Environmental Security in the Asia-pacific

Environmental security has been one of the greatest threats of the twenty-first century. Crossing the tipping point of two degrees Celsius is projected to be catastrophic, but perennial policy gridlock at the United Nations' multilateral climate change negotiations has so far prevented significant progress. The Asia-Pacific region has much at stake in these negotiations—it is often regarded as the most climate-vulnerable region in the world and also harbors the largest number of poor people already affected and in danger of being affected by climate change.
Existing climate change literature frames issues through the prism of North-South relations. In contrast, this book focuses on both North-South and South-South relations to reveal an understanding of major climate change and climate change management issues through practices and narratives of environmental security in a specific regional context. The case studies are diverse and represent both large emitters like China and India and the smallest emitter, Nepal, as well as resource-cursed Indonesia, dilemmatic New Zealand, and green visionaries Korea and Japan. Contributors analyze causal interlinkages that affect environmental security policy from both geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics.

Iain Watson is Assistant Professor in the Department of International Development and Cooperation, Ajou University, South Korea. He has written several articles and two monographs on globalization, foreign aid, civil society, and environmental politics in the developing world.

Chandra Lal Pandey is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. He has worked as a Research Fellow at Hanshin University, Korea, and as a Lecturer at various academic institutions in Nepal. He has written several academic journal articles on climate change policy making, environmental security, resource politics, and green growth.