Facing Global Environmental Change

The term of energy security has evolved since the oil shocks of the 1970s and the concept of environmental security was used in the political debates and the scientific discourse since 1989 when the Cold War was winding down. The key thesis of this chapter is that since the early 1990s the concept of security has been fundamentally reconceptualized: It was widened (from the narrow political and military focus to include also the economic, societal and environmental dimensions), deepened (by broadening the reference object from the state [in national and international security] to human beings and humankind [in human security]) and it was sectorialized [by creating many sectoral concepts of food, water, health, soil, climate security et al.].This chapter primarily reviews this reconceptualization of the security concept that has direct implications for the understanding of the notions of environmental security (a new dimension) and energy security (a sectoral concept). This chapter also briefly discusses potential applications for the European cross-border energy supply infrastructure (e.g. of oil and gas pipelines) linking Russia, the Central Asian states and the MENA region with energy-deficient European countries. Oil and gas pipelines face a dual challenge of both geophysical (earthquakes) and hydro meteorological (e.g. forest fires) natural disasters as well as deliberate attacks on them by terrorist groups (e.g. in Iraq and in Algeria), and new political problems between Russia, the Ukraine and NATO countries. This chapter addresses selected environmental security challenges and impacts of both globalization and global environmental change (GEC), environmental security tasks and tools and possible environmental security applications and conceivable forms of institutionalization; it will conclude with a brief discussion of the potential contribution of integrated environment monitoring systems for the cross border energy supply infrastructure. The contextual change of the implications of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea peninsula for pan-European energy security will remain a key political and security challenge for the future relations between NATO countries and Russia.KeywordsEnvironmental and energy securityCross-border energy supply infrastructureEurope

There is overwhelming evidence for a direct and integral relationship between the human condition and the environment. Historically, early civilizations derived their needs from being hunters and collectors, from their association with great rivers and watersheds and biodiversity, in terms of flora and fauna that supported their needs for food, fuel, and shelter. Such examples are the almost mystical and religious relationships that exist between the Nile, the Euphrates, the Ganges, the Amazon and their human populations. It has been argued that the collapse of the great Aztec, Mayan, and Inca civilizations occurred when their exploitation of natural resources reached the point of unsustainability. The desertification of parts of Africa through deforestation and harvesting of firewood has manifested itself in the cycle of famine, disease, and civil wars.1 At the national levels, the irresponsible exploitation of natural resources and the environment has led to degradation of watersheds, landslides from denuded mountain and hill slopes, polluted water and streams, spread of diseases such as malaria and typhoid, and the excessive urbanization resulting from the migration from rural and hinterland areas to the cities and towns in pursuit of the material culture. The relationships between the environment and the human condition are the subject of much debate at international fora. The Convention on Biodiversity (1992) and the Kyoto Protocol (1997) are two examples of the outcomes of policy debates that have been converted into political strategies. The vulnerabilities of the planet to catastrophic events such as tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, floods, and fires are very topical due to the massive loss of life, property damage, investments, and the scale of physical, emotional, and mental suffering. The newest manifestation of conflict after the damage to humankind and the environment from major wars, wars of attrition, chemical warfare, and civil wars, are terrorist attacks on the infrastructure to cause maximum trauma to humankind for political ends. Undoubtedly a combination of demographic growth due to population growth and environmental stress from increasing demand for resources will be a catalyst for social unrest and make for increasing vulnerability to intraand inter-state tensions and conflicts. Human security as now defined puts the individual at the centre of debate, analysis, and policy. “It is the individual who is paramount; government is an instrument of the people to protect human life and enhance human welfare”2. Environmental security is the relative public safety from environmental dangers caused by natural or human processes due to ignorance, accident, mismanagement or design and originating within or across national borders. This relationship between human security and environmental security forms the basis of international and national strategies to cope with the negative manifestations of the lack or absence of such security. Such strategies should stress the importance of international interde-

