendix II).
296 Climate Change in the UN Security Council
Figure 1. Number of documents mentioning climate change and related topics.
Tab le 1. Collocates of “climate” by frequency and categories
Environment/climate change Security 197 efforts
7560 change 2487 security 195 respond/response
508 climate 959 risk/risk 103 mitigation
308 environmental 631 conflict/conflicts
230 vulnerability/vulnerable 536 threat/threats Impact of climate change
214 sustainable 520 peace 756 effects
211 food 177 insecurity 549 impact/impacts
201 adaptation 131 terrorism 383 disaster/disasters
184 degradation 115 violence/violent 349 implications
181 water 324 adverse
138 resilience Policy/action 261 crises/crisis
115 resources 615 address/addressing 224 consequences
315 agreement
291 action
Between 2001 and 2020, documents mentioning climate and related topics grew
from 0.19 to 9.01 percent of the total. Since 2015, meetings on climate change
have been more frequent, encompassing various topics ranging from environmen-
tal degradation to peacekeeping operations. These appointments, however, are still
marginal in the overall working schedule of the Council. The post-2015 upward
trend shown by figure 1 can only be explained by a process of mainstreaming cli-
mate change in all agenda items.
The collocates of the word “climate” were used to identify keywords and infer the
context of discussions on climate security.
2 After identifying the collocates using
NLTK, the words were processed using VADER to deduce the overall affective state
of the word “climate.” Each collocate was assigned a sentiment score between −1
(negative) and 1 (positive) that was then normalized based on the frequency of the
collocate in the corpus. The average score of the collocates in this sub-corpus was
−0.1, signaling that words associated with “climate” have a slightly negative associ-
ation.
3 Some of the most negative collocates included: “risk,” “disaster,” “threat,”
“conflict,” “adverse,” “crisis,” “degradation,” “terrorism,” “poverty,” “insecurity,” and
“violence.”
Table 1 shows a list of selected collocates with more than one hundred oc-
currences. Of the 10,395 times that the word “climate” was mentioned, 2,487
2
The documents analyzed in this section are on a multitude of agenda items, often unrelated to climate change.
Collocates were used to select keywords and ngrams related to climate change.
3
The average was obtained after changing to a neutral score (0) the words “security” (occurrences 2487) and
“united” (occurrences 631). The frequency of both words is skewed due to the recurrence of the expressions “Security
Council” and “United Nations” in the corpus.
CESARE M. SCARTOZZI 297
Figure 2. Keywords related to climate change.
times it was collocated near the word “security,” 959 near “risk,” 631 near “con-
flict,” 536 near “threat,” and 520 near “peace.” As it can be observed, climate
is predominantly contextualized either as an issue of risk management or as an
issue of traditional security. Words such as “risk,” “management,” and “gover-
nance” suggest an approach that transcends traditional security to deal with is-
sues related to “mitigation,” “resilience,” and “development.” Conversely, words
such as “threat,” “insecurity,” and “peace” are drawn from the lexicon of tra-
ditional security and often clustered with words such as “conflict,” “terrorism,”
and “violence.”
The evolution of climate-related keywords in the sub-corpus, shown in figure 2 ,
mirrors the trend seen in figure 1 . Here, the contribution of the open debates
is even more accentuated, clearly showing how the bigram of “climate change”
spikes during the Council’s meetings on climate security. It is also interesting to
observe that certain climatic impacts are more discussed than others. This is the
case for “drought,” “extreme weather,” and “environmental degradation.” In partic-
ular, as pointed out by the presence of the word “Sahel” in table 1 , the impact of
“drought” in Africa is a recurrent topic of discussion, often interlinked with “migra-
tion,” “poverty,” “peacekeeping,” and “violence.”
Reports
The documents in this sub-corpus are comprised of reports from the Secretary-
General and, to a minor extent, reports from other UN organs and subsidiary
organs of the Security Council. This corpus of text has an institutional matrix
and, therefore, tends to have a rather neutral tone and homogeneous form.
As figure 3 shows, the share of reports mentioning climate change grew from 0.93 to
15.34 percent between 2008 and 2020. This trend is in line with the one highlighted
in figure 1 , albeit delayed by about a year. The lag is to be expected as it takes time
for the UN and its subsidiary organs to receive and implement the directives of
member states.
