Between 2016 and 2020, Australia began to feel the effects of international pressure on climate change and struggled to articulate a convincing public case that its failure to take decisive action was consistent with national interests and values. This chapter asks how and why the government found itself in this seemingly unsustainable position, and the role that Australia’s approach to climate change played in its foreign policy more generally. It first discusses Australia’s approach to the international climate regime and the commitments made under the Paris agreement, before examining the impact of the leadership change from Turnbull to Morrison and election outcomes within Australia. The third section examines the domestic pressure for political action on climate change, especially during the 2019–20 bushfires and their aftermath, before shifting to a focus on the international pressure that Australia faced. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the state of climate politics and policy in Australia, and the possibility of moving beyond the ‘toxic politics’ of climate change that have long plagued Australia’s engagement with this issue.

This chapter – the concluding substantive chapter of the book – asks how a concern with ecosystem resilience might ultimately come to inform the way political communities approach the relationship between climate change and security. If ecological security constitutes the most progressive account of climate security, encouraging approaches that emphasize the rights and needs of the most vulnerable in the face of climate change, how might we get there? The chapter draws on the political sociology of Pierre Bourdieu in developing an account of political possibility. It then locates immanent possibilities for movement towards ecological security in existing principles and practices (from the precautionary principle to accounts of geoengineering governance), before acknowledging a role for considering alternative and novel sets of institutional arrangements and practices to advance ecological security. In the process, it makes the case for recognizing and facilitating progressive change, even if such change does not wholly align with the principles of the ecological security discourse. In this context, the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.

This introduction makes a case for a focus on ecological security when approaching the relationship between climate change and security. It outlines the central claims upon which this case is built, noting the significance of this approach in terms of the study and practice of security, climate change and their relationship. It concludes by outlining the structure of the book itself.

This conclusion summarizes the book and its core arguments, emphasizing the importance of a shift towards ecological security in the way we view and approach the security implications of climate change. It also reflects on the potential utility of such an approach beyond the issue of climate change to other dimensions of global security regularly linked to the Anthropocene context, including nuclear weapons and the coronavirus pandemic.

This chapter provides a theoretical framework for the book. It briefly notes the evolution of debates about security in international relations thought before making a case that security can be understood as a social construction, given meaning by particular political communities in different ways at different times. These different meanings can be classified in terms of discourses – specific accounts of threat, referent object, agents of security and means of achieving it. After differentiating this account from the prominent Copenhagen School conceptual framework of securitization, the chapter notes the importance of conceiving security as a site of contestation and negotiation. It points to the political significance of the promise of providing security – the politics of security – and the ethical assumptions and implications of alternative accounts of security – the ethics of security.

This chapter outlines the remaining constitutive elements of the ecological security discourse, noting what means it encourages in responding to the threat climate change poses to ecosystem resilience and developing an account of which actors have responsibility for the preservation or advancement of security in this discourse. On the question of means, the chapter argues that an ecological security discourse encourages a focus on significant mitigation action, while also noting a potential role for adaptation to inevitable effects and even controversial practices associated with geoengineering. It notes in the process what sets of principles should inform how we approach such practices, emphasizing the importance of dialogue, reflexivity and humility in ensuring that practices carried out in the name of ecological security serve to minimize harm to the most vulnerable. The chapter then defines responsibility for addressing ecological security in terms of capacity, noting a potential role for a wide range of actors – from states to intergovernmental organizations, private corporations to individuals – in advancing ecological security in practice.

This chapter provides a foundation for the case made for ecological security by exploring the contours and limitations of existing discourses of climate security. After first examining the evolution of debates linking environmental change – and more directly climate change – to security, the chapter goes on to outline the contours and limitations of three key discourses of climate security: national security, international security and human security. These discourses emphasize the preservation of the nation state from external threat (national security), the preservation of the norms and rules of an international society (international security) and the protection of vulnerable human communities (human security). In the case of outlining the contours of each discourse, the chapter notes how the referent object is defined, who constitutes an agent of security, what means are envisaged to advance or protect security and the nature of the threat posed by climate change itself. In noting their respective limitations, the book provides a foundation for the elaboration and defence of ecological security.

This chapter provides a definition of ecological security: a concern with the resilience of ecosystems themselves in the face of climate change. After noting antecedents to this account of security in engagement with environmental change generally and climate change specifically, the chapter goes on to outline the ethical assumptions upon which this discourse is built before defining and defending this account of the referent object of security and the nature of the threat climate change poses to it. It suggests the importance of the Anthropocene context in orienting our concern to ecosystems, noting how this focus, in turn, encourages practices oriented towards the rights and needs of the most vulnerable across time (future generations), space (impoverished and marginalized populations throughout the world) and species (other living beings).