On the 5th of May 2014 I was invited to deliver a guest presentation for the third year undergraduate subject Crises and Risk in International Relations at Deakin University.  In this presentation, I conceptualise climate change as an international relations problem by defining the ontological challenge of climate change as a phenomenon that impacts on all facets of human existence.  This challenge gives birth to the threat multiplier effect of climate change, which exacerbates pre-existing socio-economic and political weaknesses.  I then identify some of the primary climate change impacts and their associated strategic risks, before introducing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as the primary multilateral response to climate risk.

Thank you to subject coordinator Dr Danielle Chubb for the invitation to present in her class and thanks also to the students for their warm welcome.

Further Reading:

Key Climate Change Documents.

IPCC Working Group III Contribution to AR5 — ‘Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change’.

IPCC Working Group II Contribution to AR5 — ‘Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability’.

IPCC Working Group I Contribution to AR5 — ‘Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis’.

Ben Habib – ‘Sea Level Rise as an International Relations Problem: An Introduction‘.