In the 2011 presidential statement on climate change ( UNSC 2011b ), the Council
requested the Secretary-General to include in his reporting contextual information
on the “security implications of climate change.” References to climate change in
the reports of the Secretary-General increased in 2012 only to fall back to previous
levels in the following years. In 2017, Conca, Thwaites, and Lee (2017 , 6) noted that
the reporting had fallen short of expectations, producing only superficial and inef-
fectual coverage of climate change. However, as figure 3 shows, the reporting has
changed after 2017 with the nomination of António Guterres as Secretary-General.
Most noticeably, in recent years, reports have begun referencing directly the topics
of “climate security” and “climate-related risks” ( figure 4 ).
Moving to the sentiment analysis, the collocates of the word “climate” recorded an
average score of −0.02. The score, as to be expected, is more neutral than the one
298 Climate Change in the UN Security Council
Figure 3. Number of documents mentioning climate change and related topics.
Figure 4.
Keywords related to climate change.
recorded with the meeting records and letters. When normalized, the most negative
collocates included: “degradation,” “conflict,” “disaster,” “adverse,” “poverty,” “vio-
lence,” “insecurity,” “crisis,” “risk,” “threats,” “terrorism,” “vulnerability,” “shocks,”
“crime,” and “fear.” These words well represent the spectrum of problems and secu-
rity implications that are believed to be linked to climate change in policy debates.
Several reports highlight that climate change and conflict are concurring causes
of humanitarian crises, especially in West and sub-Saharan Africa ( UNSC 2017c ).
Conflict is reported eroding adaptive capacity, while climate change is said to be
causing draughts and other natural hazards that lead to human displacement and
poverty ( UNSC 2020b ). A few documents point at episodes of violence between
herders and farmers in West and sub-Saharan Africa as evidence of a nexus between
climate and conflict ( UNSC 2018h ). Other reports, however, invoke caution and
recognize that a better understanding of the relationship between conflict and cli-
mate change is needed ( UNSC 2020b ).
Resolutions and Presidential Statements
Resolutions, which take the form of recommendations or binding decisions, are for-
mal expressions of the opinion and will of member states ( D’Acquisto 2017 ). Pres-
idential statements are nonbinding documents that reflect the consensus among
Council members. Both types of documents are written representations of diplo-
matic speech that serve to formalize agreements (or disagreements) reached during
negotiations. The text of the documents is characterized by precision where there
is consensus and ambiguity where there are disagreements.
Given the lack of agreement among P5 on climate security, resolutions and pres-
idential statements rarely mention climate change and related topics (see online
supplement appendix II). Only recently, after 2017, climate change has appeared
in resolutions and presidential statements in relation to the agenda items of “Peace
and Consolidation in Africa” and “UN Missions” ( figure 5 b). In four years, as
CESARE M. SCARTOZZI 299
Figure 5. Documents mentioning climate change and related topics (percentage of total
and agenda items).
figure 5 a shows, documents mentioning climate change increased from 0 percent
(2016) to 11 percent (2020). This growth follows a similar trend to those observed
in the previous two sections.
Most of the references to climate change in resolutions and presidential state-
ments come with a degree of ambiguity. Member states have yet to agree on whether
climate change falls within the mandate of the SC. Their position, formalized in a
2011 presidential statement, reaffirmed that climate change is a primary responsibil-
ity of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),
while the socioeconomic implications of global warming are the purview of the GA
and the Economic and Social Council. The presidential statement also noted that
the General Assembly Resolution 63/281 ( UNGA 2009 ) recommended the SC to
intensify its efforts in “considering and addressing climate change.” In this perspec-
tive, the SC remarked that climate change could fall within its purview for three
main reasons: if it were to become a driver of conflict, if it were to challenge the im-
plementation of its mandate, or if it were to endanger the process of consolidation
of peace.
In the 2011 presidential statement, the Council remained ambiguous on whether
climate change is an actual threat to peace and security. Instead, it described the link
between climate and security using modals of possibility (may, might). For exam-
ple, the statement did not express concern about climate change but rather about
the “possible adverse effects” that “may, in the long run, aggravate certain existing
threats to international peace and security” ( UNSC 2011b ).
