Climate Change Impacts on Human Security: New Zealand Capstone Project

This capstone project investigates the significant challenges climate change poses to human security, particularly within the context of New Zealand and the Pacific region. The project begins by outlining the scientific basis of climate change, including rising global temperatures, increased CO2 levels, and the resulting environmental impacts such as sea level rise and extreme weather events. It then delves into the concept of human security, emphasizing its focus on individual and community well-being rather than solely state security. The project explores how climate change exacerbates human security concerns through factors like resource scarcity, displacement, and increased conflict. The project specifically examines the New Zealand national security sector's role in addressing these challenges, considering both domestic and regional implications. The project concludes by highlighting the interconnectedness of environmental, social, and political factors and the necessity for proactive strategies to mitigate climate change impacts and safeguard human security in the face of a changing climate.

Running head: CAPSTONE PROJECT
CAPSTONE PROJECT
Name of student
Name of university
Author’s note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................2
Climate change issue......................................................................................................2
Human security..............................................................................................................5
Tackling climate change across New Zealand...............................................................8
Conclusion....................................................................................................................11
References....................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
The increasing concern of the climate changes all around the world has led to
significant rise of issues among the various governments. This report intends to analyse the
topic "Given that climate change is a key challenge for the Pacific, what are the human
security concerns that the New Zealand national security sector are going to have to
address in the future?" The climate change issue has been briefly described in this report.
The methods by which the climate change is developing the human security issues in the
present times has been clearly mentioned in this report. The major aspect of human security
has been described in this report. The methods by which New Zealand security sector is
dealing with the climate changes regionally as well as domestically has been described in this
report.
Climate change issue
As per the recent research conducted by IPCC as well as NASA, the global
temperature has significantly increased by almost 1.4 F since 1880. The amount of CO2 has
almost reached over 400.71 parts per billion, the loss of forest in the world between the
period of 2000 and 2012 is more than 1.5 million square km, reduction of the land ice over
287 billion metric ton per year and the sea level rise is more than 3.2 mm per year
(Pumphrey, 2008). Because of significantly large-scale shift in climate systems, various other
sensitive species like ocean corals, and aquatic birds are facing extinction. Crops are failing
because of famine in majority of the East African countries, water potable is decreasing in the
Mediterranean as well as the regions of Southern Africa and the increasing intensity of
several forest fires around the world has led to major changes in climate patterns (Crate &
Nuttall, 2016).

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When any country or any group conducts deforestation, it reduces the sinking of CO2
which leads to the increase in the greenhouse effect (Lippert, 2019). Various mitigation
procedures during emission, the carbon capture, as well as afforestation are presently being
permitted by the various governments and various other international organisations (The
climate crisis: Defence readiness and responsibilities, 2018). The issue of climate change
could be easily handled by the process of adaptation of change or the disaster risk reduction
(Boko et al., 2018). The UNDP has recommended the three stage method of working on the
carbon finance that comprises the removal of the barriers to the technologies that are climate
friendly, implementing the efficient procedures of host countries for a significantly clean
mechanism of development as well as developing the projects using the carbon facility of
millennium development goal (Parry, 2019).
The natural variations in the solar irradiance, and in the orbital parameters of the
planet Earth as well as the volcanic activities causes significant climate changes (Huang et
al., 2016). Major component of the incoming solar energy effectively reflects back to the
space. Moreover, significantly huge sections of outgoing energy are being absorbed by the
atmospheric gases and this also assists in keeping the temperature significantly warmer
(Seinfeld & Pandis, 2016). In the situation of the unavailability of this property of natural
heat trapping, it has been theorised that the average surface temperature of Earth would be
significantly lower (Zehr, 2016).
In recent decades, post- industrial revolution, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
have significantly increased because human emissions of various kinds of gases as well as the
removal of natural sinks due to oceanic pollution and deforestation (Meadows, Sweeney &
Mehers, 2016). The rise in the greenhouse effect mainly causes the warming of earth surface
as well as modifies the transfer of energy among the space, oceans, atmosphere as well as
land (Seidl et al., 2017). This particular phenomenon is denoted to as global warming. Along

