Climate Security and Climate Justice

Bringing climate security and climate justice into dialogue, this topical book uses the Sahel as a case study to discuss the contrast between these two approaches and how they tend to lack an engagement with social, historical and political contexts.

Tor A. Benjaminsen introduces the international debate on climate security, with a particular focus on Mali as a ‘hub’ country of the current security crisis in the Western Sahel. Providing a critique of simplistic narratives, he develops the idea of ‘recognition’ as a neglected aspect of justice in the literature on the Sahel, as well as in policy and media debates. Chapters cover topics including colonization, desertification and forest governance; pastoralism, moral economies of resistance and Jihadism; materialist political ecology; and green transformation, afforestation, land dispossession and context. The book ultimately demonstrates how issues of climate justice across Africa are embedded in the politics of social transformation towards low-carbon societies in rich countries.

This book is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of climate justice and climate change, peace and security studies, environmental and development studies, geography and political ecology. Its practical implications are vital to environmental policymakers, NGO employees and climate activists worldwide.