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1. Characteristic:
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Credit (60-69) Good standard.
Pass (50-59)
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are crafted at an
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many minor gaps, shortcomings, or errors are present.
Use of Evidence:
The writer employs evidence
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The essay reflects only fair or poor use
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consistently
consistently

8. throughout to
of evidence
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throughout to
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9. issue with claims
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The essay reflects fair or poor research
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which has enabled it

10. which has enabled
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11. mix of primary and
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13. Referencing:
The essay is meticulously
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entirely.
also meticulously accurate.
are mostly accurate, but a few shortcomings exist.
some shortcomings.
gaps or errors.

15. IT STraTegy:
ISSueS and PracTIceS
This page intentionally left blank
IT STraTegy:
ISSueS and PracTIceS
T h i r d E d i t i o n
James D. McKeen
Queen’s University
Heather A. Smith
Queen’s University
Boston Columbus Indianapolis New York San Francisco Upper
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permission(s), write to: Rights and Permissions Department.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McKeen, James D.
IT strategy: issues and practices/James D. McKeen, Queen’s
University, Heather A. Smith,
Queen’s University.—Third edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-13-354424-4 (alk. paper)

17. ISBN 0-13-354424-9 (alk. paper)
1. Information technology—Management. I. Smith, Heather A.
II. Title.
HD30.2.M3987 2015
004.068—dc23
2014017950
ISBN–10: 0-13-354424-9
ISBN–13: 978-0-13-354424-4
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CoNTENTS
Preface xiii
About the Authors xxi
Acknowledgments xxii
Section I Delivering Value with IT 1
Chapter 1 DeVelopIng anD DelIVerIng on The IT Value
propoSITIon 2
Peeling the Onion: Understanding IT Value 3
What Is IT Value? 3
Where Is IT Value? 4
Who Delivers IT Value? 5
When Is IT Value Realized? 5

18. The Three Components of the IT Value Proposition 6
Identification of Potential Value 7
Effective Conversion 8
Realizing Value 9
Five Principles for Delivering Value 10
Principle 1. Have a Clearly Defined Portfolio Value
Management
Process 11
Principle 2. Aim for Chunks of Value 11
Principle 3. Adopt a Holistic Orientation to Technology Value
11
Principle 4. Aim for Joint Ownership of Technology Initiatives
12
Principle 5. Experiment More Often 12
Conclusion 12 • References 13
Chapter 2 DeVelopIng IT STraTegy for BuSIneSS Value 15
Business and IT Strategies: Past, Present, and Future 16
Four Critical Success Factors 18
The Many Dimensions of IT Strategy 20
Toward an IT Strategy-Development Process 22
Challenges for CIOs 23
Conclusion 25 • References 25
Chapter 3 lInkIng IT To BuSIneSS MeTrICS 27
Business Measurement: An Overview 28

19. Key Business Metrics for IT 30
v
vi Contents
Designing Business Metrics for IT 31
Advice to Managers 35
Conclusion 36 • References 36
Chapter 4 BuIlDIng a STrong relaTIonShIp
wITh The BuSIneSS 38
The Nature of the Business–IT Relationship 39
The Foundation of a Strong Business–IT
Relationship 41
Building Block #1: Competence 42
Building Block #2: Credibility 43
Building Block #3: Interpersonal Interaction 44
Building Block #4: Trust 46
Conclusion 48 • References 48
Appendix A The Five IT Value Profiles 50
Appendix B Guidelines for Building a Strong Business–IT
Relationship 51
Chapter 5 CoMMunICaTIng wITh BuSIneSS ManagerS 52

20. Communication in the Business–IT Relationship 53
What Is “Good” Communication? 54
Obstacles to Effective Communication 56
“T-Level” Communication Skills for IT Staff 58
Improving Business–IT Communication 60
Conclusion 61 • References 61
Appendix A IT Communication Competencies 63
Chapter 6 BuIlDIng BeTTer IT leaDerS froM
The BoTToM up 64
The Changing Role of the IT Leader 65
What Makes a Good IT Leader? 67
How to Build Better IT Leaders 70
Investing in Leadership Development: Articulating the Value
Proposition 73
Conclusion 74 • References 75
MInI CaSeS
Delivering Business Value with IT at Hefty Hardware 76
Investing in TUFS 80
IT Planning at ModMeters 82
Contents vii

21. Section II IT governance 87
Chapter 7 CreaTIng IT ShareD SerVICeS 88
IT Shared Services: An Overview 89
IT Shared Services: Pros and Cons 92
IT Shared Services: Key Organizational Success Factors 93
Identifying Candidate Services 94
An Integrated Model of IT Shared Services 95
Recommmendations for Creating Effective IT
Shared Services 96
Conclusion 99 • References 99
Chapter 8 a ManageMenT fraMework for
IT SourCIng 100
A Maturity Model for IT Functions 101
IT Sourcing Options: Theory Versus Practice 105
The “Real” Decision Criteria 109
Decision Criterion #1: Flexibility 109
Decision Criterion #2: Control 109
Decision Criterion #3: Knowledge Enhancement 110
Decision Criterion #4: Business Exigency 110
A Decision Framework for Sourcing IT Functions 111

22. Identify Your Core IT Functions 111
Create a “Function Sourcing” Profile 111
Evolve Full-Time IT Personnel 113
Encourage Exploration of the Whole Range
of Sourcing Options 114
Combine Sourcing Options Strategically 114
A Management Framework for Successful
Sourcing 115
Develop a Sourcing Strategy 115
Develop a Risk Mitigation Strategy 115
Develop a Governance Strategy 116
Understand the Cost Structures 116
Conclusion 117 • References 117
Chapter 9 The IT BuDgeTIng proCeSS 118
Key Concepts in IT Budgeting 119
The Importance of Budgets 121
The IT Planning and Budget Process 123
viii Contents
Corporate Processes 123

23. IT Processes 125
Assess Actual IT Spending 126
IT Budgeting Practices That Deliver Value 127
Conclusion 128 • References 129
Chapter 10 ManagIng IT- BaSeD rISk 130
A Holistic View of IT-Based Risk 131
Holistic Risk Management: A Portrait 134
Developing a Risk Management Framework 135
Improving Risk Management Capabilities 138
Conclusion 139 • References 140
Appendix A A Selection of Risk Classification
Schemes 141
Chapter 11 InforMaTIon ManageMenT: The nexuS
of BuSIneSS anD IT 142
Information Management: How Does IT Fit? 143
A Framework For IM 145
Stage One: Develop an IM Policy 145
Stage Two: Articulate the Operational
Components 145
Stage Three: Establish Information Stewardship 146
Stage Four: Build Information Standards 147

