Environment Change and National Security

Manoj Kumar

This book deals with the contemporary and controversial topic of Environmental Change and National Security. Security encompasses various elements of human security that are going to be affected by the vagaries of environmental change, brought about by the relentless unsustainable development path undertaken by the modern society. The question is no longer about what the interrelations between climate change and security are, but about when they would be acknowledged by the policy-makers, rising above a narrow mindset that sees it as militarisation of the debate, rather than a human security issue.

The book takes a prismatic view of the environmental change debate as observed by the military. It has to be well understood that the environmental change negotiations have the economic barometer guiding the sluice of national positions. Since without an international agreement on mitigation the climatic situation and thereby the security environment is likely to worsen, it is paramount for the military organisation to be proactive in considering this additional variable in their operational paradigm. Considering this reality, this book has, for the first time, attempted to draw a template of adaptation measures that the military organisations would need to undertake in view of not only the issues of global warming and ozone layer depletion but also due to the regulatory regimes that have arisen as a consequence of the Kyoto and Montreal Protocols. To give a holistic picture of the economics involved, the emerging areas of ‘green industry’ and the great debacle of Copenhagen have been covered in detail.

It has to be appreciated by the reader that management of the environment, as any other social and security issue, requires good governance; more so as the scale of its adverse impact has no parallel. In India, environmental governance is in its incipient state and already fears are being expressed that it should not degenerate into ‘licence raaj’. ?is issue has, thus, been analysed to observe the path that we as a nation are embarking upon when dealing with the environmental change saga.

Manoj Kumar Group Caption Manoj Kumar VSM, is a mechanical engineering graduate from Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IT BHU), India. He is a serving Indian Air Force (IAF) officer and has held many important staff and field assignments in the last 24 years of his engagement with the IAF. He has been awarded the Presidential medal for distinguished service. He is presently a senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Air Power Studies, working on issues of environmental change and its management by the Indian military. He is a resource person with United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for protection of the ozone layer, and has presented research papers on the subject at both national and international levels. He also provides specialist advice to the IAF on the phase-out of ozone depleting substances. His work has been published by UNEP in the form of a book on ozone protection, Toolkit of Good Practices for Defence Forces. His focus areas also include energy conservation and resource efficiency in the defence forces.