Chapter 12: Human Security
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12.1. Definition and Scope of Human Security
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This chapter assesses research on how climate change may exacerbate specific threats to human security, and how factors such as lack of mobility or the presence of conflict restrict the ability to adapt to climate change. Research on the specific interaction of human security and climate change focuses on how cultural, demographic, economic, and political forces interact with direct and indirect climate change impacts, affecting individuals and communities (Krause and Jütersonke, 2005; Hoogensen and Stuvøy, 2006; O’Brien, 2006; Betancourt et al., 2010; Sygna et al., 2013). The analysis concerns drivers of vulnerability across multiple scales and sectors, including gender relations,culture, political institutions, and markets. Each of these areas has its distinct disciplinary focus, methods, and levels of evidence as discussed in Box 12-2.
12.4. Migration and Mobility Dimensions of Human Security
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12.4.1. Impacts of Climate Change on Displacement, Migration, and Mobility
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12.4.1.1. Nature of Evidence on Climate Change and Migration
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The evidence on displacement as a result of weather-related events suggests that most displaced people attempt to return to their original residence and rebuild as soon as practical. The Pakistan floods of 2010, for example, caused primarily localized displacement for large numbers of people across a wide area (Gaurav et al., 2011), rather than longer-distance migration. Structural economic causes of social vulnerability may determine whether temporary displacement turns into permanent migration. In New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina, for example, economically disadvantaged populations were displaced in the immediate aftermath and most have not returned (Myers et al., 2008; Mutter, 2010). Fussell et al. (2010) found that 14 months after the event,African American residents returned more slowly, because they had suffered greater housing damage. Studies conclude that displacement affected human security through housing, economic, and health outcomes and that these have perpetuated the initial impact into a chronic syndrome of insecurity (Adams et al., 2009; Hori and Shafer, 2010). Furthermore, there are well-documented gender differences in displacement from extreme events, especially when women lose their social networks or their social capital, and women are often affected by adverse mental health outcomes in situations of displacement (Tunstall et al., 2006; Oswald Spring, 2008; Hunter and David, 2011).
12.4.1.2. Potential Pathways from Climate Change to Migration
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A further strand of evidence shows social differentiation in access to the resources necessary to migrate influences migration outcomes (Renaud et al., 2011; Black et al., 2013).Vulnerability is inversely correlated with mobility, leading to those being most exposed and vulnerable to the impacts of climate change having the least capability to migrate (Figure 12-1). Therefore, climate change risks can be significant when they reduce and constrain opportunities to move (Black et al., 2013). Alternatively, the most vulnerable households are able to use migration to cope with environmental stress, but their migration is an emergency response that creates conditions of debt and increased vulnerability, rather than reducing them (Warner andAfifi, 2013).Table 12-3 summarizes studies on the migration outcomes of weather extremes and long-term environmental change. It shows that some events lead to increased displacement of populations, while others lead to reduced mobility. Table 12-3 also demonstrates that, in many circumstances, members of a population will display differentiated migration outcomes on the basis of ethnicity, wealth, or gender (Elliot and Pais, 2006; Gray and Mueller, 2012; Upton, 2012).