24. Issues In IM 148
Culture and Behavior 148
Information Risk Management 149
Information Value 150
Privacy 150
Knowledge Management 151
The Knowing–Doing Gap 151
Getting Started in IM 151
Conclusion 153 • References 154
Appendix A Elements of IM Operations 155
MInI CaSeS
Building Shared Services at RR Communications 156
Enterprise Architecture at Nationstate Insurance 160
IT Investment at North American Financial 165
Contents ix
Section III IT-enabled Innovation 169
Chapter 12 InnoVaTIon wITh IT 170
The Need for Innovation: An Historical

25. Perspective 171
The Need for Innovation Now 171
Understanding Innovation 172
The Value of Innovation 174
Innovation Essentials: Motivation, Support,
and Direction 175
Challenges for IT leaders 177
Facilitating Innovation 179
Conclusion 180 • References 181
Chapter 13 BIg DaTa anD SoCIal CoMpuTIng 182
The Social Media/Big Data Opportunity 183
Delivering Business Value with Big Data 185
Innovating with Big Data 189
Pulling in Two Different Directions: The Challenge
for IT Managers 190
First Steps for IT Leaders 192
Conclusion 193 • References 194
Chapter 14 IMproVIng The CuSToMer experIenCe:
an IT perSpeCTIVe 195
Customer Experience and Business value 196
Many Dimensions of Customer Experience 197
The Role of Technology in Customer Experience 199

26. Customer Experience Essentials for IT 200
First Steps to Improving Customer Experience 203
Conclusion 204 • References 204
Chapter 15 BuIlDIng BuSIneSS InTellIgenCe 206
Understanding Business Intelligence 207
The Need for Business Intelligence 208
The Challenge of Business Intelligence 209
The Role of IT in Business Intelligence 211
Improving Business Intelligence 213
Conclusion 216 • References 216
x Contents
Chapter 16 enaBlIng CollaBoraTIon wITh IT 218
Why Collaborate? 219
Characteristics of Collaboration 222
Components of Successful Collaboration 225
The Role of IT in Collaboration 227
First Steps for Facilitating Effective Collaboration 229
Conclusion 231 • References 232
MInI CaSeS
Innovation at International Foods 234

27. Consumerization of Technology at IFG 239
CRM at Minitrex 243
Customer Service at Datatronics 246
Section IV IT portfolio Development and Management 251
Chapter 17 applICaTIon porTfolIo ManageMenT 252
The Applications Quagmire 253
The Benefits of a Portfolio Perspective 254
Making APM Happen 256
Capability 1: Strategy and Governance 258
Capability 2: Inventory Management 262
Capability 3: Reporting and Rationalization 263
Key Lessons Learned 264
Conclusion 265 • References 265
Appendix A Application Information 266
Chapter 18 ManagIng IT DeManD 270
Understanding IT Demand 271
The Economics of Demand Management 273
Three Tools for Demand management 273
Key Organizational Enablers for Effective Demand
Management 274

28. Strategic Initiative Management 275
Application Portfolio Management 276
Enterprise Architecture 276
Business–IT Partnership 277
Governance and Transparency 279
Conclusion 281 • References 281
Contents xi
Chapter 19 CreaTIng anD eVolVIng a TeChnology
roaDMap 283
What is a Technology Roadmap? 284
The Benefits of a Technology Roadmap 285
External Benefits (Effectiveness) 285
Internal Benefits (Efficiency) 286
Elements of the Technology Roadmap 286
Activity #1: Guiding Principles 287
Activity #2: Assess Current Technology 288
Activity #3: Analyze Gaps 289
Activity #4: Evaluate Technology
Landscape 290

29. Activity #5: Describe Future Technology 291
Activity #6: Outline Migration Strategy 292
Activity #7: Establish Governance 292
Practical Steps for Developing a Technology
Roadmap 294
Conclusion 295 • References 295
Appendix A Principles to Guide a Migration
Strategy 296
Chapter 20 enhanCIng DeVelopMenT
proDuCTIVITy 297
The Problem with System Development 298
Trends in System Development 299
Obstacles to Improving System Development
Productivity 302
Improving System Development Productivity: What we
know that Works 304
Next Steps to Improving System Development
Productivity 306
Conclusion 308 • References 308
Chapter 21 InforMaTIon DelIVery: IT’S eVolVIng role 310
Information and IT: Why Now? 311
Delivering Value Through Information 312

30. Effective Information Delivery 316
New Information Skills 316
New Information Roles 317
New Information Practices 317
xii Contents
New Information Strategies 318
The Future of Information Delivery 319
Conclusion 321 • References 322
MInI CaSeS
Project Management at MM 324
Working Smarter at Continental Furniture International 328
Managing Technology at Genex Fuels 333
Index 336
PREFACE
Today, with information technology (IT) driving constant
business transformation,
overwhelming organizations with information, enabling 24/7
global operations, and
undermining traditional business models, the challenge for
business leaders is not
simply to manage IT, it is to use IT to deliver business value.

31. Whereas until fairly recently,
decisions about IT could be safely delegated to technology
specialists after a business
strategy had been developed, IT is now so closely integrated
with business that, as one
CIO explained to us, “We can no longer deliver business
solutions in our company
without using technology so IT and business strategy must
constantly interact with
each other.”
What’s New in This Third Edition?
• Six new chapters focusing on current critical
issues in IT management, including
IT shared services; big data and social computing; business
intelligence; manag-
ing IT demand; improving the customer experience; and
enhancing development
productivity.
• Two significantly revised chapters: on delivering
IT functions through different
resourcing options; and innovating with IT.
• Twonew mini cases based on real companies
and real IT management situations:
Working Smarter at Continental Furniture and Enterprise
Architecture at Nationstate
Insurance.
• A revised structure based on reader
feedback with six chapters and two mini cases
from the second edition being moved to the Web site.
All too often, in our efforts to prepare future executives to deal

32. effectively with
the issues of IT strategy and management, we lead them into a
foreign country where
they encounter a different language, different culture, and
different customs. Acronyms
(e.g., SOA, FTP/IP, SDLC, ITIL, ERP), buzzwords (e.g.,
asymmetric encryption, proxy
servers, agile, enterprise service bus), and the widely adopted
practice of abstraction
(e.g., Is a software monitor a person, place, or thing?) present
formidable “barriers to
entry” to the technologically uninitiated, but more important,
they obscure the impor-
tance of teaching students how to make business decisions about
a key organizational
resource. By taking a critical issues perspective, IT Strategy:
Issues and Practices treats IT
as a tool to be leveraged to save and/or make money or
transform an organization—not
as a study by itself.
As in the first two editions of this book, this third edition
combines the experi-
ences and insights of many senior IT managers from leading-
edge organizations with
thorough academic research to bring important issues in IT
management to life and
demonstrate how IT strategy is put into action in contemporary
businesses. This new
edition has been designed around an enhanced set of critical
real-world issues in IT
management today, such as innovating with IT, working with
big data and social media,
xiii

