Regionalizing environmental security in Asia

The degradation of environmental resources and services are important challenges for countries in Asia. Policy debates on how best to address these issues are usually driven by efforts to minimize negative economic and social impacts. There is, however, a growing worry that environmental degradation will have – indeed perhaps already is having – consequences for national and regional security. This securitization of the environment in Asia relies on more than an evaluation of existing or likely resource and environmental scarcity. It is a function also of regional perceptions about the nature of security itself and (almost always) elite answers to the question: security for whom and from what?