South Asia’s Biggest Security Challenge: It’s Climate Change

Representative Image Generated by Gemeni AI

Beyond wars, militancy, terrorism, drug and people running, law and order, illegal migration, maritime crime and so on, climate change will remain the most persistent and long term challenge for South Asia, here is a perspective.

Amid ongoing conflicts global wars in Europe and West Asia [Middle East], South Asia may be seen as having a relatively benign environment despite the tense border relations between India, Pakistan and China, terrorism and proxy war indulged in by Pakistan’s security establishment against India, Afghanistan-Pakistan border clashes, the civil war in Myanmar, and other related issues. The US-Iran war is having a major impact on South Asian economies, which is gradually spreading to impact lives and livelihoods, even as multiple countries in the region, such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka, are already on an International Monetary Fund [IMF] drip, so to speak, with Bangladesh and Nepal attempting to take preventive measures. Indeed, these are formidable challenges which South Asian leadership is constrained to address, even as the issue of growth and transition to developed economies remains a work in progress. Yet the most serious challenge for South Asia is climate change, which impacts all countries both uniformly and diversely.

Recognition of climate change as a security threat, however, remains limited, and thus a reiteration from the theoretical perspective will be essential. The Copenhagen School of Security Studies, also known as the ‘Wideners School,’ conceptualises “securitization” as a process in which an issue is reframed from a regular political or economic issue to an urgent threat to the survival and core interests of the state or the international community. Within this paradigm, political, economic, energy, and ecological security are defined in parallel with military threats. Today, climate change has become a quasi-existential threat, resulting in catastrophic disasters, population displacement, resource scarcity, and sociopolitical tensions, amongst others. It portends a transition to a higher level of armed conflict. This is a security threat that can be said to be on a slow burn, so to speak, where deteriorating vectors are increasingly impacting, not incrementally but exponentially, in many ways, given the lack of acceptance of the same as a threat per se.

The challenge is seen as the “biggest” threat in South Asia, as first it impacts all countries in the region and spares none. Then the variation in geography implies that the vulnerabilities are due to factors that differ widely from the high Himalayas in the North to the Oceans in the South. For instance, Bhutan and Nepal, along with India and Pakistan-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, face challenges from the Himalayas. In contrast, the Maldives and Bangladesh face challenges posed by the receding landmass in the Indian Ocean region.  In the Himalayas, the retreat of glaciers has the most telling impact, potentially reducing water availability in a region already hydro-stressed, with political tensions adding to the stress. The Himalayan belt is also an earthquake-prone area. The Maldives faces the real-time challenge of disappearing islands amid the idyllic atolls celebrated for the pristine beauty of the undersea environment.

Global warming and climate change are interlinked, with cause-and-effect relationships. The resultant devastation is well documented across the region, with contrasts of floods and droughts in the same belt, such as in parts of Afghanistan, and massive heat waves impacting India and Pakistan in the summer of 2026, leading Indian Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi to caution the people to take precautions personally. We await the monsoons, and while the El Niño effect is likely to reduce intensity, the increase in catastrophic events such as cloud bursts cannot be ruled out, which could cause local flooding and landslides. Part of the disasters are a result of unrestricted development, such as the cutting of trees and forests in the name of infrastructure, construction, and industry, amongst other such activities. The contribution of these factors to the increase in the impact of climate change is well documented.

At the same time, state responses to the impact are varied, despite a commitment, with paucity of resources, governance and accountability deficits, and episodic rescue and relief rather than mitigation. Yes, wars in West Asia are an immediate economic, energy and supply chain threat to South Asia. Still, climate change is the slow burner which we can mitigate with the collective will of the state and the people.