33. xiv Preface
enhancing customer experience, and designing for business
intelligence and introduces
students to the challenges of making IT decisions that will have
significant impacts on
how businesses function and deliver value to stakeholders.
IT Strategy: Issues and Practices focuses on how IT is changing
and will continue to
change organizations as we now know them. However, rather
than learning concepts
“free of context,” students are introduced to the complex
decisions facing real organi-
zations by means of a number of mini cases. These provide an
opportunity to apply
the models/theories/frameworks presented and help students
integrate and assimilate
this material. By the end of the book, students will have the
confidence and ability to
tackle the tough issues regarding IT management and strategy
and a clear understand-
ing of their importance in delivering business value.
Key Features of This Book
• A focus on IT management issues as opposed to
technology issues
• Critical IT issues explored within their
organizational contexts
• Readily applicablemodels and frameworks for
implementing IT strategies
• Mini cases to animate issues and focus
classroom discussions on real-world deci-

34. sions, enabling problem-based learning
• Proven strategies and best practices from leading-edge
organizations
• Useful and practical advice and guidelinesfor
delivering value with IT
• Extensive teaching notes for all mini cases
A Different ApproAch to teAching it StrAtegy
The real world of IT is one of issues—critical issues—such as
the following:
• How do we know if we are getting
value from our IT investment?
• How can we innovate with IT?
• What specific IT functions should we seek
from external providers?
• How do we buildan IT leadershipteam that is
a trusted partner with the business?
• How do we enhance IT capabilities?
• What is IT’s role in creating an intelligent
business?
• How can we best take advantage of new
technologies, such as big data and social
media, in our business?
• How can we manage IT risk?
However, the majority of management information systems
(MIS) textbooks are orga-
nized by system category (e.g., supply chain, customer
relationship management, enterprise
resource planning), by system component (e.g., hardware,
software, networks), by system
function (e.g., marketing, financial, human resources), by

35. system type (e.g., transactional,
decisional, strategic), or by a combination of these.
Unfortunately, such an organization
does not promote an understanding of IT management in
practice.
IT Strategy: Issues and Practices tackles the real-world
challenges of IT manage-
ment. First, it explores a set of the most important issues facing
IT managers today, and
second, it provides a series of mini cases that present these
critical IT issues within the
context of real organizations. By focusing the text as well as the
mini cases on today’s
critical issues, the book naturally reinforces problem-based
learning.
Preface xv
IT Strategy: Issues and Practices includes thirteen mini cases—
each based on a real
company presented anonymously.1 Mini cases are not simply
abbreviated versions of
standard, full-length business cases. They differ in two
significant ways:
1. A horizontal perspective. Unlike standard cases that develop
a single issue within
an organizational setting (i.e., a “vertical” slice of
organizational life), mini cases
take a “horizontal” slice through a number of coexistent issues.
Rather than looking
for a solution to a specific problem, as in a standard case,
students analyzing a mini

36. case must first identify and prioritize the issues embedded
within the case. This mim-
ics real life in organizations where the challenge lies in
“knowing where to start” as
opposed to “solving a predefined problem.”
2. Highly relevant information. Mini cases are densely written.
Unlike standard
cases, which intermix irrelevant information, in a mini case,
each sentence exists for
a reason and reflects relevant information. As a result, students
must analyze each
case very carefully so as not to miss critical aspects of the
situation.
Teaching with mini cases is, thus, very different than teaching
with standard cases.
With mini cases, students must determine what is really going
on within the organiza-
tion. What first appears as a straightforward “technology”
problem may in fact be a
political problem or one of five other “technology” problems.
Detective work is, there-
fore, required. The problem identification and prioritization
skills needed are essential
skills for future managers to learn for the simple reason that it
is not possible for organi-
zations to tackle all of their problems concurrently. Mini cases
help teach these skills to
students and can balance the problem-solving skills learned in
other classes. Best of all,
detective work is fun and promotes lively classroom discussion.
To assist instructors, extensive teaching notes are available for
all mini cases. Developed
by the authors and based on “tried and true” in-class experience,

37. these notes include case
summaries, identify the key issues within each case, present
ancillary information about the
company/industry represented in the case, and offer guidelines
for organizing the class-
room discussion. Because of the structure of these mini cases
and their embedded issues, it
is common for teaching notes to exceed the length of the actual
mini case!
This book is most appropriate for MIS courses where the goal is
to understand how
IT delivers organizational value. These courses are frequently
labeled “IT Strategy” or
“IT Management” and are offered within undergraduate as well
as MBA programs. For
undergraduate juniors and seniors in business and commerce
programs, this is usually
the “capstone” MIS course. For MBA students, this course may
be the compulsory core
course in MIS, or it may be an elective course.
Each chapter and mini case in this book has been thoroughly
tested in a variety
of undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs at Queen’s
School of Business.2
1 We are unable to identify these leading-edge companies by
agreements established as part of our overall
research program (described later).
2 Queen’s School of Business is one of the world’s premier
business schools, with a faculty team renowned
for its business experience and academic credentials. The
School has earned international recognition for
its innovative approaches to team-based and experiential
learning. In addition to its highly acclaimed MBA

38. programs, Queen’s School of Business is also home to Canada’s
most prestigious undergraduate business
program and several outstanding graduate programs. As well,
the School is one of the world’s largest and
most respected providers of executive education.
xvi Preface
These materials have proven highly successful within all
programs because we adapt
how the material is presented according to the level of the
students. Whereas under-
graduate students “learn” about critical business issues from the
book and mini cases
for the first time, graduate students are able to “relate” to these
same critical issues
based on their previous business experience. As a result,
graduate students are able to
introduce personal experiences into the discussion of these
critical IT issues.
orgAnizAtion of thiS Book
One of the advantages of an issues-focused structure is that
chapters can be approached
in any order because they do not build on one another. Chapter
order is immaterial; that
is, one does not need to read the first three chapters to
understand the fourth. This pro-
vides an instructor with maximum flexibility to organize a
course as he or she sees fit.
Thus, within different courses/programs, the order of topics can
be changed to focus on
different IT concepts.