The references to climate change in the remaining thirty-two resolutions and
presidential statements can be divided into four groups. The first group recognizes
the impact of climate change, along with other socioeconomic variables, on peace
and stability in Africa. These documents, which mostly pertain to the agenda items
of “Peace Consolidation in Africa” and “UN missions,” set forward a series of recom-
mendations and requests to field missions, UN organs, and member states. These
include the use of risk assessment and management strategies for climate-related
impacts ( UNSC 2011b , 2017a , 2017b , 2017d , 2018a , 2019a , 2020d ), the develop-
ment of a coordinated and holistic approach to climate issues ( UNSC 2018f , 2019e ),
the use of humanitarian and development activities to counter climate vulnerability
( UNSC 2018b ), the use of an integrated approach to peacebuilding ( UNSC 2019c ),
and the development of national strategies to mitigate climate-related problems
( UNSC 2019g , 2020g , 2020h ). With the Sahel and West Africa region, the prescrip-
tions extend to the support of stabilization operations, the promotion of intera-
gency cooperation and information sharing, and resilience-building ( UNSC 2018g ,
2018c , 2019d , 2019f , 2020a , 2020c , 2020g , 2021b , 2021d ).
The second group of documents recommends UN peace operations to “consider
the environmental impacts” of their operations when fulfilling their mandated tasks
( UNSC 2018d ). This recommendation is, for example, addressed to the MINUSMA,
300 Climate Change in the UN Security Council
MINUSCA, MONUSCO missions. The third group of references, on the agenda
item of “women and peace and security,” reiterates its intention to increase atten-
tion to the security and safety of women vis-à-vis climate change ( UNSC 2015 ). The
fourth group of references, in relation to the question of Cyprus, highlights that co-
operation among both sides of the island would benefit environmental protection
( UNSC 2021a ).
In sum, high-level debates on climate change have not produced substantial state-
ments or resolutions. So far, as it can be seen with the July 20, 2011, presidential
statement, the Council has only put forward a vague and imprecise definition of
climate security. Nonetheless, climate change has been increasingly referenced in
the context of field missions and other agenda items. These references, however,
often lack prescriptive power.
Discourse Analysis
This section analyzes how climate security discourses and storylines have developed
among key actors in a selected pool of SC debates (findings summarized in table 2 ).
The main dataset was filtered to select meeting records with over three hundred ref-
erences to climate change. The selected documents included records from all five
open debates on the agenda item of climate security (online supplement appendix
I). The speeches of member states were then extracted from the documents and
analyzed using NLP to identify semantic patterns. Finally, the speeches were exam-
ined qualitatively using a discourse analytic approach to infer discourses, storylines,
and discursive coalitions.
Tab le 2. Positions of member states and groups during open debates on climate security
4
Due to reasons of methodological tractability, individual speeches from nonper-
manent members were not featured in the analysis. Instead, statements from groups
of states (e.g., small island developing states [SIDS] and G77) were used as a proxy
for rotating members. However, only the findings from permanent members were
reported in detail in the following sections. The rationale for focusing on P5 is
4
The node size is proportional to the number of occurrences of a word in the corpus.
CESARE M. SCARTOZZI 301
two-fold: First, only permanent members hold veto power; hence, no Security Coun-
cil decisions are made without their consent. Second, P5 are large greenhouse gases
emitters that also happen to enforce climate security decisions on developing coun-
tries. In sum, the P5 deserve the utmost attention for both procedural and substan-
tive reasons. Moreover, the discourse coalitions and narratives that were identified
among nonpermanent members are also replicated among the P5.
United Kingdom, United States, and France
The United Kingdom, United States, and France have overlapping positions on cli-
mate security and are often part of discourse coalitions. From a conceptual point
of view, the countries frame climate change as an issue that belongs to the domains
of traditional security, NTS, and human security. The three countries also perceive
climate change as an “existential threat,” a “threat multiplier,” and “threat to inter-
national peace.” Likewise, they share the argument that the socioeconomic impact
of climate change poses security risks that can exacerbate violence and conflict. For
these reasons, they often speak of climate change as a “crisis” that requires “urgent”
countermeasures from the SC.
Delegates of the three countries tend to rely on rhetorical devices (i.e., hyper-
boles and metaphors) to support their narratives. This is ever so evident in the case
of the United Kingdom ( Scartozzi 2021b ). For example, at an open debate in 2021,
Prime Minister Boris Johnson rhetorically asked the audience to think of a young
man “forced onto the road when his home becomes a desert,” who then “goes to
some camp” and “becomes easy prey for violent extremists” ( UNSC 2021c ). In an-
other example, he asked to imagine a farmer who has lost “harvest after harvest to
drought” and thus “switches to poppy because poppies are a hardier crop” ( UNSC
2021c ). Both hypothetical cases, Johnson remarked, would pose a threat to interna-
tional security as extremism and poppies will eventually reach “the streets of all our
cities” ( UNSC 2021c ).
