How to Deal with Human Insecurity: Tuvalu and Climate Change

Tria Anggita Umayana and Kholifatus Saadah

Master Students of International Relations, Faculty of Social Sciences and Political Sciences, Universitas Airlangga

Keywords: human insecurity, conflict, climate refugee, Tuvalu, climate change

Abstract: Tuvalu, an archipelago state in the South Pacific region is one of the countries which suffered under the threat

of drowning in the Pacific Ocean. The condition is not something trivial, but that’s enough to threaten the

existence of that country. Tuvalu is the result of constantly changing climate and global warming. Tuvalu has

even been very prevalent with the term "climate refugee" who not only disturbs the dynamics in Tuvalu, but

also the South Pacific. Various efforts have been made by the Tuvalu Government, one of them was voicing

the condition of their country at the Copenhagen Conference. In addition, the Tuvalu Government also utilizes

information and communications technology to spread their conditions so as to attract international attention.

The problems that occur in Tuvalu is one of the threatened human security. In this paper, the authors seek to

see the factors which embolden the insecurities in the Tuvalu community itself. The authors set out from the

thought of John Barnett which states that environmental changes can encourage the occurrence of violent

conflict. This is supported by the condition that Tuvalu is a third world country so that even the smallest

climate change problems can bring big problems in the future. Then, with the threatened human security

community of Tuvalu, the author will discuss about the alternative perspective for explaining human security

with the climate change itself within the study case of Tuvalu.

1 INTRODUCTION

The concept of human security is one of the non-

traditional security concepts, namely when this

concept no longer sees security from the eyes of the

military and the armed forces. Human security

focuses on threats that disrupt human beings as

entities in the dynamics of international relations,

that’s why a lot of things can be categorized as

disturbing human security. One of the things that pose

a threat is climate change that affects life in

Polynesia, especially Tuvalu. The author seeks to see

the cause of human insecurity that emerged due to

climate change and its impact on Tuvalu residents.

Moreover, the author also seeks to see the impact of

human insecurity in Tuvalu also encourages the

emergence of a climate refugee that disturbs regional

security in the Pacific

2 HUMAN SECURITY CONCEPT

One of the non-traditional security paradigms is

human security. This paradigm is seen as an approach

that sees security not merely from a military but also

non-military perspective.

Human security evolved into an important issue in

International Relations especially since the early 90s,

along with the end of the Cold War. Highlighting

several issues of the political world, for example

political crimes within a state, barrier to community

development, relations between developments and

conflicts, increasing the number of transnational

threats and so on. The concept of Human Security

originally derived from National Security strived

between countries to maintain the integrity of a nation

and the freedom of the state in having its own

sovereignty. With global developments, the threats

facing the country are increasingly complicated

resulting in the concept of collective security that is

pursued jointly among countries. However, collective

security in its implementation not only guarding the

sovereignty of the state, but also intended to maintain

the security of citizens. So the concept of Human

Security comes with the purpose of more than just

state security, to be exact in seeking to give more

attention to people who experience insecurity in a

country. The beginnings of this concept are marked

by the number of state cases in its era that are

subjected to security threats to the state. Most get

Umayana, T. and Saadah, K.

How to Deal with Human Insecurity/ Tuvalu and Climate Change.

DOI: 10.5220/0010277700002309

In Proceedings of Airlangga Conference on International Relations (ACIR 2018) - Politics, Economy, and Security in Changing Indo-Paciﬁc Region, pages 391-396

ISBN: 978-989-758-493-0

391

threats of a military nature and some of them

experience state insecurity by non-military threats.

Conflict which happened since the mid-1990s had

enormous influence that taking place within the

framework of the country's development, not between

countries. The traditional security concept that

focused on state security, then shifts to individual

security. It also changed the security paradigm of

nuclear security to human security. In the 1994

Human Development Report of United Nations

Development Program (UNDP), human security was

described as "freedom from fear" and "freedom from

want".

Table 1: Human Security Principles.