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with this, the temperature or the solar energy could be considered as the driving force of the
weather patterns of Earth as it helps in driving the ocean currents, winds, pattern of humidity
as well as the movement of the clouds and therefore the climate all around gets altered
(Springmann et al., 2017). It also leads to the intensification of the effect of major natural
disasters like storms, landslides, land degradation as well as the agricultural loss (Ghosh,
2018).
The greenhouse gases provide positive radiative forcing because of the increase in the
radiatively active natural greenhouse gases (Roncoli, Crane & Orlove, 2016). Additionally,
the HFCs, and PFCs are anthropogenic in basic origin and could be accounted in the
inventories of national greenhouse gases (Bell, 2016). In the modern times, several gases are
influencing global radiation budget like the CO, SO2, NO2 as well as secondary pollutants
like the tropospheric ozone (Doyle, 2016).
Climate change as well as global warming mainly describes a surge in the average
worldwide temperature because of the rise in the greenhouse effect by rise in greenhouse
gases (Urban et al., 2016). Greenhouse gases result from natural events like volcanic
eruptions, forest fires as well as the release of methane from the melting of the permafrost on
the ocean floor. They also result from the issue of the methane gas chemicals from the damp
lands, cattle and the anthropogenic foundations of the exhausts from several types of
combustion, the industrial making of the greenhouse gases, the activities of agricultural water
lodging like the artificial wet lands of agricultural sector as well as the deforestation (Pittock,
2017). The warming of earth leads to the swift alteration in the pre-existing weather patterns.
The climate changes in modern times leads to the global warming phenomenon and
there are several extreme events that occur because of the global warming. The most
concerning event that takes place is the landslides as well as floods (Pecl et al., 2016). Both

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cause significantly large deaths and the injury of human population globally. The ocean
temperatures increasing because of global warming leads to an increase in the wind speed
when the maximum wind speed becomes excess of 74 miles per hour and it results in
hurricanes in the Atlantic as well as typhoons in the Pacific. There are four kinds of droughts
like the socioeconomic, meteorological, hydrological as well as the agricultural. Forest fires
are becoming increasingly common in Indonesia as well as Australia during El-nino events.
The forest fires could be naturally ignited by the events of volcanic eruptions, lightening, any
spark from the rock falls as well as any kind of spontaneous combustion. The increased
temperature of the land and ocean has led to the movement of the habitat range of several
species pole ward or even upward from the present position.
Human security
Human security could be referred to as the human right that specifies the security of
communities as well as people as opposed to security of the states (What is Human Security?
2019). The human security mainly recognises that there could be several dimensions
associated with feeling safe, like freedom from extensive fear, freedom from extensive desire
as well as the freedom from indignity (Picciotto, 2017). There are several implications from
the people-centred approach to the security for the methods of execution of implementation
as well as the comprehending of conflict assessment, programme planning, evaluation of the
peacebuilding initiatives of the implementation. Human security efficiently addresses the
goal of sustainable peace through the effective recognition of the social, political as well as
the economic grievances that could be frequently considered as the root causes of any kind of
conflict and any societal violence (Arias, 2017). The people are challenged to consider the
participatory methods of executing as well as the evaluation of their work. The approach to
human security is not solely centred on the people as objects of any kind of interventions but
also the providers of effective security in their respective right (Black, 2016).