39. Furthermore, because each mini case includes multiple issues,
they, too, can be
used to serve different purposes. For example, the mini case
“Building Shared Services
at RR Communications” can be used to focus on issues of
governance, organizational
structure, and/or change management just as easily as shared
services. The result is a
rich set of instructional materials that lends itself well to a
variety of pedagogical appli-
cations, particularly problem-based learning, and that clearly
illustrates the reality of IT
strategy in action.
The book is organized into four sections, each emphasizing a
key component of
developing and delivering effective IT strategy:
• Section I: Delivering Value with IT is designed to
examine the complex ways that
IT and business value are related. Over the past twenty years,
researchers and prac-
titioners have come to understand that “business value” can
mean many different
things when applied to IT. Chapter 1 (Developing and
Delivering on the IT Value
Proposition) explores these concepts in depth. Unlike the
simplistic value propo-
sitions often used when implementing IT in organizations, this
chapter presents
“value” as a multilayered business construct that must be
effectively managed at
several levels if technology is to achieve the benefits expected.
Chapter 2 (Developing
IT Strategy for Business Value) examines the dynamic

40. interrelationship between
business and IT strategy and looks at the processes and critical
success factors
used by organizations to ensure that both are well aligned.
Chapter 3 (Linking IT
to Business Metrics) discusses new ways of measuring IT’s
effectiveness that pro-
mote closer business–IT alignment and help drive greater
business value. Chapter
4 (Building a Strong Relationship with the Business) examines
the nature of the
business–IT relationship and the characteristics of an effective
relationship that
delivers real value to the enterprise. Chapter 5 (Communicating
with Business
Managers) explores the business and interpersonal competencies
that IT staff will
need in order to do their jobs effectively over the next five to
seven years and what
companies should be doing to develop them. Finally, Chapter 6
(Building Better IT
Leaders from the Bottom Up) tackles the increasing need for
improved leadership
skills in all IT staff and examines the expectations of the
business for strategic and
innovative guidance from IT.
Preface xvii
In the mini cases associated with this section, the concepts of
delivering
value with IT are explored in a number of different ways. We
see business and
IT executives at Hefty Hardware grappling with conflicting

41. priorities and per-
spectives and how best to work together to achieve the
company’s strategy. In
“Investing in TUFS,” CIO Martin Drysdale watches as all of the
work his IT depart-
ment has put into a major new system fails to deliver value. And
the “IT Planning
at ModMeters” mini case follows CIO Brian Smith’s efforts to
create a strategic
IT plan that will align with business strategy, keep IT running,
and not increase
IT’s budget.
• Section II: IT Governance explores key concepts in how
the IT organization is
structured and managed to effectively deliver IT products and
services to the orga-
nization. Chapter 7 (IT Shared Services) discusses how IT
shared services should be
selected, organized, managed, and governed to achieve
improved organizational
performance. Chapter 8 (A Management Framework for IT
Sourcing) examines
how organizations are choosing to source and deliver different
types of IT functions
and presents a framework to guide sourcing decisions. Chapter 9
(The IT Budgeting
Process) describes the “evil twin” of IT strategy, discussing
how budgeting mecha-
nisms can significantly undermine effective business strategies
and suggesting
practices for addressing this problem while maintaining
traditional fiscal account-
ability. Chapter 10 (Managing IT-based Risk) describes how
many IT organizations
have been given the responsibility of not only managing risk in

42. their own activities
(i.e., project development, operations, and delivering business
strategy) but also
of managing IT-based risk in all company activities (e.g.,
mobile computing, file
sharing, and online access to information and software) and the
need for a holistic
framework to understand and deal with risk effectively. Chapter
11 (Information
Management: The Nexus of Business and IT) describes how new
organizational
needs for more useful and integrated information are driving the
development of
business-oriented functions within IT that focus specifically on
information and
knowledge, as opposed to applications and data.
The mini cases in this section examine the difficulties of
managing com-
plex IT issues when they intersect substantially with important
business issues.
In “Building Shared Services at RR Communications,” we see
an IT organiza-
tion in transition from a traditional divisional structure and
governance model
to a more centralized enterprise model, and the long-term
challenges experi-
enced by CIO Vince Patton in changing both business and IT
practices, includ-
ing information management and delivery, to support this new
approach. In
“Enterprise Architecture at Nationstate Insurance,” CIO Jane
Denton endeavors
to make IT more flexible and agile, while incorporating new and
emerging tech-
nologies into its strategy. In “IT Investment at North American

43. Financial,” we
show the opportunities and challenges involved in prioritizing
and resourcing
enterprisewide IT projects and monitoring that anticipated
benefits are being
achieved.
• Section III: IT-Enabled Innovation discusses some of the
ways technology is
being used to transform organizations. Chapter 12 (Innovation
with IT) examines
the nature and importance of innovation with IT and describes a
typical inno-
vation life cycle. Chapter 13 (Big Data and Social Computing)
discusses how IT
leaders are incorporating big data and social media concepts and
technologies
xviii Preface
to successfully deliver business value in new ways. Chapter 14
(Improving the
Customer Experience: An IT Perspective) explores the IT
function’s role in creating
and improving an …
Environmental Security
Week 10
The Environmental Security Agenda
Climate and Environmental Change
Increase in the number and ferocity of natural disasters

44. Global warming and rising sea levels
Disruption to ecosystems
Access to resources
Life
Economic
The Security Referents
The State
Economic, sovereign
Human beings (now and in the future)
Livelihood, food
Differential impact upon humans
Poor, conflict-affected, age, gender
Ecosystems
Climate, land, water, fauna and flora
Increase in natural disaster in Asia and the Pacific
The emergence of the Environmental Security agenda
The World Economic Forum’s “Evolving Risk Landscape”,
identifying the top 5 global risks.
should the environment be a security issue?
Yes: Greening Security
‘Security’ has the resources to address environmental threat:
Money
Equipment/ Resources
Government focus
States could prompt global action:
State vs Civil Action

45. States (and their citizens) are under threat
should the environment be a security issue?
No: Securitizing the Environment
Removes focus from armed conflict
Non-traditional threat (Critical)
Enemy without a face
Intentions are different
No (always) an existential threat
Cannot be addressed through force or counter-attack
Security sector does not deal with this type of threat
The military is a major polluter,
not least of all through nuclear tests
Enter Realism: Securitising the Environment“The resulting
economic decline leads to frustration, resentment, domestic
unrest or even civil war. Human suffering and turmoil make
countries ripe for authoritarian govts or external subversion.”
Jessica Tuchman Matthews (1989)“The pressure engendered by
population growth in the Third World is bound to degrade the
quality of life, and diminish the range of options available, to
governments and persons in the rich countries.”
Richard Ullman (1983)“A deteriorating environment not only
threatens public health, it impedes economic growth and can
generate tensions that threaten international stability.”
US National Security Strategy (1998)“The political and
strategic impact of surging populations, spreading disease,
deforestation and soil erosion, water depletion, air pollution…
overcrowded regions… will be the core foreign policy challenge
from which most others will emanate.” Robert Kaplan (1994)

46. 7
Environmental Conflict Thesis
Environmental Degradation + State Fragility + Social/
Community Fragility = Conflict
Conflict over Resources
Environmental Migration
climate Change and Conflict
Climate change exacerbates conflict
Conflict undermines climate resilience
Ongoing drought, food insecurity and economic downturns has
weakened the state and fueled ongoing conflict in South Sudan
Conflict has profoundly undermined Bangladesh’s capacity for
resilience to climate change in Cox’s Bazar
The Climate Emergency: Has climate change been securitized?
Yes?? – The Realist Framework
Focus upon threats to states;
Focus upon flash points and conflict;
A militarized response;
A creation of threats and enemies;
Protection of state interests.
Yes?? – The Liberal Framework
Focus upon the interconnected global threat;
Focus on prevention, mitigation, adaption
A collective, rules-based response;
A focus upon the science;
Protection of global interests.

