Securitization, climate change, and energy

The author explores the transformation of climate change and energy into security issues. The framework for the analysis is provided by securitization theory. The process of securitization is not just about the emergence and recognition of relevant threats that need to be added to the security agenda. It also reflects specific discourses about which threats are considered, whose security is prioritized and the practices they bring about. Considering climate change and energy as security issues questions existing security practices. The case is relevant for the difficulties of integrating environmental and energy security discourses, despite their connections, as contemporary energy systems rely on fossil fuels that impact on climate change. By considering how distinct discourses linking climate change and energy with security have emerged and become entangled, the author addresses the paradoxes caused by their separation and considers how their slow convergence is part of a process of rearticulation of security in the Anthropocene.