Human Security Principle Human Security Approach

People‐centered ● Inclusive and Participatory

● Considers individuals and communities in defining their needs

vulnerabilities and in acting as active agents of change

● Collectively determines which insecurities to address and identifies

the available resources including local assets and indigenous coping

mechanisms

Multi‐sectoral ● Addresses multi‐sectorality by promoting dialogue among key

actors from different sectors fields

● Helps to ensure coherrence and coordination across traditionally

separate sectors fields

● Assesses positive and negative externalities of each response on the

overall human security situation of the affected community (ies)

Comprehensive ● Holistic analysis: the seven security components of human security

● Addresses the wide spectrum of threats, vulnerabilities, and

capacities

● Analysis of actors and sectors not previously considered relevant to

the success of a policy programme project

● Develops multi‐sectoral multi‐actor responses

Context‐specific ● Requires in‐depth analysis of the targeted situation

● Focuses on a core set of freedoms and rights under threat in a given

situation

● Identifies the concrete needs of the affected community (ies) and

enables the development of more appropriate solutions that are

embedded in local realities, capacities, and coping mechanisms

● Take into account local, national, regional, and global dimensions

and their impact on the targeted situation

Prevention‐oriented ● Identifies risks, threats and hazards, and addresses their root causes

● Focuses on preventative responses through a protection and

empowerment framework

(Source: United Nations 2009)

This UN body believes that the current conflicts

are happening in within nation more than

international conflicts. For many people, insecurity is

appearing in their everyday life rather than the effects

of a particular world event. For example, do they have

enough to eat? Will not you lose work? Could we be

safe when walking on public roads? Will they become

victims because of their gender status? Will their

religious or ethnic origins cause them to become

victims of torture? In the final analysis, human

security is synonymous with children who are not

dead, non-diseases, unstoppable work, ethnic

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conflicts that do not end in violence. Human security

does not deal with weapons. It happened to deal with

human life and dignity (UNDP, 1994).

The UNDP 1994 report emphasizes the meaning

of human security as universal thing which relevant

to all of humans entities. Because security threats in

human security are common, wherever it occurs

regardless of the boundaries of the country. Human

security focuses on human (people-centered) and not

state (state-centered), with the meaning of security in

seven areas, namely: economic security (food

security), health (health security), and environment

security), personal / individual (personal security),

community (security) and political (political

security).

Table 2: Security Type in Human Security by UNDP

Type of Security Definition Threats

Economic

Security

An assured basic income Poverty, unemployment, indebtedness, lack of

income

Food Security Physical and economic

access to basic food

Hungers, Famines, and the lack of physical and

economic access to basic food

Health Security Protection from diseases

and unhealthy lifestyles

Inadequate healthcare, new and recurrent diseases

including epidemics, and pandemics, poor

nutrition, and unsafe lifestyles

Environmental

Security

Healthy physical

environment

Environmental degradations, natural disasters,

pollutions, and resource depletions

Personal Security Security from physical

violence

From the state (torture), other states (wars), group

of people (ethnic tension), individuals or gangs

(crime), industrial, workplace, or traffic accidents

Community

Security

Safe membership in the

groups

From the group (oppressive practices), between

groups (ethnic violence), from dominant groups

(e.g indigenous people vulnerability)

Political Security Living in society that

honors basic human rights

Political or state repression, including torture,

disappearance, human rights violations,

detentions and imprisonments

The concept also identifies six threats to human

security: uncontrolled population growth, disparities

in economic opportunities, population migration

pressure, environmental degradation, narcotics

trafficking and international terrorism (Smith, 2002).

And there are other threats based on the meaning of

the concept of human security, which is narrow and

broad meaning. In the sense of narrow, the focus of

human secrity threats on violence to individuals,

while realizing that these threats are strongly linked

to poverty, lack of state capacity, and various forms

of socio-economic and political inequality. whereas

in the broadly articulated sense of the "United Nations

Development Program", and the 2003 Human

Security Report, it is argued that the threat agenda

must be broadened to include hunger, disease and

natural disasters; because this kills far more people

than war, genocide, and terrorism.

3 HUMAN SECURITY IMPACT

In the concept itself, human security is one of the

problems that require a wide, regional and global

solution. In its resolution requires several actors, both

from within and outside the country, who together can

handle the threat, and both in the present and in the

future

Issues such as trafficking in human beings,

environmental degradation is a problem that can not

be handled only from the single state alone because it

must involve many actors and handling cases like this

should cooperate with parties outside the country in

order to create security in the long term. According to

this concept, individuals play an important role in the

stability of people's lives, both nationally and

internationally (globally). This is because the public

How to Deal with Human Insecurity/ Tuvalu and Climate Change

393

order, both at the national and international levels,

consists of individuals who have security needsThus,

if the security of each individual is met, and then the

stability of people's lives at a higher level is not

impossible. However, there are still threats that will

involve individuals directly, among them as: (1) the

threats to economic security resulting in the lack of

productive and profitable employment that has a very

serious impact, namely the number of poor people

who are unemployed, crime everywhere, and children

who are dropping out of school are also starving

resulting in malnutrition, death, and others.