47. The Liberal Approach: Global Governance
Challenges to the Liberal agenda
A trans-national & global challenge
statism vs porous borders
sovereignty vs community
self-help vs reliance
A future challenge
uncertainty
long-term consequences
3. A North-South Challenge
sustainable development Vs right to development
Common but differentiated responsibilities
movement of polluting industries to the global south
4. An overlapping challenge
trade & economics (market solutions)
social justice
peace, conflict and security
shared technology, R&D (air, wind, solar technology)
Top-down and bottom-up approaches
Top-down approaches
A focus upon states as the main referent for security
A focus upon states as the main providers of security
A focus upon geo-political patterns of environmental change
(conflict, economies, regional impacts)
Bottom-up approaches
A focus upon the individual ‘victims’ of environmental change;
A claim that everyone contributes to security;
A focus upon how intersectional identity markers render some
more vulnerable to climate change (region, SES, age, gender)

48. Feminist approaches: differential impacts
Gender roles and responsibilities shape men and women’s
experiences in all areas of climate change
Gender inequality disadvantages (usually) women’s access to
options, resources, support and decision-making
Gender inequality means women’s contributions to addressing
climate change remain undervalued and overlooked
Across the developing world, women are overwhelmingly
responsible for collecting water and firewood.
Case study on the gendered impacts of natural disasters
Mortality distribution by gender of selected natural disasters
Experiences can be heavily gendered:
Mortality rates
Displacement
Rebuilding
Post-disaster support (eg healthcare, employment)
Legal rights
Trafficking and prostitution
Gender-based violence
‹#›
States with high levels of gender inequality and state
fragility/conflict will see very gendered impacts of disasters.
Typhoon Haiyan which hit the Philippines in November 2013
displaced more than 4 million people; The cost of rebuilding

49. was estimated at 4.8billion. Five years on, there is still
widespread homelessness, with women taking on significant and
often invisible care work.
For example, after Hurricane Katrina in the US households
headed by poor women in New Orleans were less likely to
return to the city and rebuild than those headed by married
couples, because these women had been unable to afford
adequate home or renter’s insurance prior to the storm
14
Women’s role in addressing climate change
Women’s customary knowledge of the environment
Women’s collective action – eg. Women’s weather watch, Fiji
Women’s absence in policy and planning
Inclusive approaches to policy design and implementation
Engaging with women’s community-based knowledge of the
environment
Women’s localised knowledge of the environment – everything
from seasonal patterns to adapting to changing environmental
conditions – is often based upon generations of handed-down
knowledge, and is shared throughout the community. This kind
of knowledge, which is not technical or scientific in the way we
understand it, has sustained communities for generations. But it
is often not considered or sought in policy discussions. But it
should be. Women’s cumulative, customary knowledge can
powerfully complement and enhance technical information by
revealing how, where and when multiple risks intersect.
Women’s participation in policy and planning provides locally-
appropriate and sustainable approaches to climate policy.

50. FemLink Pacific’s Women’s Weather Watch, based in Fiji, is a
radio program which provides a women to share knowledge,
experiences, information and lessons learned in the preparation
for, during and recovery from extreme weather events.
Women have developed a range of coping mechanisms and
strategies that build household and community resilience to
climate change. These may be simple things such as
information sharing, approaches to storing and protecting
resources in times of crisis, preparing for crisis to minimize
impact, etc. However, there are a number of barriers to
women’s participation including social and cultural norms,
gendered divisions of labour and GBV, and access to resources.
3. Identifying and upscaling local women’s organising and
collective action.
15
Critical and postmodern approaches: Global resilience
Rethinking security’s referent:
Not the state, not humans, but the ecosystem;
Rethinking the discourse:
Not ‘man vs nature’
Rethinking our source of knowledge:
Placing customary knowledge alongside science.
Resisting security:
Security is not a helpful concept.
Indigenous landcare programs
operate throughout Australia
526

51. CHAPTER 35
Environmental change
Simon Dalby
ABSTRACT
In this chapter, students will learn about the Anthropocene and
how humanity
has become a force shaping the planetary system with major
consequences for
the theory and practice of security. It analyses how changes in
climate security
are prompting armed forces around the world to prepare for new
circumstances
and roles, and how far international treaties such as the 2015
Paris Agreement
can curb the negative consequences of climate change. It also
discusses whether
new thinking about global resilience and transition strategies to
more ecologic -
ally benign modes of living, including by developing post-fossil
fuel economies,
offer a solution.
CONTENTS
z Introduction: the Anthropocene 527
z Earth system boundaries/safe operating space 528
z Climate security and militarization 530
z A climate for peace? 534
z Global resilience? 536
z Climate geopolitics 538
z Anthropocene security 539

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z Introduction: the Anthropocene
In May 2011 The Economist magazine printed a cover story on
the theme of ‘Wel -
come to the Anthropocene’. Magazines dealing with global
economics and politics
don’t usually give geological issues top billing, so clearly
something of significance
is happening here. The term Anthropocene was beginning to be
used in 2011 as a
new word in Earth system science to emphasize the dramatic
scale of transforma -
tions that mostly the rich and powerful parts of humanity have
unleashed. The term
Anthropocene suggests that humanity has become a force
shaping the planetary
system quite profoundly, on a scale that requires Earth system
scientists to consider
the present as a new geological period in the planet’s history.