In a similar fashion, the United States presented a storyline in 2021 that narrated
that “the embers of conflict burn brighter and faster” when “people who are already
impoverished lose water” and, forced by the “heat,” abandon their homes to become
“hundreds of millions” of migrants ( UNSC 2021c ). Parallel storylines, albeit less
recurrently, are also found in speeches from France. For example, in 2007 France
stated that “there is no doubt that the loss of arable land could lead to a race for
territory” while the “depletion of resources” and “natural disasters” could increase
competition for food and cause “uncontrolled migratory flows” ( UNSC 2007 ).
These storylines, which serve as securitizing moves, are compelling but largely
unfounded. Not only do they ignore that violence is always multicausal, but they
also fail to consider that adaptive responses to climate change can lead to positive
developments and increased cooperation ( Scartozzi 2021a ). Ultimately, the gross
simplifications on the relationship between climate and security that are made by
the United Kingdom, United States, and France provide a fertile ground for accusa-
tions of fear-mongering and securitization. These accusations, in turn, delegitimize
the UNSC and undermine evidence-based discussions on climate security.
Moving on now to consider the question of climatization, it can be observed that,
again, the three member states find common ground on a set of discourses and
storylines. France affirms that the fight against climate change “is in and of itself
a peace and security issue” ( UNSC 2021c ). The United Kingdom and the United
States argue that emission cuts and the Paris Agreement are part of a long-term so-
lution to security risks. They also recommend mainstreaming disaster risk reduction
and resilience building into SC policies. As pointed out by the United Kingdom, dis-
aster preparedness would “cut in half” the cost of humanitarian aid ( UNSC 2019b ).
Despite the similarities in discourses, the co-occurrence maps of the three states
show different emphases in the speeches of the three countries. The map of the
302 Climate Change in the UN Security Council
Figure 6. (a) UK co-occurrence map
5
(b) UK keywords.
Figure 7. (a) US co-occurrence map (b) US keywords.
United Kingdom ( figure 6 a) indicates several words that appertain to the lexicon
of traditional security as well as risk management and human security. The most
idiosyncratic words are those related to gender issues. The United Kingdom was
the first P5 to speak about gender-based violence and inequality under the agenda
item of climate security. During its 2020 speech, it highlighted that “women and
girls suffer disproportionately” from the impact of climate change and are more ex-
posed to poverty and exploitation ( UNSC 2020f ). Accordingly, the United Kingdom
proposed a gender-sensitive approach to climate security.
The co-occurrence map for the United States ( figure 7 a) highlights the nodal
importance of the word “water.” In 2018, the United States spoke at length of its in-
terventions in Iraq from the perspective of climate security ( UNSC 2018e ). The US
Army Corps of Engineers was sent to oversee the grouting and maintenance of the
Mosul Dam to protect a critical infrastructure that provides water management to
millions of Iraqi citizens. Around the same time, the United States also contributed
funding to the UNDP stabilization program in Iraq, which, among other things, was
set to restore access to household water. Both interventions are presented by the
United States as an effective case of climatization of security, where environmental
policies in a conflict area, supported by military personnel, have positive spillovers
on peacebuilding.
The co-occurrence map for France ( figure 8 a) shows an emphasis on Africa and
biodiversity. Emmanuel Macron, President of France, argued in 2021 that the col-
lapse of biodiversity has important security repercussions, especially for the Sahel
region, and stated that it is imperative for the SC to include biodiversity into its
5
This table is a summary of five open debates on climate security that have been held in the Security Council
between 2007 and 2021. See meetings highlighted in bold in online supplement appendix I.
CESARE M. SCARTOZZI 303
Figure 8. (a) FR co-occurrence map (b) FR keywords.
conflict-prevention agenda. To this end, France committed resources to the Great
Green Wall, an afforestation project in the Sahel region that is set to protect bio-
diversity, create “10 million jobs,” and sequestrate “250 million tons of carbon”
( UNSC 2021c ). The Great Green Wall was finally described as a “very concrete in-
strument in the fight for climate and peace” ( UNSC 2021c ).
Turning now to the keyword graphs of the three countries ( figures 6 b, 7 b, and
8 b), it is possible to notice that the word “threat” has been used less frequently in re-
cent years. This is because the discussions on climate security have been increasingly
adopting a risk perspective. This is evident in the proposals put forward by the three
member states, which are rooted in risk management or climate change approaches
to security. These proposals include the addition of climate-related information in
Secretary-General reporting, the use of climate-risk assessment in the SC and field
missions, the creation of an early warning and early action financing system, the
integration of climate forecasting with conflict-prevention measures, the support
of the international climate regime, and the mainstreaming of climate change in
decision-making and humanitarian work.