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According to other sources, the aspect of human security mainly refers to the
emerging paradigm for comprehending the global vulnerabilities. Proponents mainly
challenge the conventional notion of the national security by effectively arguing that the
proper referent for security must be individual instead of the state (Blackwood, 2016). The
human security mainly holds the people-centred display of the security is vital for the
regional, national as well as worldwide stability (Reardon & Hans, 2018). As per the recent
studies prepared by the Innocenti centre of UNICEF, the central affected aspect of the climate
change are the children as well as the agenda of human security (Franceschet, 2016).
The children are the most vulnerable populations to the climate changes as well as the
biggest victims of the impacts. The children are the most dominant protagonists for positive
change and could effectively underwrite towards the collective effort for mitigating climate
change. Within the Fourth Assessment report that was issued around 2007, the
Intergovernmental panel on the Climate Change presents the most substantial as well as
confident assessment on climate change science as well as the implications for humankind.
The risks to human security from factors like economic weakness, political instability, food
insecurity, water scarcity as well as the large-scale migration would be significantly
compounded by climate change. It has been warned by several governments that there is
significant risk that the climate change would worsen violent conflict in the volatile regions.
Within any particular vicious circle, the conflict would leave the communities
significantly poorer, with reduced resiliency as well as reduced capability of coping with
major consequences of the climate changes. It has been predicted that more than 46 countries
where resulting from effects of the climate change interacting with the economic, political,
and social issues would create significant risk of major violent conflict. Summarising these
aspects, it could be analysed from the notes of Human Development Report of 2007 that
people confronted by the climate change we threatened with a twin catastrophe. The initial

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aspect is the immediate threat to human development. The occurrence of climate change
would affect all people of countries. However, the poorest people of the world would be the
initial people most impacted. They possess the least resources to effectively cope with the
effects of climate changes.
Specifically, the global rising of temperatures effectively threatens basic survival as
well as the welfare requirements of the people all across the world, including access to
sufficient water, the production of adequate food, health care as well as the use of adequate
land. If the worldwide temperatures continue to rise at the present rate, the major threat to the
human security would rise subsequently. The rising sea levels would result in increased
coastal destruction, excessive flooding through storms as well as the increased stress on the
natural ecosystems such as the wetlands and the forests. The threat to human health from
various kinds of water borne diseases such as malaria would increase as well as spread over
the increased geographic regions. Allergy sufferers would be required to cope with the
reducing quality of air and the agricultural sector would decrease swiftly in some of the
regions of world because of the increased temperature as well as water scarcity.
The rising levels of sea would flood the low settled regions like the regions of
Bangladesh as well as the river delta of Mississippi and the coastal megacities like London,
Cairo, Tokyo as well as New York. The other implications of climate change involves
possible armed fights over significantly rare supplies of food, land, water as well as economic
decline and the political uncertainty in areas where the sectors such as the agriculture are
implicitly connected with environment. The major fact that worldwide temperatures are
rapidly rising is unambiguous and top scientists of the world are presently agreeing on the
fact that a correlation exists among the global warming and the human activities, specifically
the spread of the industrial revolution to the new areas.

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Tackling climate change across New Zealand
New Zealand has implemented their climate change programme for tackling
efficiently the greenhouse gases emissions as well as ensuring a future for New Zealand
people that would be climate-resilient (Hoverd, Nelson & Bradley, 2017). The cabinet of
New Zealand has agreed on an appropriate framework for complete government that would
help in driving the policy of climate change to lower greenhouse gas emissions as well as
climate pliability in the country (National security journal., 2019). The main focus of the
framework is on the following aspects:
 a sustainable, productive as well as climate-resilient economy
 just as well as inclusive society (Defence capability plan., 2019)
 leadership internationally as well as at home
It helps in supporting the commitments of the country under the Paris Agreement,
involving the emission reduction targets by over 30 percent (Sheppard, Burns & Stanley,
2016). The policy has been able to support the requirement of adapting to impacts of climate
change for efficiently addressing the modification that are being presently viewed and would
continue to face (Frame et al., 2018). With the proper guidance from the framework, the
programme of work as well as the governmental initiatives would help New Zealand to
decrease the emissions and efficiently adapt to effects to the climate changes (Rizvanovic et
al., 2019).
New Zealand is presently towards the introduction of the low emissions as well as a
climate resilient future for the country (Jobst et al., 2018). The steps that are taken by the
government are as follows:
 Government is extensively dedicated to the country becoming te world leader in
the actions of climate changes (Harker, Taylor & Knight-Lenihan, 2017)