54. In short, we live in an increasingly artificial world, one of
cities, roads and agri -
cultural landscapes that have completely transformed terrestrial
ecosystems over
much of the fertile part of the planet. Powering this
transformation is the combustion
of fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas that are literally turning
rocks into air. This
is changing the composition of the atmosphere in a number of
ways that is causing
more heat from the sun to be trapped and as a result
accelerating climate change.
The Anthropocene suggests that the rich and powerful decision
makers in the
global economy are increasingly shaping the future of the
planet’s essential biolo -
gical systems, and hence humanity’s future in a rapidly
changing biosphere. This is
the new context for studying security and making policy in this
age of the Anthro -
pocene.
Whether climate change will cause armed conflict is one of the
new questions on
the agenda for security studies; fears of climate migrants have
long fuelled xenophobic
nationalism (White 2014). Some low-lying states are facing
entirely predictable
inundation in coming decades: what can security possibly mean
for them? None of
them has military options to defend against the destruction of
their territories,
damage caused indirectly by the profligate use of fossil fuels by
other states. National
security might normally mean the long-term survival of the

55. state, but in the case of
the island atoll states in the Pacific and Indian Oceans they are
unable to ensure
their future territorial integrity. This might be secured by an
international agreement
to rapidly reduce the use of fossil fuels, an arrangement that,
despite the tentative
steps forward in the Paris Agreement of December 2015, has yet
to emerge as a
comprehensive programme to tackle climate change.
Security is now partly about the conditions for particular
peoples in these new
circumstances of rapid change, and where and when they can
live safely in the manu -
factured buildings, transportation systems and infrastructure
that make urban life
possible for the majority of us (Graham 2016). Human security
is also very much
about how we will feed ourselves and supply water and
breathable air to coming
generations and more immediately about how people
dispossessed by the rapid
extension of the global economy will find their means of
livelihood. The most import -
ant questions of global security are ones concerning which
societies will shape both
the future configuration of the global climate, with all that
means for agricultural
production and reliable supplies of food for a still growing
population, who will
decide on how hot the planet will get, and with what
consequences for people unable
to easily adapt to rapidly changing conditions.
E N V I R O N M E N T A L C H A N G E

56. 527
Williams, P. D., & McDonald, M. (Eds.). (2018). Security
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z Earth system boundaries/safe operating space
The Anthropocene, ‘the age of humanity’, is a departure from
the previous geological
period, termed the Holocene, or ‘recent past’. This period,
going back approximately
12,000 years since the last advance of the glaciers, was an
unusually stable period
in the planet’s history. Humanity has thrived through a period
where climate fluc -
tuations were relatively minor, a stable period where, despite
small variations in the
climate, agriculture could be reliably undertaken over extended
periods. Prior to
that ice grew and retreated fairly frequently, and rapid
fluctuations in ecological
conditions were the norm. Humanity lived then in small mostly

58. nomadic groups
despite having basic technology and the ability to use fire for
cooking and heating.
But, once the glaciers retreated at the beginning of the Holocene
and humanity
spread rapidly, larger agglomerations and population growth
became possible. These
stable conditions that facilitated the flourishing of humanity are
now coming to an
end; this is what the Anthropocene means in practice (Davies
2016). But the world
isn’t slipping back into another ice age, something that would
happen were it not
for humanity’s changes to the system; we are, as a result of the
extraordinary expan -
sion of the global economy since the middle of the twentieth
century, accelerating
towards a situation of rapid global warming (McNeill and
Engelke 2016). Glaciers
and polar icecaps are receding very quickly and weather is
becoming increasingly
extreme and less predictable. If this trend is to be arrested, and
for humanity to live
in conditions approximating those that have allowed us to thrive
over the last few
millennia, a matter of having a ‘safe operating space for
humanity’, then radical
changes will be needed very soon to our habits of profligate
combustion, because
it is the waste gases from all our burning that are heating the
planet.
Climate change is key, but it is playing out in a world altered in
numerous other
ways too. One influential attempt to summarize these many

59. changes is the ‘Earth
system boundaries framework’ (Rockström et al. 2009; Steffen
et al. 2015). Human -
ity is pushing a number of crucial ecological systems beyond
what seem to be safe
boundaries; straining the systems in ways that may lead to
dangerous disruptions
to how the system has operated through most of the Holocene.
This framework
posits nine key ecological boundaries to the ‘safe operating
space’ of the Earth system
(see Figure 35.1). Climate change is the first and probably the
most important com -
ponent. Second is the rapid decline in biospheric integrity due
to the exter mination
of many species and the related destruction of many biodiverse
systems and loss of
genetic material. The depletion of stratospheric ozone is the
third system boundary,
one that humanity inadvertently endangered with the widespread
use of chloro -
fluorocarbons but which has been partly solved by international
agreements to ban
the production of these and related chemicals.
Oceans are crucial to life on Earth and the fourth system
boundary concerns the
acidification of ocean water. As carbon dioxide levels rise
owing to humanity’s com -
bustion of fossil fuels as well as forests, oceans are becoming
more acidic. They are
absorbing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere because of
its growing concen -
tration there and this endangers numerous marine animals and
ocean eco systems.
Oceans are also vulnerable to the fifth boundary, the rapid

60. increase in the flows of
nitrogen, phosphorus and other minerals from agriculture and
urban activities into
528
S . D A L B Y
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the waters of the planet. This pollution is related to the sixth
boundary, the rapid
change in land use as urbanization and agriculture expand their
reach. This expansion
of human reach on land leads to the seventh Earth system
boundary that relates to
the use of fresh water, and the wholesale damming and
appropriation of river waters
for human use with all the consequences for ‘natural’
ecosystems.

62. The atmosphere too is being changed by the addition of
numerous nitrates,
sulphates and other aerosols including soot from combustion.
This eighth system
boundary is of particular concern in Asia both because of the
direct health con sequences
for people and animals living there but also because of fears
that this pollution might
also disrupt the monsoon rains and result in further agricultural
problems where so
much of humanity is dependent on rice cultivation. Finally, the
ninth boundary of
concern is the matter of the introduction of numerous ‘novel’
entities into the Earth
system, new chemical substances, micro- and macro-plastics,
with potential but as yet
mostly unknown hazards to living things and the Earth system
generally.
The Earth system boundary formulation suggests that if
humanity is to flourish in
the future it’s a reasonable assumption that the planet has to be
maintained within
E N V I R O N M E N T A L C H A N G E
529
BI
OG
EO
C
H

63. EM
IC
A
L
FL
O
W
B
O
U
N
D
A
R
Y
A
e
ro
so
l L
o
ad
in
g

64. Glob
al
Ph
os
ph
or
us
N
it
ro
g
e
n
O
zo
n
e
D
e
p
le
tio
nA
tm

65. o
sp
h
er
ic
B
io
d
iversity Loss
Change in Land Use Fresh
wat
er
Us
e
C
yc
le
C
yc
le
S
trato
sp

66. h
e
ric
Ocean Acidification
Climate Change
C
he
m
ic
al
Po
llu
tio
n
FIGURE 35.1 Planetary boundaries for a safe operating space
for humanity
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68. rv
ed
.
the parameters that shaped the remarkably stable period of the
Holocene. Hence the
Holocene provides the conditions for a ‘safe operating space’ of
the Earth for the
future of humanity. Maintaining these conditions is thus the
priority for any notion
of global environmental security, but how to accomplish this
given the ‘growth’
dynamics at the heart of the current global economic system is
far from clear.
Nightmare scenarios suggest that as ecological systems are
pushed across the Earth
system boundaries humanity will be riven by conflict as
political elites struggle
to control increasingly scarce resources. Erecting fences and
militarizing frontiers to
deal with migrants displaced by environmental change just
aggravates the violence
of rapid change, rendering those forced to move doubly
vulnerable (Jones 2016).
Proponents of technological innovation suggest that we will
invent our way out of
difficulties and produce new ways of life and technologies to
solve problems as they
arise, but only if industrialists and financiers focus on making
sustainable economies
and soon (Rockström and Klum 2015).