Background: The concept of human security has fundamentally reoriented security studies away from territorial defense toward the protection of individuals from persistent, non-traditional threats. In the 21st century, India faces a dense and interlocking array of such threats, including economic precarity, health system fragility, educational degradation, gendered vulnerability, and institutional governance deficits. Despite sustained policy expansion and democratic legitimacy, human security outcomes remain uneven, revealing deep structural constraints. Objective: This paper critically examines India’s human security landscape by analyzing how non-traditional threats are generated, mediated, and reproduced through governance arrangements, institutional capacity, and policy design. It advances the argument that India’s human security challenges stem less from resource scarcity and more from fragmented, compliance-oriented governance that insufficiently centers human well-being, trust, and institutional ethics. Methods: The study adopts a qualitative, analytical approach grounded in political economy and public policy analysis. It synthesizes human security theory with sectoral evidence drawn from education, labour, public health, and gender-focused policy domains. The analysis integrates insights from empirical and conceptual scholarship on governance, institutional climate, professional well-being, and policy implementation in the Indian context. Results: The analysis indicates that non-traditional security threats in India are not isolated or sporadic; rather, they are structurally integrated and mutually reinforcing. Educational stress, occupational insecurity, gendered labour vulnerability, and declining organisational trust emerge as critical yet under-theorised dimensions of human security. Governance cultures, leadership practices, and institutional value systems play a decisive role in shaping these outcomes, frequently intensifying vulnerability rather than mitigating it. While digital governance and emerging technologies offer significant potential to enhance service delivery and inclusion, they also risk reproducing exclusion and surveillance-driven control in the absence of ethical, human-centric frameworks. Conclusion: Reframing human security in India requires a decisive shift from state-centric control paradigms toward governance models rooted in institutional ethics, professional well-being, and social trust. Human security must be treated as a foundational outcome of governance rather than a residual policy concern. This paper enhances security studies and public policy scholarship by emphasising the institutional and governance factors that contribute to insecurity, while also providing a comprehensive framework for promoting human security in expansive, heterogeneous democracies.

If the concept of human security is to be meaningful, it must be applicable to any region, developing or developed. Such was the point of departure for authors of two reports on Western and Eastern Europe that were commissioned by UNESCO as part of a series of regional reports aimed at detailing the human security situations in different regions. The present article, compiled by the co-authors of both reports, summarises the reports and critically revisits this premise. By exploring the notion that human security varies according to national, regional and local settings, thus gaining meaning from the context in which the framework is applied, it poses a number of critical questions about the universality of the concept of human security. It argues for a supple concept of human security capable of identifying vulnerabilities in a variety of settings and adapting legitimate responses to them. By exploring the applicability of human security in Eastern and Western Europe it sets out to test the limits of the concept and to contribute to ongoing debate about “broad” and “narrow” conceptions of human security and addresses the criticism of the concept as ideologically skewed. The paper first addresses the subjective question of what human security means in the Western and Eastern European contexts before outlining in broad terms the objective question of what is concretely taking place in Europe. It concludes by suggesting that human security actually lends itself equally to the developed world where mid- or large-scale physical violence is less common as a source of insecurity, concluding that many of the threats faced are of similar nature, if of varying degrees of severity.

At the present time, in research and academic circles both in Russia and abroad the attempts to systematize the human security concept are being made. The purpose of this article is the systematization of the main approaches to the human security concept. The research subject is the human security concept. The research covers the main Russian as well as foreign approaches. The research is based on general scientific methods: historical analysis, the critical and the systems methods. The scientific novelty of the article consists in the systematization of the main approaches to the human security concept. Besides, the author formulates his own approach to this concept based on the existing ones. The author concludes that there are plenty of approaches to the human security concept. Thus, it is necessary to systematize them and define the borders of the human security concept. Until now, the common definition of human security hasn’t been formulated in the research practice, which leads to the broad interpretation of the concept and hampers the practical activity. We need a system view on global development that would include a human, a state and international organizations. It is necessary to enshrine the definition of “human security” in international legislation, clearly defining all main threats and challenges affecting human security, and to establish the approach common for all national standards through which the human security concept will be implemented.   

