IR Realism and Climate Change: a Neoclassical Approach

Too little has been said on climate change from the Realist perspective, often dismissed as inadequate and lacking the necessary tools to address global warming, climate change, and the environment. Nevertheless, climate change has severe effects on some factors addressed by the Realist tradition, such as state capabilities, territorial integrity and the “elements of national power”. Against this background, the aim of this paper is to develop a preliminary framework for integrating climate change into the Neoclassical approach. As first, it is demonstrated that climate change jeopardizes state capabilities related to geopolitical factors, since climate change has direct effects on population health, critical infrastructure or border security. Then, the paper highlights a significant change occurred to geopolitical factors in time of climate change, namely the disruptive shift from constant drivers to environmental dynamics made of complex patterns of natural phenomena triggered, in particular, by higher levels of greenhouse gases and increasing deforestation. On this basis, it is suggested that environmental dynamics can be accounted as factors shaping relative power in the international system, thereby influencing domestic policy making processes leading to security and foreign policy outcomes.