WARMING TO A REDEFINITION OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY 271 Warming to a Redefinition of International Security: The Consolidation of a Norm Concerning Climate Change Denise Garcia Abstract The fundamental idea of this article is that the enormity and nature of the challenges created by climate change are redeining the understanding and deinition of international security. The threats posed by climate change have become considered security threats, especially since 2007. I also argue that an international norm concerning climate change started emerging and became consolidated around the same time. The norm building process occurred due to three elements: a basic international legal regime, constituted since the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), its 1997 Kyoto Protocol (followed by ratiication by the majority of states), and the 2009 political framework set out by the Copenhagen Accord. All this was guided by authoritative scientiic evidence throughout. The consolidation of an international norm concerning climate change demonstrates that norm internalization processes in treaties do not automatically result in successful norm crystallization. It took a dramatic shift of position in the domestic arena in the United States and other recalcitrant states for the international norm to consolidate. This shift of mood was multilayered: i.e. it included the participation of many actors in society, especially local and state governments, as well as the private sector. Most importantly, the security aspects of climate change became known and this dimension of the debate gained enormous prominence. Keywords: cities, climate change, COP 15, Copenhagen, global warming, international security, Kyoto, mayors, norm internalization, norms, security redeinition, UNFCCC Introduction The underlying premise of this article is that the magnitude and nature of the threats and challenges posed by climate change are redeining the understanding and deinition of international security. From its inception, the international debate on climate change and global warming was largely conined to the international environmental political debate and was largely considered a low politics issue. An international norm concerning climate change has been consolidating, especially since the pivotal year 2007, because of the security threats posed by climate change. This perception has recently started to gain currency even among those states and industries that were previously the most reluctant to acknowledge the issue. Tackling climate change requires dramatic changes in how nations produce energy, the essential foundation for economies to thrive, since 80 percent of world energy supplies come from the fossil fuels that are the main cause of climate change. 1 Therefore, stopping it is likely to be the most complex issue to be dealt with multilaterally. © The Author(s), 2010. Reprints and permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Vol 24(3): 271–292 [DOI: 10.1177/0047117810377373]