Energy & Climate

The issue of climate change has long been discussed by states around the world. As the issue becomes more prominent, the threat of climate change must be understood and the necessary response agreed by all.

International organisations, domestic governments, media outlets, and non-governmental organisations have all played a part in securitising the invisible war against climate change. Securitisation as a process allows a state or, in this case, a network of interconnected states to transform an issue into a security threat. This in turn allows for extreme measures to be taken, mitigating said threat.

The securitisation has taken many forms, ranging from international law to domestic policies. The Paris Agreement (2015) is a clear example of how climate change has been securitised on an international level; a mutual understanding has been provided and a clear dialogue created to discuss the issues. The collective understanding is that a response to the threat is essential to securitisation. The Paris Agreement provided this, with 195 states, including the UK, signing the treaty. The Paris Agreement has not fully securitised climate change by any means, however it is a huge step in that direction. Climate change has been an issue for a long time, recognised by numerous states. The securitisation of climate change starts with recognition of the issue, then a reaction: the Paris Agreement. In short, the treaty outlined a clear goal for states: to reduce their contribution to climate change, therefore stopping the global temperature rising by more than two degrees, with a further emphasis on 1.5 degrees where possible.

Securitisation has unfolded as states have agreed that climate change is a threat to their security, with the potential to compromise their domestic policies on economics, migration, society, welfare, and so on. Although each state that signed the treaty acknowledges this threat, the level of threat perceived by each state varies.

For example, the Alliance of Small Island States experiences higher threats due to rising sea levels. It is essential to recognise that the commitment demonstrated by states reflects the level of threat they perceive.

This influences the way states deal with the issue. The Paris Agreement allows for perceptual differences creating legal obligations to the agreed target of temperature change, while allowing space for individual domestic policy.

Securitisation is clear as this process relies on the collective understanding which, in practice, is almost impossible to achieve. However, the Paris Agreement is a successful tool in the securitisation of climate change as it creates a mutual agreement and collective understanding by the states.

It can be argued the UK has securitised climate change domestically. The Government has passed legislation committing the country to reducing carbon emissions relative to that of 1990 by 100% by 2050, commonly referred to as ‘net zero’.

Although the policy attempts to contribute towards the global target outlined in the Paris Agreement, the UK was not legally obliged to reduce emissions by 100% and could have taken alternative measures. As climate change has been securitised domestically, however, the UK government was able to draft policy to reduce the level of threat.
The policy implemented in the UK, such as banning the sale of fossil fuel cars by 2030, will affect many people everyday. The effects could damage the economy with job losses due to the limited number of electrical car manufactures in the UK and the increased costs that businesses will incur. Nevertheless it can be observed that the securitisation of climate change has taken place, thus leading to this policy. This subsequently might have negative economic consequences, but this is viewed as acceptable as the threat of climate change is mitigated by policy and mutually agreed by citizens, as they elected the Government and granted them the legitimacy to implement policy.

Securitisation is a useful process to tackle a large-scale issue such as climate change as mutual agreement and collective understanding is the best weapon a state can deploy when fighting an invisible security threat. As such, climate change has become securitised internationally using legally binding obligations, while simultaneously being securitised domestically through government legislation. Therefore a legitimacy to intervene is created, which leads to legislation and government policy designed to reduce the threat. Overall framing climate change through a security lens is positive, because it directly affects nations and their citizens – similarly to an ordinary security threat. As the issue is securitised further it would be reasonable to assume a greater understanding and agreement on retaliation will arise, furthermore reducing the level of threat and eradicating climate change altogether.

Bailey Gould studies International Relations and Politics at the University of Sheffield.

Reduced tourism numbers may have meant a drop in CO2 emissions, but local travel carries environmental risks too, particularly for the biodiversity of national parks.

It was inevitable that international travel would be limited when Britain first went into lockdown in March of last year. In the summer of 2020, ‘staycations’ were up 500%; families had traded their all-inclusive week in Corfu for a less exotic trip to Cornwall. Even as the possibility of travel abroad reemerges, the risks and uncertainty involved will still deter many.

In light of this, Britons may utilise the beauty of their 15 national parks to escape to, with lockdown lifted. From the Lake District to the Brecon Beacons, national parks have been a feature of the UK landscape since 1951. The regions aim to preserve nature and heritage against property developers, whilst providing the public with a glimpse of the picturesque scenery that their country has to offer.

Tourists are not wrong to take advantage of the parks. Their existence is crucial to exhibit the beauty of the environment. Yet, the worry remains that, if 2020 saw record numbers of visitors flock to these places, 2021 may see a correlation between swelling tourist numbers and lamentable damage to the habitats that these areas strive to protect.

Using the USA as an example, sightseers have congregated around the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls since air travel was invented. Areas of national beauty are appreciated, but at the same time spoilt by litter, air pollution, and noise. Rangers at Yellowstone label tourists as the real “wild animals” due to their swamping of local car parks, road rage, and debris that they spew all over the local ecosystems. More than 300m people visited American national parks in 2015 and this number has only grown since.

