Addressing the Climate Change in Europe: A Security Threat, or a Risk? : A Qualitative Content Analysis upon the European Commission's Addressing of the Climate Change

Abstract: Climate change not only corresponds to scientifically proven future implications, but also poses a politically relevant study of climate security analysis, affecting the study and practice of (international) politics in different ways. In the same vein, the EU as an international organization have been getting more involved in discussions of climate-related security risks, in which the European Commission (which represents the Union’s common interests) have been publishing a set of consecutive policy documents addressing the climate change since the early 2000’s. Accordingly, this thesis studies five big policy documents produced by the Commission addressing the climate change between 2007 and 2021 by conducting a Qualitative Content Analysis upon the discourses and conceptualizations used to inform how the issue is to be understood, while basing on the theoretical model developed by von Lucke  et al.’s (2014) that distinguishes levels of referent objects and risk-security approaches. In doing so, it finds that the Commission often draws indirect connections between the climate change and its social, political and economic implications to the EU at the territorial (and individual) level, while heavily employing risk-based approaches and promoting rather business-as-usual solutions.