Description
his special issue’s focus on the declining salience of terrorism as a security concern, especially for liberal democratic states, encourages us to reflect on how states’ security agendas are constituted and the process through which these choices are made. For many, including some of us writing on the pursuit of the ‘war on terror’, it was always difficult to justify the primacy attached to this concern relative to the climate emergency, even in the early 2000s. With the unambiguous arrival of the climate crisis since, and increasing attention to climate change as a security issue, this choice looks more dubious still. This paper examines the parallel trajectories of terrorism and climate change as security issues in the heady days of the ‘war on terror’, reflecting on the choices to prioritize one possible threat, characterised by uncertainty, over another. Ultimately, I argue that political interests, reduced agency, the perceived need for broader societal change and the lesser visibility of climate change all militated against its securitization and prioritization relative to the terror threat.
