Exploring environmental security: nuclear waste in the Indian ocean region

Abstract

Interest in the concept of environmental security emerged forcefully in the Brundtland Report in 1987, and increased at the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Ten years later, the nexus between environment, development and security was never stronger than at the recent ‘Earth Summit Plus Ten’ in Johannesburg in 2002. The notion of environmental security, however, is hotly contested. Its most common variation is concerned with the impact of environmental stress on societies, which may lead to situations of war within and between societies. Usually, environmental security issues cross nationstate boundaries, and provide an ideal vehicle for the discussion of regional frameworks. This paper critically examines the concept of environmental security within the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). It then introduces one urgent environmental security issue – the production, treatment, transport and storage of nuclear waste – within the context of the IOR. Whilst many parts of the more affluent world are moving away from nuclear power as an industrial and domestic energy source, the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is rapidly increasing its nuclear energy profile. Most often, this increase in nuclear profile is evidenced in discourses linked to the nuclear proliferation of weaponry. Because of the IOR’s informal status as ‘Ocean of the South’, the environmental security focus on nuclear power has not been sufficiently explored, as the possibilities of nuclear accidents - whether in mining, power generation, reprocessing, transport or storage - are seen as risks that those ‘less affluent’ are expected to take. With the IOR’s increased nuclear profile, it is critical that environmental security concerns are included alongside the 3 more traditional security concerns of weapons proliferation and possible nuclear war.