EDITOR'S NOTE.

• Author: Ataman, Muhittin

One significant element is dragging the world community toward the necessity of going beyond national borders and interests to work together in the face of the new challenges that it poses: the environment and its security. Today the biggest and maybe the most neglected threat to humanity in many pundits' eyes, is global warming. The implications of subsequent climate change will have far-reaching impacts in all regions of the world, but they require special attention in industrialized countries that have compounded the consequences for the rest of the world, which is classified as developing or undeveloped. The challenge, on the other hand, does not acknowledge differences and thus requires collective action. Just to mention a few, some of the most felt effects of climate change are rising sea levels, resource depletion, freshwater shortages, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and natural disasters like floods, hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires. Indeed, according to the latest data from the World Health Organization it is estimated that in the period between 2030 to 2050 climate change alone will cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year because of malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress.

The severity of these environmental problems has brought to the fore profound discussions on their impact on humans, states, and the world as a whole. As a result, debates over the securitization of the environment have gained prominence, especially in the late 1970s--due to the oil crises--and early 1990s--as the Cold War came to an end. On the one hand, the main focus of these debates has been on the impact that resource scarcity has on national security and cross border conflicts. On the other hand, moving away from the traditional understanding of security, the debates have concentrated on human security, specifically the threat that the environmental changes pose to the existence of human life on this planet.

Alongside these discussions, considering that the environmental changes have a global impact, several international efforts have taken place to address these issues and find possible solutions. Starting in 1972 with the first world conference on environment--(United Nations Conference on the Human Environment)--in Stockholm several other undertakings have been held, especially after the end of the Cold War, i.e. the Earth Summit in 1992, which led later to the ratification of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Within the latter's framework, the UN holds yearly conferences (Conference of Parties, COP) that tackle the latest issues on climate change and...