Nineteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

In international negotiations, the way issues are framed have an impact on the future development of agreements and institutional design, which entrenches certain institutional arrangements and constrains actors’ choices given the inertia of initial decisions that are costly to reverse. In the development of an international climate regime, climate change has been predominantly framed from an environmental perspective which has historically led to collective action problems and gridlock. Because of the challenges to cooperation through an environmental lens, alternative framing from a security perspective may break through institutional gridlock by addressing the underlying deficiencies of an environmental framing of climate change. Through examining dimensions of the potential for violent conflict, loss of national power and state failure as a result of cataclysmic climate events, I argue that security framing provides an institutional design framework that addresses and avoids many of the issues encountered by environmental framing, permitting a more effective approach to addressing climate change.