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 The innovative emission reduction targets by 2050 is presently introduced by law
with Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act around November
2019
 The climate change commission who works independently has been established
around mid-December 2019 for providing all the required advice to the
government on the adaptation and the mitigation of climate change issues and for
monitoring the progress towards new emission budgets as well as the target of
2050.
The main role of the commission hub of the country is providing all the required
advice to government of the country on the methods by which the transition to the low
emission economy (Boykoff et al., 2019). It also backs the government sectors like the
transport, energy, waste sectors as well as the built environment for making the transition
efficiently (Newnham et al., 2018). It mainly includes the development of sure alignment of
various policies of the various sectors. The hub mainly includes particular kinds of
individuals from various government agencies within the sector of natural resources (Boykoff
et al., 2018).
The New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme is considered as the crucial policy tool
to reduce the emissions as well as meet the reduction targets of emission in the country (Watt
et al., 2018). The appropriate setting of NZ ETS requires proper reflection on the decisions of
the government regarding the methods by which the targets of the country would be met
(Eaves, Mackintosh & Anderson, 2019).
Methane as well as Nitrous oxide from the agricultural sector makes half of the total
greenhouse emissions of gas of the country (Hannah, Aguilar & Blanchon, 2019). It has been
observed that the agricultural sector would have the most prominent role during the transition

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of the country to the low-emissions economy (Rouse et al., 2017). Development of the efforts
for reducing the agricultural emissions would help in ensuring that the competitive advantage
is retained by the country in the global economy that focusses on the low emissions. It would
also help in creating the reputation of having the most sustainable practices in the agricultural
sector all around the world (Turney et al., 2017). The public were taken into consulted by the
government for the proposals on reducing the agricultural emissions (Law et al., 2018). With
properly following this scheme, a decision has been taken by the government for putting an
appropriate price on the agricultural emissions from around 2025 (Salmon et al., 2017). In
this interim, a joint action plan would be developed by the government with the agricultural
sector as well as entering into a proper formal sector agreement on the basis of the proposal
of the Primary Sector Leader Group (Matthaei & Piggott, 2019).
The sector of forestry has been considered as the crucial sector of their economy and
it plays a main role in assisting meeting the target of reducing the emissions in the country
(Tait et al., 2018). It has been considered as one of crucial options of the country for
delivering the removals of low-cost carbon dioxide at significant scale (Hall, 2017).
Involving post-1989 forestry in NZ ETS provides the landowners with significant financial
advantage for carbon that is removed by their trees from the atmosphere, as well as assists
with encouraging them to establish and manage the forests in a proper way that would help in
increasing carbon storage (Strand et al., 2018). Presently the government is introducing the
fund for One billion trees for supporting the groups as well as the individuals across the
country in planting the trees along with properly managing the land sustainably (Tomiolo et
al., 2016). Along with this, several improvements are being introduced in the country for
driving the plantation of numerous trees. The Ministry for Primary Industries is mainly
leading this work in the country.

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New Zealand is aiming to reducing the emissions which has been successfully able to
control any further changes. The scale as well as the pace at which the country would need to
adapt would be largely driven by the international ability for meeting the goals of the Paris
Agreement of reduction of emissions (Lawrence, 2018). The entities working in the local
government mainly have the responsibilities under the Resource Management Act to properly
prepare as well as respond by efficiently dealing with major impacts of the climate changes.
New Zealand has implemented the climate finance that refers to complete expenditure
as well as the investment, both private as well as public that have contributed to the
adaptation or the mitigation of the climate. New Zealand has presently recognised the
significance of the mobilisation of the flows of climate finance for achieving the
transformational alteration of the economy that has been predicted by Paris agreement.
For helping the government strike the suitable balance among the different interests,
there are some principles established by New Zealand government that have been observed:
 National security system must address all the significant hazards to the New
Zealand as well as the nation for allowing people to live confidently as well as
have the opportunities of advancing the manner of living life
 Goals of national security has to be pursued in the responsible manner that meets
the responsibility of the government in protecting the country, the interests and the
people with respecting the civil liberties as well as the rule of law
 New Zealand must strive for maintaining the sovereign control of their respective
security, with the acknowledging of benefits from the norms of the international
law as well as the state behaviour