Mobilising the language of emergency: Human security and climate action discourse

Abstract

This paper considers the UN's 1994 concept of human security as indispensable in progressively framing climate security discourse. It argues for a human security agenda that encapsulates a broad and integrated security strategy in which climate change is addressed in a holistic manner along with related human-environmental precarities. The paper reflects on how we might productively conceptualise and enact a human security vision of climate action, how such a vision requires us to think differently and cooperatively about security, and ultimately how this compels us to prioritise a security discourse of shared precarity and collective responsibility.