Adaptive policing for a climate crisis

Abstract

Climate change is the ‘defining issue of our time’ and human societies face extraordinary and growing hazards that threaten public safety, social cohesion, and the economy. Heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and coastal erosion are projected to increase in frequency and severity and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has long called upon societies around the world to urgently improve their capacity ‘to moderate or avoid harm’. In this essay, we call on policing actors and researchers to embrace this call and urgently consider how emerging and existential threats attributed to climate change may impact the regulation and protection of social order around the world. We argue that aligning the mentalities, functions, and capabilities of policing institutions and networks with ‘whole-of-society’ or systemic attempts to promote ‘adaptive governance’ is vital for governing security in the Anthropocene, characterised by ‘dissolving boundaries between humans and nature’. From both an institutional and systemic standpoint this shift is necessary however, police agencies and policing systems may lack the inclination or capacity to make this transition and may even actively resist or obstruct transformative agendas. We argue that the concept of ‘adaptation’ offers a potentially productive vehicle for navigating this emergent policing frontier, and for getting from where we are, to where we might want to go. Show more