(2) threat to health and environmental security which

resulted in the number of deaths due to the unhealthy

environment, unavailability of clean water, air

pollution, lack of access to health facilities. (3) threats

to public and private security such as violent crime,

drug abuse, violence and abuse of children and

women, the collapse of traditional languages and

cultures, ethnic discrimination and disputes, genocide

and ethnic cleansing. (4) threat on political security

such as government repression, systematic human

rights violation, militarization, etc.

Furthermore, because human security prioritizes

the individual, the impact to the others will be so big.

One of them is on the economic and social aspects,

such as access to education. Economic problems such

as poverty everywhere must be understood as an issue

that is multidimensional. Although poverty is directly

an economic welfare issue, yet many other issues

arise as a result of poverty; including the problem that

poverty often limits one's access to adequate

education; and vice versa, that education is often the

reason why a person fails to meet his or her economic

needs independently; so then trapped in poverty.

In addition, educational linkages and poverty are

also issues that touch various dimensions because

their implications on other issues are not really a

direct consequence of educational or poverty issues.

Due to low education, for example, in addition to

trapping someone in poverty can also trigger high

unemployment or level of literacy in the community.

While the issue of poverty could have resulted in

increased criminal acts, various health problems, to

various problems caused by poor housing in slum

areas in various places.

This interrelationship between poverty and

education is what constitutes a vicious circle; a

vicious circle that is not wrong if it is said to be one

of the most important issues in the current human

security study; because it is relevant to two

fundamental principles of human security, namely

freedom from want and freedom from fear.

The concept of freedom from want emphasizes how

individuals should be free of deprivation or poverty

in all possible meanings; not just in the context of

deprivation economy (Institute for International

Cooperation 2006). Because of its vast meaning, it

should be understood that the concept of freedom

from want can not be separated from the concept of

freedom from fear; especially since they are both

accomplished simultaneously in a complementary

form, not individually. This is logical because the

concept of deprivation describes a condition that is

not only focused on economic independence, but is

much broader than that, giving rise to vulnerability in

society. This can be understood through an

understanding of how often the segment of society

that is labeled as the poor is more vulnerable to

various forms of social injustice such as

discrimination, the absence of educational services,

the absence of health services, and so on. It is this

kind of implication that makes the concept of freedom

from want to be closely related to the concept of

freedom from fear; because the freedom from

deprivation always makes a person less vulnerable, so

logically it is no longer overshadowed by various

fears (fears) possessed when not yet get freedom from

want.

The prolonged settlement of polemic between

environmental, educational and poverty problems is

basically in line with the advanced definition of

human security as protection against vital aspects of

human life through the tips of increasing human

freedoms and the fulfillment of human needs (human

fulfillment) . By understanding the vision of the

concept of human security, the settlement of related

issues is not only to improve the welfare of society,

but also to complement the complements state

security, to enhance the fulfillment of human rights,

and to strengthen human development (Institute for

International Cooperation, 2006). This is directly

proportional to one of the shifts in the security

paradigm that triggered the emergence of human

security, a shift from security to armaments to the

achievement of security through sustainable human

development.

4 HUMAN SECURITY, CLIMATE

CHANGE AND CONFLICT

Definitely there is no direct connection between the

environment and the conflict, but some conditions

may lead to the possibility of conflict itself. As

described above that insecurity arises because of

interference with human or individual security

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conditions, applies also to climate change. Climate

change leads to a shortage of water or food thus

disrupting the dynamics of everyday human life

(SIDA, 2017). Climate change that makes sea level

rise on Polynesia beaches for example could make

some residents become threatened because their

island can sink at any time. Problems that arise can

lead to sustainability, what if the island population is

threatened drowning looking for a safer place than

ever before? So migration is one of the steps they take

(SIDA, 2017). Perceptions of conflict can also change

if the climate change agenda is brought into the

decision process, especially if the decision maker can

form a clear framing (Gleditsch 2012). The formation

of framing not only leads to public opinion about the

dangers faced, but also can make some parties a part

of the guilty of climate change that is happening. This

condition can be dangerous if the military becomes

involved, the conflict is no longer between groups or

inividu but may involve between countries.

There are several things that should be considered

to think through the micro-examining when

discussing climate change and its impact on human

security. This can be based on Earth's own experience

when facing extreme climatic changes past 10,000

years (Barnett & Adger 2007). History is not

something that can be forgotten just like that, given

the impact that appears it can last long and repeatedly.

