Why seek complexity? The case of Indonesia, Australia,

security and climate change

Richard Tanter

Nautilus Institute

Shared problem or their problem?

• Hypothesis:– that there is a potential Australian-Indonesian bilateral

component of global civil society that can form around shared interests in the resolution of questions of climate change, energy insecurity, and related issues such as pandemics

• constraints clear in interests and problems• possible state and civil society strategies for

optimizing chances of finding entry into shared problem framing?

Context: bilateral relationship -,volatile, fragile, thin, and with misrecognized

asymmetry• Reified notions of “the Australia-Indonesia

relationship”• Volatile - think of the successive “crises”• Fragile • Thin - strongest aspect is government; weakest are

civil society and business• Asymmetry:

– Indonesia much more important to Australia than vice versa

– But systematically mis-recognized in Australia.

Layered frames for analysing bilateral security impacts

• bio-physical and social-ecological systems under consideration

• historically formed relationship between the two societies and states

• intentional collective efforts to address actual and expected climate change through mitigation of greenhouse gas generation and release, and adaptation to specific patterns of climate change

The climate change and security field: three approaches

• Informed enthusiasts

• Academic sceptics

• (>>Academic adaptation approaches as compromise)

• Systems approaches

Problems with the enthusiasts

• Sentence structure: too many – “could/may/possibly/might lead to …”– “imagine if …”

• i.e. weak modelling of CC-security impact relationships

• Suspicion that political agenda drives demand for definition of the field

• Still limited models of indirect and adaptation consequences.

Academic sceptics

• Follows from 1990s critiques of environmental security:– Statistically-based evidence not present– Causal chains too long; excluding nothing

• Central criticisms of enthusiasts:– “based on speculation and questionable sources”– “difficult to substantiate given data constraints”– “focus on possible scenarios in the future, which

are inherently difficult to test”

Best of the sceptics: Jon Barnett/Neil Adger

• shifted to institutional adaptation robustness/vulnerability focus, with conflict theory/human security emphasis;

• Vulnerability not identical with insecurity• Vulnerability varies with extent of dependence on “natural

resources and ecosystem services”, sensitivity of those resources, and adaptive capacity

• “the more people are dependent on climate sensitive forms of natural capital, and the less they rely on economic or social forms of capital, the more at risk they are from CC”

• “Environmental change does not undermine human security in isolation form a broad range of social factors”

Problems with some of the sceptics• Reliance on past as baseline

– “There is no precedent in human history for a global disaster that affects whole societies in multiple ways at many different locations all at once.” J.R. McNeill, Age of Transitions

• Analytic approach seems to militate against holistic requirements• Conflict and security research models are not wide• To date not a lot of attention to complex interactions of CC with

trade, economic structure, culture (religion), urban structure, public health

• Adaptation as new conflict variable not yet on agenda• Purchase on vulnerabilities of advanced industrial systems?

Compromise?: adaptation, governance and peace approaches

• Follow on from Barnett and Adger on institutions and resilience

• Follow on focus on migration, disaster, water, food focus

• Adaptation and conflict focus• More complex modelling of “conflict

constellations• More non-academic research input

World in Transition model of food security CC impacts

But still, serious problems e.g. German study:

• Does not address energy-climate-security nexus• Causal models are better but still linear• “Conflict constellations” analysis has limited concern with

indirect consequences of CC, and none with consequences of adaptation

• “Hotspots” cases are restatement of direct CC impacts on a “region”, and standard strategic description without serious linkage or strategic exploration.

• No serious conceptual follow-through on their main point: vulnerability/robustness of adaptive capacity and security.

GBN systems vulnerability model

What’s missing?

• applications of systems approaches vs analytic approaches where relevant:

• integration with energy security analyses• incorporation of mitigation and adaptation • application to advanced high-tech highly interdependent

social-ecological systems Incorporation of global/national psycho-social and political dynamics

• models of bilateral security impacts and application to real world situation

• policy framework for state and civil society

What is to come? Psycho-social and problem definition frames for conflict and

cooperation

• Capacity for highly negative psycho-social dynamics re climate change impacts and “responsibilities”.– existential and intangible character of threat; parallel to

Cold War structure of nuclear terrors– Denial, projection and scapegoating central

mechanisms’ religious expressions– political utility and resource;– religious expressions– already in play: “first world” and “third world”

examples displaying root senses of threat– salient to enforcement of carbon regimes

Shared problem or their problem?

• Hypothesis:– that there is a potential Australian-Indonesian bilateral

component of global civil society that can form around shared interests in the resolution of questions of climate change, energy insecurity, and related issues such as pandemics

• constraints clear in interests and problems• possible state and civil society strategies for

optimizing chances of finding entry into shared problem framing?

Reframing Australia-Indonesia security project: five goals

• Model impacts on human and state security of climate change, climate change adaptation and mitigation

• Apply model to bilateral relationship • Document for Indonesia and Australia• Model national and bilateral policy responses,

government, business and civil society• Possibility of transborder cooperations by

emergent communities of shared interests and transnational moral communties