Autorka analizuje związek między prawem międzynarodowym a koncepcją bez­pieczeństwa ludzkiego, które pojawiła się w latach 90-tych XX wieku. Artykuł jest podzielony na trzy części. Część 1 przedstawia pojęcie bezpieczeństwa ludzkiego, jego genezę i treść. Część 2 analizuje relacje między bezpieczeństwem ludzkim a pra­wem międzynarodowym i krótko rozważa najbardziej reprezentatywne aspekty prawa międzynarodowego, w tym międzynarodowego orzecznictwa, które w opinii autorki odzwierciedlają imperatywy bezpieczeństwa ludzkiego. Wreszcie wnioski końcowe dostarczają odpowiedzi na postawione pytania i wskazują na wartość dodaną koncep­cji bezpieczeństwa ludzkiego. Pytania brzmią następująco: W jaki sposób bezpieczeń­stwo ludzkie może wzmocnić działania międzynarodowe (działania oparte na prawie międzynarodowym)? Gdzie w prawie międzynarodowym odzwierciedlone jest bez­pieczeństwo ludzkie? Jaka jest rola prawa międzynarodowego dla bezpieczeństwa ludzkiego? Biorąc to wszystko pod uwagę, jaka jest wartość dodana przyjęcia kon­cepcji bezpieczeństwa ludzkiego? Artykuł ten jest nieuchronnie interdyscyplinarny, ponieważ łączy perspektywy prawa międzynarodowego i stosunków międzynarodo­wych.

This paper frames the approach to determining policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which either prioritise human health security protection or economic vulnerability. In this paper, the human security concept will be used to explain COVID-19 as a health security problem due to the existence of an existential threat. However, the same approach is not applicable in looking at COVID-19 as an economic security problem. Because the existential threat is less visible in human economic security aspects, it tends to be more appropriate to look at COVID-19 as the stressor that strengthens human vulnerabilities. This paper uses a qualitative descriptive approach by using the conceptual framework to analyse news, reports, books, and academic journals as the sources of data. The writers analyse and group the data by types of security, as well as based upon the root causes that contribute to human vulnerability, then compare both sectors. This paper argues that in the pandemic situation, human health is threatened, whereas the economy is at a vulnerable position due to COVID-19. This paper also argues that COVID-19 has not yet threatened human economic security in the early stage, but soon, it will. As a result, stakeholders need to prioritise policies based on the human health security approach.

The water-energy nexus has increasingly been recognized as one of the key factors underlying the sustainability and security of future water and energy supply. An improved understanding of this issue is required to guide political decision-making on the choice of technologies that can better lead towards water-energy efficient scenarios. One of the biggest challenges relies on the reduction of uncertainties over selected variables, and the analysis of trends and interrelations that may have an impact on the future of water and energy security. This paper presents the results of a Delphi study on prospective and future trends of the water-energy nexus and energy technologies. Based on the opinion and contributions of experts on the topic from different backgrounds, institutions and disciplines, the results indicate the importance of technology innovation and transfer as the main conditioning factors to achieve energy and water security. In terms of energy, biofuels and shale gas are perceived to have the highest potential impacts on water quantity and especially on water quality. Thus their evolution will be influential for future water and environmental security. Biofuels in particular, together with the rising demands for food, have the highest prospects for an increase in agricultural water withdrawals.

The papers in this special themed section reflect on, explore, and analyse national and local government policy responses to the recent pandemic between 2020 and 2022, and the short- and longer-term impacts on human security for different groups of people and places, with a particular focus on the UK and Korea. Drawing on an integrated critical human security and state capacity approach and qualitative methodology, they contribute to and further develop debates on the social policy responses to the pandemic and their scarring effects. They also highlight the key role that a state capacity for human security approach can play in promoting inclusive risk governance, recognising and addressing constellations of vulnerability, risk and insecurity, and highlighting the rapid and uneven distribution of the benefits of digital technologies and its potential from compromising as well as enhancing human security.