In conclusion, the United Kingdom, United States, and France converge on a set
of storylines in support of two narratives: the first argues that climate change is an
existential threat and the second claims that climate change alters the security land-
scape and thus affects SC operations. Their speeches have recurring securitizing
moves, yet their proposals rarely ask for exceptional security measures to be set in
place. More often, the three countries propose approaches to climate security that
involve riskification, climatization, and mainstreaming.
China and Russia
China and Russia hold a rather cautious position on climate security. As formalized
in the 2011 presidential statement, the two countries do recognize a link between
climate and security but only as a hypothetical. They believe that climate change may
cause or aggravate security problems in the long run, but they are doubtful whether
these problems fall within the purview of the security council. Russia, for example,
argued in the 2021 debate that not every conflict (e.g., low-intensity intrastate con-
flicts) poses a threat to international peace and security. China, instead, argued in
2020 that there is “no direct linkage” between climate change and security but only
between development and security risks ( UNSC 2021c ).
The opposition of Russia and China to the agenda item of climate security is not
unitary or coordinated. As the co-occurrence and keyword graphs show ( figures 9
and 10 ), the two countries have unique perspectives on the topic. China has a softer
position on climate security that has evolved over time. From the very beginning,
304 Climate Change in the UN Security Council
Figure 9. (a) CN co-occurrence (b) CN keywords.
Figure 10. (a) RU co-occurrence (b) RU keywords.
China has put forward the argument that climate change is a development issue (see
figure 9 b). In 2021, it reiterated that “sustainable development holds the master key
to solving all problems and eliminating the root causes of conflict” ( UNSC 2021c ).
In parallel to this narrative, China shares with other member states (see table 2 )
the argument that international efforts on climate mitigation and adaptation will
reduce the negative impact of climate on development and, thus, reduce security
risks.
On development, China stresses that the international community has a “com-
mon but differentiated responsibility” (CBDR) to fight climate change and help de-
veloping states, especially SIDS ( UNSC 2019b ). In this regard, China portrays itself
as a force of good, with a proactive role in the Paris Agreement and strong carbon
neutrality pledges. Like France, it argues that its infrastructural projects on climate
change and sustainable development, like the afforestation of the Gobi Desert, play
a key role in mitigating security risks.
In 2020 and 2021, the delegates of China spoke at length about the belt and
road initiative (BRI). The BRI has launched an International Green Development
Coalition with the UN Environmental Programme that is set to help developing
countries mitigate and adapt to climate change. The project, also referred to as the
green Silk Road, is described as a “win-win” policy where China-led infrastructural
projects and loans foster sustainable development and thus mitigate security risks
( UNSC 2021c ). This win–win approach is in turn supported by the narrative that
nation states need to “work together” as “humans and nature share a community of
life” ( UNSC 2020f ).
CESARE M. SCARTOZZI 305
In addition to advertising Chinese-led sustainable development projects,
the country also asks other developed countries to transfer “climate-friendly
technologies” and provide “financial and technical support” to help developing
countries. Moreover, it asks for the international community to implement emis-
sion cuts and “uphold equality and justice” according to the principle of CBDR.
In regard to the work of the Council, it proposes greater information-sharing and
coordination between UN agencies.
On the question of mandate, China stresses that the security implications of cli-
mate change would be better addressed via climate change mitigation (UNFCCC)
or development policies (GA or UNDP). It also argues that discussions on climate
change in the Council are out of place as the organ lacks expertise on the topic
and does not represent a UN-wide consensus. As stated in the 2007 debate, China
believes that discussing climate issues in the Council does not help prevent security
risks because it does not “help countries in their efforts toward mitigation.”
Russia converges with China on several storylines, but it also brings to the debate
a distinctive take on conflict, securitization, and mandate. As can be observed in
figures 10 a and 10 b, the Russian delegates often talk about “threat” and “conflict.”
However, whereas other member states talk about the impact of climate change on
conflict, Russia focuses on the impact of conflict on climate exposure and vulnera-
bility. In 2021, Russia stated that “conflict in and of itself undermines the capacity
of States to increase resilience and adapt to the negative consequences of climate
change, as well as diverting their already limited resources” ( UNSC 2021c ).
According to this narrative, the western interventions in Yugoslavia, Libya, Sa-
hel, and Syria are examples of “the environment being sacrificed to geopolitics”
( UNSC 2021c ). For instance, in Yugoslavia t