Speaker

Dr Sanjay Chaturvedi is a Professor of Political Science and the Coordinator, Centre for the Study of Geopolitics, Department of Political Science at Panjab University, Chandigarh. His area of specialization is the theory and practice of Geopolitics; with special reference to Polar Regions and the Indian Ocean.  He did his M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Panjab University, Chandigarh.

Professor Chaturvedi was awarded the Nehru Centenary British Fellowship, followed by a highly coveted Leverhulme Trust Research Grant, to pursue his post-doctoral research at University of Cambridge, England (1992-1995). A member of the Core Group of Experts on India’s Antarctic and Southern Ocean Affairs, set up by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, Professor Chaturvedi also served on the Indian delegation to XXX Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM), New Delhi, 2007, and XXXI ATCM, Kiev, Ukraine, 2008.

Professor Chaturvedi has had a very distinguished academic career having been a recipient of several Visiting Fellowships abroad, including Durham University, UK; Columbia University Institute for Scholars, Reid Hall, and Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris (under International Programme of Advanced Studies); Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, Australia; Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel (under Distinguished Visitors Programme); and Henry L. Stimson Centre, Washington D.C., USA. He was also awarded a research grant by the Australia-India Council, in the year 2001, to visit several institutions of higher learning in Australia, in connection with his project, “Australian-Indian Perspectives on Antarctic and Ocean Governance: Interactions, Linkages and Opportunities”.

Professor Chaturvedi is also the Principal Investigator of India’s Antarctic & Ocean Policy Research Group, the Vice-Chairman of Indian Ocean Research Group, (www.iorgroup.org), a member of the Core Group of Experts on Antarctic and Southern Ocean Affairs, Government of India.

Professor Chaturvedi is author of Polar Regions: A Political Geography (John Wiley & Sons, 1996); co-author of Partitions: Reshaping Minds and States (Routledge, 2005); and co-editor of Geopolitical Orientations Regionalism and Security in the Indian Ocean (South Asian Publishers, 2004); Energy Security and the Indian Ocean Region (South Asian Publishers, 2005); and Security of Sea Lanes of Communication in the Indian Ocean (Maritime Institute of Malaysia, 2008). His research has also been carried out by international, refereed journals such as Environment and Planning D Society and Space, Journal of Economic and Social Geography, Ocean Yearbook (University of Chicago Press), Third World Quarterly,and Cooperation and Conflict.

In connection with his research and other engagements, Professor Chaturvedi has travelled to as many as thirty eight countries as well as to both polar regions.

Abstract

Challenging the conventional notion of linking climate change to purely national security issues (flooding, water stress, and environmental refugees) between the developed and developing nations, Professor Sanjay Chaturvedi suggests that a pro-active collective “climate diplomacy” needs to be thought through to meet the multifaceted challenge of climate change.

The time for doubt has already passed and there is no denying the fact that our climate system is warming and is directly linked to human activity (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007). The global average sea level rise could flood the habitats of millions of people living in the low lying areas of South, Southeast and East Asia such as in Vietnam, Bangladesh, India and China, and affect marine and coastal ecosystems.
 
According to some analysts, we seem to be living in a climate of fear and uncertainty about our future climate. In several geopolitical writings, the new cartographies of climate change as a ‘threat-multiplier’ are ably supported by the geographical imaginations of rising ocean water levels, droughts, environmental refugees, ‘violent’ weather, ‘ruined’ national economies and vague assumptions of automatic processes and metaphors borrowed from other fields such as ‘spill-over’, ‘contagion’, ‘diffusion’, etc.

New alignments and alliances are being imagined in and by the ‘minority world’ in the West, on the basis of hypothetical modeling of connections between environmental degradation, climate change and destabilization happening in the ‘majority worlds’ of Asia. Since climate change, national security and energy dependence are related set of global challenges; they may add to tensions even in the ‘stable’ regions of Southeast Asia. Whereas, according to some, “Climate Change is the most severe problem that we are facing today –more serious even than the threat of terrorism”.

Professor Chaturvedi will address the questions: What are the implications of climate change and its various critically important sectors (e.g., water scarcity, forced migrations, and sea level rise) for comprehensive security for South and Southeast Asia? What are the likely consequences of integrating ‘national security’ considerations of climate change into national defense strategies? To what an extent will the climate change alter the territorial assumptions at the heart of various geopolitical scenarios currently in vogue, including the ‘clash of civilizations’? How valid is the apprehension that climate change (regardless of its scientific ‘reality’) is a post-industrial discourse deployed to divide, discipline and contain ‘Asia’ in terms of various climate change induced insecurity complexes?

This seminar aims at stimulating a dialogue in response to the questions posed above and concludes with a critical reflection on the problems and prospects of realizing regional and sub-regional cooperation in South and Southeast Asia.

You are cordially invited to the Seminar.

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