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Environmental Security and Conflict

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The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Security Studies

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Introduction

Environmental security refers to the value humans place on the environment as a referent object of security and the risk that something bad can happen to it resulting from environmental change (Barnett 2007). Biswas (2011) makes the point that the environment is both threatened and vulnerable. States and people’s vulnerabilities increase with environmental degradation as well as climate change, and the environment-vulnerability nexus creates a real threat to human and state security (Biswas 2011).

Within the field of security studies, environmental security adds to the broadening and deepening of the concept of security (Collins 2016). It broadens security as it is a contemporary nontraditional human security matter – people’s survival depends on the environment and how it is threatened by environmental change or environmental degradation. The notion of environmental security also deepens the concept of security by extending it to include security of the natural...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Department of Government, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Kingston, Jamaica

    Suzette A. Haughton

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  1. Suzette A. Haughton
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Correspondence to Suzette A. Haughton .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Alberta, Alberta, AB, Canada

    Scott Romaniuk

  2. University for Peace, San Jose, Costa Rica

    Manish Thapa

  3. Nemzetkozi Tanulmanyok Intezet, Rm 503, Corvinus Univ, Inst of Intl Studies, Budapest, Hungary

    Péter Marton

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Haughton, S.A. (2020). Environmental Security and Conflict. In: Romaniuk, S., Thapa, M., Marton, P. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Security Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74336-3_404-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74336-3_404-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-74336-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-74336-3

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