Human security and universal health coverage: Japan's vision for the G7 Hiroshima Summit

Analyzes the common features of various versions of the theory of the security of the individual and society (human security), the possible consequences of its practical implementation. Highlights the evolution of traditional approaches to the study of international security; it examines the basic tenets and conclusions of the theory of the security of the individual and society; the consequences of their practical application . The concept of human security contains this basic postulate: the radical expansion of the field of security and the displacement of this field of the state as Central actor for the formation of a cosmopolitan universal, politico-moral community safety. Draws attention to the need to go beyond the traditional, military-strategic understanding of security, the disclosure of multidimensionality and depth of the issues involved. Key words : safety; «human security»; human security and society; the concept of human security.

Human Security is one of the complex challenges in South Asian region which has been continuously neglected by the policymakers due to the lack of state-centric comprehensive tendencies for the regional security paradigms. In this context, this research work attempts to encourage hostile South Asian nation-states to amend their hostile state-centric behaviors towards people-centric approaches for peace and security in the region. Although, the concept of human security is poorly concentrated in the region yet huge potential still exists which can successfully attract the masses for continuous cooperation to deal human security challenges in the region. The primary aim of this paper is to explore the capacities of South Asian nuclear powers India and Pakistan to combine the elements of their soft and hard powers into a smart power strategy to advance their mutual gains for sustainable human security. To explore the potential capabilities of people-centric approaches in India-Pakistan state-centric tendencies, this paper attempts to answer two questions related to smart power engagement potential for developing a winning strategy.

Climate Change and Environmental Security: Bringing Realism Back In

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, there is a growing sense of insecurity felt by many citizens around the world. Sustainable security, with roots in the sustainable development and human security literature, seeks positive transformations for the co-evolving and mutually dependent human-environmental condition by integrating (and subsuming) national, human, environmental, and energy security concerns and capitalizing on opportunities provided by human creativity, diplomatic openings, modernization and environmental change. The field of Sustainable Security Systems Engineering is proposed for protecting, restoring, designing, and implementing a set of integrated natural and man-made processes that equitably and responsibly meet the biophysical needs of human communities, while maintaining long-term security, respecting financial constraints, meeting ecological limits, and improving institutional arrangements for transparent and effective governance. Scenario planning is shown to help promote sustainable security by identifying the preconditions of instability and helping to proactively address them in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. The six papers published in this featured collection cross policy domains, geographic, political, and sectoral boundaries and were discussed at forums sponsored by the Systems Engineering and Global Policy group. Collectively, they demonstrate the quality, breadth and depth of systems engineering methodologies that are used to promote sustainable security.

Water resources and their management are critical to human security and are essential for achieving sustainable development (UN-Water 2013). According to UNDP (1994), human security is a people-centered concept and implies safety from both chronic and sudden threats or disruptions. Human security is composed of seven pillars: economic, food, health, environmental, personal, political, and community security (UNDP 1994), but other dimensions have since been suggested such as livelihood or energy security (O’Brian and Leichenko 2007), and further developments of the human security concept have been proposed (e.g., Barnett et al. 2010; O’Brian and Leichenko 2007; these two papers also include references to groundwater resources, although these are not a central discussion point). Most of the preceding dimensions depend on having access to sufficient freshwater of adequate quality. In many arid and semi-arid regions, groundwater resources represent the main source or an essential supplement to other sources of available freshwater and thus play an important role for everyday livelihoods and human security (e.g., Burke and Moench 2000; UNESCO 1999; UNESCO-WWAP 2003). Groundwater can play an equally important role in environmental disaster-related emergencies (Vrba and Verhagen 2011).