Evaluation of climate change policies in the context of environmental security in India

Since the impact of environmental degradation has become more visible and the traditional security perceptions could not provide effective solutions, a new context of security based on different principles and resolutions in the environmental framework has appeared. Environmental security has thus entered into the literature with the expansion of security concept in the post-Cold War period. The concept has been broached in different manners by common, human and ecological security approaches for revealing who the subject is or should be to be secured. In this context, the framework of this study is based on the environmental security and different approaches to this concept. As the world's most challenging environmental threat, climate change is seemed as an environmental security issue because of its negative physical effects directly on the environment. The aim of this study is to examine the potential influence of environmental security perception on climate change. Even though causes of the climate change are linked to both natural processes and human activities, it is mainly accepted that the global warming and climatic change are aggravated due to anthropogenic (human-induced) impacts. There has been an ongoing negotiation process since the years when the effects of change have been recognized and it has been entered into the international community's agenda. In this process, India is one of the key actors related to the climate change issues due to her population, geographic location, political turmoil and the geopolitical position. In this context India is chosen as a case to analyze climate change policies within environmental security perspective; thus India's general security problems, discourses, policies and security perceptions concerning climate change was examined. In order to analyze these aspects; the literature review method was consulted; scientific books, articles, thesis and internet resources were used. As a conclusion, politics of climate change implemented in India show that environmental security has mostly been approached within a government-based conventional security perspective. Apart from that, although the climate change could sometimes be tackled with the common and human security perspectives in India, there is no sign for ecological one. Keywords: Environmental Security, Traditional Security, Common Security, Human Security, Ecological Security, Climate Change, Global Warming, India.