Wtorek geopolityczny 23/03/2021

Ośrodek Kultury Francuskiej i Studiów Frankofońskich UW i Wydział Nauk Politycznych i Studiów Międzynarodowych UW oraz Polskie Towarzystwo Studiów Międzynarodowych we współpracy z Groupe d’études géopolitiques zapraszają na spotkanie z cyklu WTORKI GEOPOLITYCZNE.

 

Climate change as a pressuring factor for the international security system

Maciej Bukowski (Uniwersytet Jagielloński)

 

23.03.2021 wtorek

godz. 15.00 – 16.30

 

Spotkanie, w języku angielskim, odbędzie się on-line: https://meet.google.com/zvh-mesv-xfj

 

We would like to introduce you Maciej Bukowski from Jagiellonnian University Kraków.

Among the many facets of climate change, the most politically tangible dimension in which its effects will unfold is geopolitics. While the threat of climate change will tangle the sovereign realm unevenly, with some states bracing for impact as we speak and others living in denial of the threat to world order, the changing climate is likely to produce tremendous challenges to the international order. It is its dual amplifying quality that makes climate change so important for policy and security analysis: a warming climate can multiply the impact of existing threats and vulnerabilities in indigenous environments, while at the same time render these local threats potentially more global in reach and nature. As the most important effects of climate change on conflict and governance are indirect, being reflected and distributed through various effects over time, the relationship between climate change and international security is not yet well understood. Still, it is now broadly admitted that lasting changes in the global climate stability will generate a whole range of different impacts on the planet and its systems. Their effects already are costly and diffuse, and will continue to exacerbate stresses to the critical resources that directly concern national and global security, including water, food (crops and fish in particular), as well as energy generation and distribution. In consequence of the above, climate change adds further stress onto the already heated geostrategic landscape. As the impacts of these changes and our understanding of them increase, a growing body of research demonstrates that climate change is both a direct threat to international security and a “threat multiplier” for the global security landscape. Cumulatively, these risks can significantly challenge a world based on an international system of cooperating sovereign states. This challenge is widely seen as contributing to increased state fragility. An understanding of how climate change may affect political, socioeconomic and environmental conditions depends in part on the understanding of the progressing climate change as well as on its projected possible trajectories, and calls for the identification and analysis of the effects of rising and extreme temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and extreme weather on resources, livelihoods and broadly understood security.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Maciej Bukowski, LL.M., is a PhD student in the Institute of Political Science and International Relations at the Jagiellonian University, where he pursues a thesis on the taxonomy of climate-derived threats to the international order under the supervision of Prof. Tomasz Młynarski, Poland’s incumbent ambassador to France. Formerly an international disputes lawyer, he is a graduate of École de Droit de la Sorbonne and Cornell Law School, and is currently an expert at the Polish Ministry of Climate and Environment. His publications on the geopolitics of climate change and international relations have appeared in Le Monde, Strategy & Future and Gazeta Wyborcza, among others.