The existence of ecosystem damage caused by

climate change in the past is also influenced how a

region or region is facing problems caused by events

in the past. Dependency can also be a contributing

factor to the fragility of human security caused by

climate change (Barnett & Adger 2007). When the

production conditions of a region are disturbed, not

only the parties to the production are disturbed but

also those associated with the area. For example,

when farmers are disturbed by climate change so that

crop failure, not only the farmers who experienced the

loss, but also some residents who live in the vicinity

of agriculture can also be distracted. Parties related to

agriculture are also certain to be disturbed, those who

have jobs to distribute the crops or process them into

other goods are also impaired. Such disturbances can

then be categorized as aspects that disturb human

security.

Human insecurity then encourages a real conflict.

The reason could be from a small enough things, the

disappointment of certain groups who want a decent

life but clashed with climate change so that their

desires are not achieved. This disappointment can be

long-term in their desire to form or join armed groups

to raise social status (Barnett & Adger 2007). This

social status can also be related to the ease of access

to resources, when climate change makes certain

areas difficult to gain access to resources. The

negative effects of climate change that disrupt the

everyday life of the human is what drives the concept

of human insecurity and conflict.

5 A CASE OF TUVALU

Tuvalu is an archipelago situated in Western

Polynesia. The population of Tuvalu was about 9,600

in 2002 (Fartboko 2005). With a small area and a

population that is not too much, Tuvalu tend to be

viewed as a small and weak country in the Polynesian

region. Not only Tuvalu, but also applies to other

countries in the vicinity. Fartboko (2005) reveals that

while Tuvalu is famous for their government-led

invoices, but with their vulnerable nature,

governments and residents are always required to

survive the onslaught of climate change that

continues to threaten.

In 2000, Tuvalu experienced an unusually long

flood season (Locke 2009). Five months in a row

Tuvalu experienced the condition so that the resulting

soil should be fertile into land that can not be used

again for agriculture. This condition leads Tuvalu's

economic condition into a mess, given that

agriculture has become one of the vagi income

summers as a large population of Tuvalu. Water

scarcity became one of the conditions that followed.

Difficult people get clean water, quite ironic

considering they live in the middle of the Pacific

Ocean, affecting the lifestyle of the young Tuvalu.

The busy-ness of looking for clean water makes them

no longer has time to look for other jobs and improve

their lifestyle (Locke 2009). In 2007, one of the small

islands of Tuvalu was declared lost due to the high

level of sea at that time (Locke 2009). The fact is of

course raises concern for Tuvau residents, what if the

other islands will drown? How can they survive if the

threat of change keeps pushing them down? These

questions clearly encourage Tuvalu residents to

slowly experience human insecurity, a condition

when they have not felt safe in the region they live in

so far.

Human insecurity that happene in Tuvalu not only

harm the population, but also the region. This is

related to the migration made by Tuvalu residents to

find a safer place compared to the place they live in

now. Limited state capability in dealing with climate

change issues also encourages migration (Locke

2009). The great pressure of course is experienced by

all the inhabitants, given the relatively high

population of Tuvalu yan compared to other

How to Deal with Human Insecurity/ Tuvalu and Climate Change

395

archipelago nations in Polynesia, when there is less

water and daily necessities. Not to mention the

drowning threat of their islands, prompting Tuvalu

residents to think hard about how to save them from

extinction.

Then, how the Government of Tuvalu steps to

save their country? The Tuvalu government is

working with UNDP to establish the National

Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA II). The

Department of Environment, one of the areas in the

Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment,

Agriculture and Lands, is responsible for

coordinating bodies with the functions to execute the

content of the NAPA (Ministry of Natural Resources,

Environment, Agriculture and Lands, Tuvalu, 2007).

The move was then followed by National Determined

Contributions (NDCs) directly related to the

reduction of greenhouse gases under the United

Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

1994. Some of these measures show that the Tuvalu

government itself will not allow its inhabitants to live

under pressure and threats as it is already a duty for a

state to maintain the welfare of its inhabitants.

6 CONCLUSION

Human Security is one of the contemporary

paradigms in International Cooperation. This relates

to a perspective that sees that insecurity arises from

the individual, not just a state entity. Human

insecurity issues in the present can bring a problem

into open conflict and injure some parties. The issue

of human insecurity tends to disruption received by

individuals and groups so that they can not run the

dynamics of life as usual. The importance of freedom

from fear emphasizes the highlights of human

security regardless of national borders. One of the

rising issues is climate change. The author sees that

climate change is one of the causes of human

insecurity and can lead to conflict. The authora take

the example of Tuvalu as one of the countries in

Polynesia who experienced panic and the number of

migration figures due to climate change. The people

of Tuvalu are threatened, so they look for places and

activities that are considered secure for their lives.

Climate change that was originally viewed as a matter

of environment and state affairs is becoming more

micro, it has become a problem of human insecurity

and human beings as entities in this world are entitled

to security from fear arising from climate change.

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