69. Traditional environmentalism, while effective at tackling some
of the worst
symptoms of industrialization, has failed to constrain the
overall damage to the
Holocene conditions for humanity, not least because of its
inability to grapple with
the consumption culture that demands ever more ‘stuff’ for
international markets
(Dauvergne 2016). At the heart of environmental security lies
the question as to
what is to be secured, this ever-growing economy and the
economics of more, or
some new forms of human activity that take the Earth system
boundaries seriously
as the premises for security policy and economic thinking
(Gopel 2016). In particular,
security studies has to grapple with the question of what, in
these circumstances, is
the role of military agencies in such a rapidly changing world?
Who or what are
they going to protect from which threats defined by what
political agencies? Crucially,
can the transformations that are necessary if humanity is to live
within the Earth
system boundaries be undertaken peacefully (Brauch et al.
2016)? If so, what kind
of security concepts should we use to think about the
Anthropocene (see Box 35.1)?
z Climate security and militarization
Since the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century,
increasingly alarming
statements have been issued by military agencies, in the US in
particular, but else -
where too, about the potential security dangers that climate
change presents to many

70. societies, and to the national security of metropolitan states in
particular. A series
of reports in 2007 and 2008 highlighted the risks to political
stability in poorer
parts of the world and suggested that these might inflame
insurgencies and spread
terrorism too (CNA 2007; Campbell et al. 2007; German
Advisory Council 2008).
Disasters requiring military intervention to aid with rescue and
relief were also
highlighted. Given that military institutions often have the
heavy equipment, ships,
communications gear, helicopters and all-terrain vehicles that
are useful in responding
to emergencies, they are often the ‘first responders’ in disaster
situations.
Some of these formulations included the idea of climate change
as a ‘threat multi -
plier’, a phenomenon that would in future crises make violence
more likely. Hence
the US military in particular needed to be prepared for more
violent conflicts made
more likely as environmental change accelerated. This
formulation found its way
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into the 2009 UN Secretary-General’s report on climate and
security, discussed in
the lead-up to the 2009 Copenhagen climate meetings. While
this formulation of
security was frequently rejected by governments in the Global
South, who preferred
to think about climate change as a problem of development and
insisted that sustain -
able development was the appropriate policy framework for
dealing with climate
(Dalby 2016), it is significant in that various states were
attempting to raise the issue
BOX 35.1 Forms of environmental security thinking
Cooperative security focuses attention on how states, militaries
and other insti -
tutions can work together for common benefit, on such things as
shared rivers
or waterways, but also on how such efforts and the habits of
working together
can prevent conflict occurring in crisis situations. It is

73. sometimes fairly close to
ideas of the new security agenda where states work together to
tackle problems
that cross national boundaries.
Ecological security is concerned with maintaining the integrity
of natural systems
on which humanity is dependent, an especially complicated and
difficult matter
now that humanity is effectively changing the planet’s ecology
in the Anthro -
pocene.
Climate security, in so far as it aims to keep the planet’s
temperature close to
what civilization has so far known, is now obviously a key to
ecological security.
Environmental security frequently refers to discussions about
the risks of environ -
mental change causing armed conflict, but also refers to
assumptions that
resource management strategies, conservation techniques and
pollution preven -
tion can maintain the parts of the natural world that humanity
uses in conditions
that allow for the continued use by the economy.
Human security focuses on vulnerable people and the provision
of the essential
needs for people to thrive in their particular places. As
humanity increasingly
lives in cities and requires commodities from all over the planet
to supply the
global economy that keeps us alive, infrastructure and trade
become more

74. important in providing this form of security.
Global security has traditionally focused on avoiding major
international and
particularly nuclear wars, which given their immense
destructive consequences
would render people and states everywhere insecure. Now the
question is
whether climate change is potentially an equally important
‘global’ consideration.
National security focuses on the state, sovereignty and the
military control of
national territory, in many cases not the appropriate scale for
thinking about
climate changes that have global effects. Focusing on ‘threats’
from migration
and using huge amounts of fuel to run military institutions
suggests that such
policies are part of the problem rather than the solution to many
climate issues.
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76. ed
.
of climate as a security threat, and hence a matter of top
international priority for
the UN. Indeed, the international security implications of
climate change also
featured in UN Security Council debates in 2007 and 2011 (See
McDonald 2013).
Subsequently the ‘threat multiplier’ formulation, one that had
initially been under -
stood as a potential future problem, became rephrased by the
CNA Corporation
(2014) in terms of a present danger and a matter specifically of
climate change as
a ‘conflict catalyst’.
In part this discussion draws on a long series of analyses that
suggest that environ -
mental change will induce conflict (Ide et al. 2016). Some
analysts argue that rising
temperatures cause conflict even if the precise mechanisms that
link extreme weather
to social upheaval aren’t clear. If there are clear relationships
they don’t obviously
lead to warfare even if they may aggravate small-scale social
conflict (Buhaug 2015).
Research on this point has been especially contentious in social
sciences recently
because of contrasting methods and assumptions used by
various researchers. Even
the widely discussed case of Syria (Gleick 2014), where drought
apparently drove

77. farmers off the land and into cities, where they were part of the
protests that sub -
sequently led to civil war, turns out to be much more
complicated than media reports
and initial analyses suggested (Selby et al. 2017). Other
research suggests that larger
social problems, international economic disruptions and food
price spikes in particu -
lar are a much greater cause of social unrest (Homer-Dixon et
al. 2015). The Arab
Spring protests in 2011 were in part about rising food prices,
caused by international
market conditions following the summer droughts in Russia in
2010 in particular,
rather than about local shortages.
Comprehensive research on water stresses, development and
conflict make it clear
that governance, or the lack thereof, is key to determining when
environmental
difficulties lead to conflict, or simply serious suffering on the
part of marginal peoples
without the resources to effectively cope with novel situations
(Zografos et al.
2014). These studies emphasize the need for intelligent
development strategies
that facilitate the ability to adapt to climate changes in
particular as well as other
Anthro pocene disruptions. Insofar as climate is thus considered
a matter of sustain -
able development it’s not clear what role military agencies
might play in dealing
with it. As Daniel Deudney (1990) noted when environmental
security first became
a major policy discussion at the end of the Cold War, the
military isn’t an agency

