Beyond the Climate Threat: Climatisation of Migration and Security

The framing of climate change issues can considerably affect the outcomes of international negotiations. Likewise, being on the top of the policy agenda, climate change influences other policy fields. This article questions this interrelated interaction based on the case of migration and security. It aims to assess both why and how political leaders, civil society members and experts aspired to include migration, security and conflict in the climate talks. Focusing on the political stakes, it also addresses the implications and resistance against the merging of these meta-problems of contemporary international relations. Previous research has mostly addressed the hybridization of climate, migration and security fields through the concept of securitization. While discussing these findings, the paper argues that the sole focus on the construction of the threat overlooks other processes and practices, which intend to bridge these specific domains of global politics. It then relies on the concept of climatisation to shed light on the multiple ways migration, security and conflict are brought into the climate arena. Based on the case of the COP21, it demonstrates that these issues have been climatised to varying degrees. It also shows how they faced resistance to be included in the Climate Convention, as some actors stressed the risks of depoliticising the causes of migration and conflict.