Britain’s parks accommodate significantly fewer visitors every year, totalling 13.71m in 2019 over all 15 locations. Although this figure is far less than numbers recorded in the USA, it is tallied pre-COVID. This summer, the appeal of the parks will only lure more sightseers in if many international destinations are placed on the Government’s so-called “red list”. Tourism to British parks has a very realistic potential to follow the same upwards trajectory as the USA. This could leave British national parks vulnerable to the environmental issues seen in places such as Yellowstone.

Preserving national parks is of global interest too. Foreign and domestic forests aid in carbon sequestration. Trees drain carbon dioxide from the air by acting as natural sinks. Tourists harming these designated basins with pollution only creates a further imbalance of carbon in the air. Consequently, Britain should not be the only country that takes into account the effects of staycations this year.

The Government must make the protection of national parks’ biodiversity a priority. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s 30 by 30 pledge commits to protecting 30% of the UK’s landmass by 2030 in efforts to enhance biodiversity. Westminster has also promised £40m for creating green jobs in these areas in the Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution.

However, these policies may face difficulty this summer. Any limitations on sightseer numbers could result in the hospitality sectors of the rural towns surrounding the parks to perish, and the pandemic has already cost the Government a great deal of money. The industry has suffered significantly from lockdowns and any spike in tourism could greatly benefit the local communities.

Perhaps as the threat to national parks is an international issue, there should be cross-border solutions to ensure their protection globally. For instance, 14.7% of Earth’s landmass is protected by a national park status, however less than a fifth of countries have actually committed to their duties of preserving biodiversity in these places. There must be an international response to prevent countries neglecting their nature reserves as they create balance for the rest of the world.

The Foundation for Environmental Education’s creation of the Blue Flag Beach Award provides countries with an incentive to keep their beaches clean. The achievement grants coastlines prestige for preserving the environmental integrity of their waters. Perhaps, a similar scheme could run to preserve the biodiversity of national parks. Countries could be given an internationally recognised ‘Green Trophy’ certificate for maintaining their parks.

National parks are there to be enjoyed, not squandered. However, the world must start treating them with respect to ensure their continuation and contribution to hindering climate change.

Emily Wilson studies Politics and International Relations at the University of Manchester.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many experts are calling for Europe to rebuild with a green economy at its core. With coal consumption plummeting and decarbonisation efforts becoming cheaper, does this finally spell the end of coal?

British and European history is characterised by coal and steel. It helped to spur the rise in steam technologies and spearheaded the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago, which paved the way for the rise of globalisation. Whilst coal consumption dwindled throughout the 20th century, in favour of petroleum and natural gas, it has remained a vital part of Europe’s energy mix. That is, until now.

At the start of 2010, coal was responsible for up to 30% of the UK’s energy mix (second only to natural gas). At the beginning of 2020, coal had dropped to a staggeringly low 3.7% and the lockdown-related drop in energy consumption contributed to the UK’s longest coal-free period of almost 68 days (interrupted only because of a maintenance period at the Drax coal plant, which required it to generate energy). Though a significant drop in only 10 years, it is critical to unpack how this has come about and what it spells for coal as a fuel source.

As part of the UK’s Clean Growth Strategy, announced in 2018, the Government has outlined its plan to phase out the use of unabated coal to produce electricity by 2024. This is largely being facilitated through investment into renewable energy options such as offshore wind and solar PV, but also the transition of existing coal power production to biomass power production.

In addition, the cost of production for renewable energy sources has dropped significantly thanks to innovation and government assistance. Though the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) scheme (which was designed to promote the uptake of small-scale renewable and low-carbon electricity) was phased out at the beginning of 2019, the alternative Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme has filled the void for subsidies and grants for renewable energy alternatives. It has meant a significant amount of investment into large-scale wind projects some of which are estimated to have a capacity of over 1200MW.

Does this spell the inevitable end of coal as an energy source? In the UK, this is likely. The Clean Growth Plan is a strategy which sets out proposals for decarbonising all sectors of the UK economy through the 2020s. It commits to phasing out unabated coal by 2024, which is fully feasible given its decline as part of the national energy mix that coal in all forms can be eliminated from the energy system by 2030 through transition to more efficient, renewable options.

Will Europe be able to follow suit? That depends on what concessions and agreements are established in the coming European Commission and economic recovery schemes post-COVID-19 such as Next Generation EU.

Last year, EU leaders failed to get unanimous agreement for a 2050 decarbonisation target at summit after summit. Whilst some states have chosen to push forward with legislation on coal – such as Germany’s Kohleverstromungsbeendigungsgesetz (Coal Exit Law) – and the Czech Republic backing the EU’s green recovery plan, their more coal-dependent neighbours will hesitate to jump on the bandwagon. Poland, for instance, has not eased on their coal stance even despite the impact on health and air quality as a result of reduced coal consumption during the pandemic and its conservative President-elect is unlikely to push the green agenda. A ‘green recovery’ is still a contentious topic in European energy realms, with multiple concerns for the economic impact on jobs and industry eclipsing the need for meeting climate targets.

