| dc.description.abstract | Using Axel Honneth’s conceptualization of recognition, this thesis analyses the debate surrounding Niger and Ireland’s draft resolution on climate change and security proposed in the Autumn of 2021. It shows that Norway and Ireland both push for a climatization of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), but do so with different constructions of the relationship between climate change and security. Norway’s construction of this relation constitutes climate as a variable in a ‘climate-security nexus’, where the effect on security is dependent on political decision-making, whereas Ireland articulates climate change as directly increasing international insecurity. These different constructions justify different UNSC engagements with climate change: Norway’s is more pragmatic and controlled, seeking to mainstream climate change into the UNSC’s pre-existing toolkit, whereas Ireland’s justifies a more expansive engagement, which could include the development of new tools and possibly the use of its Chapter VII powers. These constructions appeal to different states within the United Nations: the pragmatic approach appeals to developing countries, because of scepticism of the UNSC’s hierarchical nature, whereas the more expansive construction appeals to Small Island Developing States, because climate change is an existential emergency for them. The thesis shows how the different constructions are articulated as authoritative. | |