78. well suited to dealing with environmental matters. Indeed given
the destruction
wrought by military actions, and the fuel used in military
operations, it is easy to
see the military as part of the problem of environmental change
rather than part of
any solution. Perhaps, however, security agencies have a useful
function in raising
the alarm about the likely consequences of climate change, and
doing so in
institutional fora that are more influential than most
environmental organizations
(Mabey 2007)?
During the Obama administrations in the US these warnings
were taken seriously
and climate security was integrated into national security
strategy documents and
into military planning. Not least, this is a very practical matter
for the US Navy in
particular, as rising sea levels are threatening its facilities quite
directly and requiring
plans to raise docks and protect port facilities from higher tides
and storm surges.
Attempts to diversify fuel supplies have led to fairly extensive
attempts to use bio -
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fuels as an alternative to petroleum, although while this is being
talked about as
providing ‘green’ or environmentally friendly fuel for the Navy,
given how many
biofuels are produced and processed it is unlikely many of them
are actually helping
with climate change reduction (DeCicco et al. 2016).
Critics have been quick to challenge claims that the military is
environment -
ally friendly or, despite the increasing use of solar power for
military facilities and
operations, a genuinely ‘green’ institution (Marzec 2015). Just
as corporations are
increasingly finding ways to ‘financialize’ climate risks,
diversifying supply chains,
looking for ways to reduce their exposure to environmental
disruptions by outsourc -
ing potentially dangerous parts of their operations, shifting
production and buying
carbon offset credits in the growing carbon markets, so the
critics argue, climate is
becoming militarized and military organizations are intervening

81. to ensure the supply
of resources to metropoles even if it involves the violent
dispossession of traditional
peoples from their lands to supply resources to international
markets (Buxton and
Hayes 2016).
In part this is about the extension of military operations as part
of the global
‘war on terror’ and the extension of ‘security’ modes of
governance into many facets
of social and economic life. All of this can easily suggest that
nature itself is becom -
ing a battleground as environmental change accelerates and
conflict over access to
resources continues (Keucheyan 2016). As noted above, the
global economy has
expanded rapidly through the period of the Anthropocene now
often called ‘the
great acceleration’. In part, the ever larger extension of the
economy requires more
raw materials, more fuel and more agricultural and plantation
commodities
(Dauvergne 2016). This is key to expanding the landscape
changes that are disrupting
ecosystems, the question of the sixth Earth system boundary.
This formulation is
nearly exactly the opposite of the ideas of climate change as a
threat multiplier; it
suggests quite directly that the violence related to climate is
about the extension
of the global economy. In the process, it points to both the
direct consequences this
has for peoples in the way of resource development, and
indirectly in terms of their
vulnerabilities to storms and droughts made worse as climate

82. change accelerates
(Parenti 2011).
One of the more interesting controversies in all this is how the
relationship between
the military and climate change has played out in Washington,
DC. While tra -
ditionally the US military was closely aligned with the
Republican Party in American
politics, on the issue of climate change many Republican
politicians, influenced by
the campaigns to deny the significance of climate change
(Oreskes and Conway
2010), and partly funded by fossil fuel company-derived
electoral campaign contri -
butions, have actively tried to defund Pentagon initiatives
related to climate change
(Dalby 2016). The argument between Republican politicians and
with the Obama
administration over whether ISIS or climate change is the
biggest threat to national
security and on whether Obama had in fact declared a ‘war on
coal’ highlights
the importance of the politics of security in terms of who
defines what endangers
whom. With the accession of the Trump administration in early
2017 and the
appointment of Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, to be
US Secretary of State,
the question of whether US policy will be to act in the long-
term interests of a sustain -
able biosphere on in the short-term interests of oil company
profits became especially
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acute. In the first few months of the administration a number of
executive orders
were signed that among other things explicitly removed the
obligation of federal
government agencies to consider climate change in their
planning.
Given the urgency of tackling climate change, if biospheric
integrity is taken
seriously, environmental activists and opponents of fossil fuel
companies have also
taken to using military analogies and sometimes explicitly
talked in terms of warfare.
Australian activists have invoked the image of British war
mobilization following
the evacuation of Dunkirk as an appropriate model of the kind

85. of economic action
needed to tackle the emergency situation of, to use the medical
terms warning of
imminent death without intervention, a planetary condition of
‘climate code red’
(Spratt and Sutton 2009). More recently, Bill McKibben (2016),
the leading spokes -
person for the fossil fuel divestment movement, has explicitly
invoked war metaphors
too, calling for industrial mobilization on a war footing to
rapidly produce a solar
powered American energy system. His article in the New
Republic came complete
with graphics showing solar panels and windmills invading a
fossil fuel technology
territory!
z A climate for peace?
The Anthropocene discussion suggests that humanity is
fundamentally reshaping
many key aspects of the Earth system. Decisions that are made
about resource use,
which fuels are used and which are left in the ground, are hence
key to shaping
the human future as well as determining the fate of numerous
other species. Thus
how the future is shaped, and what future is deemed worth
securing, is now key to
global politics. So far, climate change and environmental
matters are not the priority;
old-fashioned rivalries between states continue to be the
‘macro-securitization’ that
drives much international policymaking (Buzan and Wæver
2009).
The nationalist rhetoric of 2016 in many parts of the world,

86. only most obviously
in the British case of the ‘Brexit’ referendum and the Trump
presidential cam -
paign in the United States, revived fears regarding international
cooperation on
many issues, and not just the highlighted themes of trade and
migration. The Trump
campaign rhetoric frequently denied the reality of climate
change and threatened
the tentative progress made in international efforts to tackle it
codified in the
December 2015 Paris Agreement (see Box 35.2). Fears that
globalization might once
again fail, as it did in 1914, and lead to major conflict
(Macdonald 2015) raise part -
icular concerns for climate action as clearly international
cooperation on this issue
is likely to be nearly impossible in a situation of serious global
tension if not actual
hostilities.
The alternative is to think more imaginatively about
international institutions
and the possibilities of using United Nations agencies in more
imaginative ways that
build on human rights and development ideas related explicitly
to its mandate of
promoting peace (Conca 2015). Security in these terms isn’t
about guaranteeing flows
of petroleum to international markets. It is about ecological
agriculture and land -
scapes that can both buffer the extremes of …