TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION WHAT IS "HUMAN SECURITY"? WHAT TYPES OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AFFECT HUMAN SECURITY? WHAT REGIONS ARE MOST AT RISK? ADAPTATION AND HUMAN SECURITY WHAT TYPES OF POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS CAN ONE MAKE GLOBALLY? MORE INFORMATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ADAPTATION AND HUMAN SECURITY What can societies do to reduce their vulnerability to environmental change? For countries in the North, responses will likely be a combination of mitigation strategies (reducing CO2 emissions, for example) and adaptation strategies or ‘coping mechanisms'. However, the costs of mitigation may force countries in the South to rely solely on adaptation. In some cases this will involve simply tolerating the impact; in others a change of activities or even a change of location will be required. Security specialists often focus on clear, external threats that can be nullified through specific policies (deterrence, alliances, etc.). But environmental change constitutes a diverse, pervasive type of threat to human welfare and security; as a result, responses will often be adaptive. This means that different resources and new or modified institutions may be central to ensuring security in the future. Moreover, just as states differ in force capacity, they differ in their adaptive capacity. These differences will influence the prospects for cooperation or conflict in the international environmental arena. Many have argued that poor states have less incentive to cooperate because they discount the future heavily and can't shoulder the short-term costs of cooperation. But in some areas, wealthy states may have less incentive to cooperate because of their capacity to adapt to environmental change more effectively. Working out the security and conflict implications of this is a crucial exercise. It is also important to understand the differential vulnerabilities in terms of why some communities are better able to adapt to certain environmental stresses than other communities. To comprehend these differential vulnerabilities, it is important to develop a better understanding of the complex interlinkages among the various factors which affect human security. This implies focusing research at the individual and community levels, and recognizing that human systems are equally — if not more so — as complex as other earth systems which have previously been the focus of global change research. Therefore, key questions concern how society will adapt to environmental change — whether through technological change, behavioral adaptation (and institutional change), policy responses, or other means, and what effect this will have on the security of regions and the people living in those regions. This is the major focus of the Global Environmental Change and Human Security Project (GECHS) mentioned above 2 . ENDNOTES 2. For more information on this project, visit the GECHS web site at http://geography.geog.uvic.ca/hdp/htmls/index.html