The EU’s Green Deal is estimated to cost up to €1tn, with many experts saying this is only a third of the necessary expenditure for full decarbonisation. But with bold ambitions to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, and even a reduction in emissions by 50% over the course of the next 10 years, significant costs are inevitable.

There is a potential return on investment on the horizon. The EU has been the centre of a rise in jobs in the environmental and sustainability sector, contributing significant amounts to national economies. Despite Brexit, the UK is well poised to experience the same benefits.

As part of this future, the EU-wide phase-out of coal and carbon-intensive fuel sources will eventually become reality. In order to meet climate targets this not only must happen in this decade, but will occur with the natural expiration of coal.

Micheil Page is Head of Agora’s Energy & Climate Programme.

Britain’s departure from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a golden opportunity for the Government to reform the way the UK farms sheep. The EU policy has previously prioritised mass production of livestock over environmental concerns and actual consumer demand.

Sheep oversaturate both economic markets and the English countryside as a legacy of farming subsidies. This poses a threat to our environment. Cows are also unknowing adversaries in our plight to lowering carbon emissions, however sheep rearing demands much more space and is far less economically productive then other agricultural pursuits.

The cost of higher carbon emissions

Mighty forests have been decimated and strategically replaced with sparse fields that enhance the capacity and food supply of the livestock that inhabit them. Making up 40% of the entire nation, British uplands are incompatible with agricultural farming so have been utilised as pastures for animals.

In England, sheep farming demands 44% of our upland land mass, whilst cows are granted 29% of the space to graze. These figures become increasingly unsettling when compared to the 13% of the UK we have generously allocated to our woodlands.

This deforestation has left the UK well acquainted with higher carbon emissions by rationing the natural absorbers of the gas: trees. Trees respire inversely to humans by taking in carbon and releasing oxygen, but a forest’s ability to process carbon is greatly affected by the number of trees that are actually in it. Through replanting efforts, forest coverage in England has increased 7.8% since 1905. However, this is barely enough to combat the 315.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide Britain produced in 2019.

The term ‘deforestation’ carries connotations of butchered rainforests in Brazil. It has been coined as an exotic term, barring the idea of it ever happening in the UK. Yet the only difference between Britain and developing countries cutting the trees down is that the former began prioritising farmland over woodland over 1,000 years ago. Northern Europe’s gift of naturally superior farming terrain has left a cultural brand on it. It signifies that it has always been okay to take from our environment, as that is what we have always done.

However, it is the sheep we are breeding now that are becoming the prime carbon culprits. Sheep select the most appetising plants, with tree saplings being a particular nutritious delicacy. This prevents the expansion of woodlands, and newly planted carbon trees are consumed as saplings in bulk before they can grow.

Ignoring evolution

Britain once boasted complex food chains with predators such as brown bears mediating the numbers of farmable livestock. The extinction of these creatures directly correlates to the threat they posed to our ancestors’ farm animals. In 1281 King Edward had already requested the killing of every wolf in England in order to protect pastoral farming. Biodiversity had been evicted and replaced with favourable conditions that would allow the mass production of animals.

Darwinism explains how species evolve over millions of years to best adhere to the demands of their environment. This concept has been altered by the explosion of our sheep population since the Middle Ages, when these natural predators were hunted to extinction. As seen in 2018, when Britain’s sheep population reached 22.5m.

Other species are unable to evolve; at the same time the livestock population rises. Sheep in their bulk devour the best produce in the fields, leaving other grazing species under threat. The destruction of the forests for their behalf means that many other animals that rely on the woodland for food and protection are becoming additionally vulnerable.

Where to point the finger

The UK has a culturally ingrained misconception that the demand for sheep is still high. Mutton and lamb consumption only accounts for 1.2% of the average Briton’s diet.

Britain’s relationship with the EU also dictates the success of sheep farmers. Over 30% of production is exported and 90% of that is to the EU. A ‘no deal’ Brexit would expose UK farmers’ exports to World Trade Organisation tariffs that could add 50% more to the production costs of sheep.

COVID-19 also greatly shrank the domestic market for sheep. Lamb is a popular meat consumed at pubs and restaurants. After these institutions were forced to close the market for the product fell sharply. This contributed to the price of the averaged cull ewe plummeting by £37 to £71.70 in mid-March.

Farming tends to go back generations and provides steady incomes for 34,000 households, often in poorer communities across Britain. What is needed is not the removal of sheep farming altogether but instead the reworking of the system with environmental problems that will soon parallel its lack of economic productivity. Following the end of the Brexit transition period and the UK’s departure from the CAP, the Government will be able to make these necessary changes.

Emily Wilson studies Politics and International Relations at the University of Manchester.