This chapter explores why, in the wake of similar exposure to cyclones, Myanmar experienced catastrophic outcomes in 2008 while Bangladesh and India did not when exposed to similar cyclone risks in the 2010s. I also makes use of within-case analysis to compare Bangladesh and India to themselves in the past when they experienced worse humanitarian outcomes after exposure to severe cyclones.

This concluding chapter reviews the core argument of the book. I assess what can be learned from paired cases, the impact of restricted external finance on climate security, the state-centric emphasis of the book, the fragility of progress, and the need to elevate this kind of work in political science journals.

This chapter explores why, in the wake of similar exposure to drought in the 2010s, Somalia experienced a famine but Ethiopia did not. I also use within-case analysis to explain why Ethiopia experienced a famine in the mid-1980s but not in the 2010s.

This chapter reviews the argument in the book to understand the intersection between state capacity, political exclusion, and international assistance and how these conjoin to contribute to negative security outcomes. I discuss how to operationalize each of these parameters. I then diagram several causal pathways connecting these factors to negative security outcomes. I also develop predictions for likely outcomes when these factors have more favorable and mixed characteristics in terms of state capacity, exclusion, and assistance.

In this chapter, I introduce the question that animates the book and preview the argument. Under what conditions does climate change lead to negative security outcomes? I emphasize the combination of weak state capacity, exclusive political institutions, and absent or one-sided delivery of international assistance. I then summarize the contribution of the book and preview the chapters, including the case studies.

The penultimate chapter explores the future of academic inquiry on climate and security and how the field of international relations ought to change. I explore several areas where the climate security field will need to develop new approaches and insights, mostly related to the challenges of writing about the future. This includes: how academics can be useful to policy and the need to move beyond the simple phrase of “thread multiplier”; the significance of the end of “stationarity” and what that means for scholarship going forward; the question of what baselines we use for identifying normal climatic conditions and how far back we can go to identify deep structural drivers; that scholars need to explore more fully the links between human security and state security; and that runaway climate change would make all of these security challenges worse and, hence, mitigation needs to be considered a security concern in its own right. Finally, I suggest that the broader field of political science needs to elevate climate change to a systemic structural factor like anarchy and think about what this means for the discipline and for the world.

This chapter explores why, in the wake of similar exposure to drought in the mid-2000s, Syria experienced a civil war but Lebanon did not.

How then can we understand the links between climate change and security? I begin with my understanding of security before reviewing the virtues and limits of the research on environmental security to date.

This chapter explores the emergent practice of climate security. I survey how the practice of climate and security has evolved over the last fifteen years, starting with a review of the variety of climate security challenges policymakers have identified, how policymakers have responded to climate security challenges thus far, and concluding with a section on what can and should be done to address climate security going forward.