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Geopolitics when the map washes away · Diplomacy and International Relations

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  Usually when you look at a world map, there's this expectation of
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  absolute geographic permanence. Right.
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  You expect things to stay exactly where they are.
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  Exactly. You see the jagged outline of a
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  continent or the precise color-coded borders of a nation,
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  and there's a comfort in that cartographic stability.
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  It feels like reading a historical fact.
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  It really does. The map points and says you know
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  this is exactly how the world is.
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  But it's an illusion. I mean, it's an illusion we rely
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  on heavily. We base our entire international
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  legal framework on the assumption that geopolitical
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  boundaries are literal, unmoving lines drawn in the sand.
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  Yeah, but when you apply the reality of our warming world to
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  that Mac, the lines start to blur.
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  The ink is literally washing away while the international
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  community is trying to read. It it's a completely
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  unprecedented geopolitical landscape.
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  We're looking at something totally new.
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  Yeah, welcome to Diplomacy and International Relations, your
• 0:56
  shortcut to being well informed without the information
• 0:59
  overload. And before we get into the
• 1:00
  substance of today's comprehensive analysis, we
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  encourage you to follow and subscribe to the show.
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  Yeah, and you can also subscribe on Patreon to help keep this
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  to extra content, including our highly requested weekly and
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  monthly briefings on Danish politics, so check the link in
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  the description for that. But for today, we have an
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  incredibly extensive stack of source material to get through.
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  We really do. We're synthesizing documents
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  from the US Endo Pacific Command, some rigorous academic
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  research from scholars like Doctor Siddik, Arslan and
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  Ghesimova, and policy journals out of Lund University.
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  And our mission today is to unpack the mechanics of how
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  climate change is completely rewiring international
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  relations, global governance, and the very concept of
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  sovereignty. OK, let's unpack this, starting
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  with the foundation of how states even negotiate climate
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  agreements in the 1st place. Because, you know, typically
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  science is treated as this objective neutral referee.
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  Right people think of it as pure facts.
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  Exactly like a thermometer doesn't sit at the negotiating
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  table with a national agenda. Well, the thermometer itself
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  might be neutral, but the architecture built around
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  reading it absolutely is not. The historical analysis by
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  Acidic Arslan reveals that atmospheric science has been
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  transformed into a profoundly potent geopolitical tool.
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  Oh wow, how so? Well, if you look back at the
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  1950s. Then in the middle of the Cold
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  War. Exactly.
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  Atmospheric science shifted from just, you know, regional weather
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  forecasting to global tracking. You had the World Meteorological
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  Organization established in 1951 and researchers like Charles
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  Keeling launching systematic measurements of atmosphere
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  carbon dioxide. And that transition was the
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  moment meteorological knowledge stopped being a shared human
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  resource and started functioning as what researchers call
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  strategic capital. I want to pause on that term
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  strategic capital, because usually we think of capital as
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  financial or military. You're saying the actual
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  atmospheric data became a resource that states could
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  leverage to project power? That's precisely how it
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  operates. I mean, think about the data
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  infrastructures required to monitor the global climate.
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  Like satellites and stuff. Yeah, the orbital satellites,
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  the supercomputer arrays, the massive longitudinal archives of
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  historical data, these operate as what?
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  The literature terms vast machines, and building and
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  maintaining those machines requires immense resources.
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  Which means only a few countries can actually do it.
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  Exactly. Consequently, developed nations
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  overwhelmingly control the data infrastructures and the highly
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  complex predictive models they generate, and this dynamic
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  creates a condition the researchers call epistemic
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  hegemony. Epistemic meaning relating to
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  knowledge. So like an intellectual or
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  knowledge based dominance? Right.
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  If we connect this to the bigger picture, it creates a massive
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  structural asymmetry. Because developed nations own
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  the data pipelines and the modeling capabilities.
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  Developing nations enter diplomatic negotiations at a
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  systemic disadvantage. I see They are essentially
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  forced to negotiate using the terms, the risk assessments and
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  the predictive models generated by the very countries that
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  historically industrialized and emitted the most carbon.
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  Wait, so is the research telling us that whoever controls the
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  climate models basically controls the rules of
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  international diplomacy? It is because defining the risk
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  is just as powerful as fixing the risk.
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  So it's essentially like playing poker, but one player not only
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  has the most chips, they also own the casino, printed the deck
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  of cards and get to dictate what a winning hand looks like.
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  That's a great way to put it. Like if a country in the global
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  N dictates the specific algorithmic models for how sea
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  level rise will impact a coastline in the Global South,
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  the global S has to argue for financial reparations using the
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  global N's math. The casino analogy captures the
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  structural imbalance perfectly, and the asymmetry is managed by
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  what the text call epistemic communities.
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  What are those? There are these exclusive
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  transnational networks of recognized experts who
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  standardize the data formats and define what constitutes A
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  legitimate risk. Oh wow, yeah.
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  If a developing nation cannot independently run localized high
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  resolution models of drought impacts, they cannot effectively
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  argue for a specific technology transfers or loss in damage
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  funds. The science doesn't just inform
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  the diplomacy, it actively constructs the boundaries of
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  what can be negotiated. OK, so if developing nations are
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  already losing the data war at the negotiating table, meaning
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  they can't even define the environmental risks on their own
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  terms, what leverage do they actually have left?
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  Historically, a state's ultimate leverage is its physical
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  territory, its actual borders. Right, but our sources from the
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  US Indo Pacific Command look at what happens when that physical
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  collateral literally dissolves and it fundamentally breaks how
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  we understand the map. It does, assuming you are
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  already familiar with the UNCLS. The United Nations Convention on
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  the Law of the Sea. Yes, exactly.
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  You know, it grants coastal states an exclusive economic
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  zone, or EEZ, extending 200 nautical miles from their coast.
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  That zone is the economic lifeblood for many nations.
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  It dictates sovereign rights over fishing, oil and deep sea
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  minerals. But how can a nation claim 200
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  miles of ocean resource rights if the island that generated
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  those rights is literally underwater?
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  Doesn't that break traditional international law?
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  That is the mechanical problem in international law right now.
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  Under traditional interpretations of UNCLSA,
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  maritime zone is measured outward from a coastal baseline.
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  Usually the low water line along the coast, Right, Right.
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  It is physically tethered to the land.
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  The legal doctrine has always been that the land dominates the
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  sea. But what happens to the legal
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  rights over that massive maritime zone when the sea level
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  rises and the physical baseline permanently recedes, or the
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  island generating the zone becomes entirely submerged?
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  The imagery the sources provide on this is just striking.
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  You have Tuvalu's foreign minister delivering a speech to
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  the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference, standing knee deep
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  in the ocean. Literally, physically
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  demonstrating that the territory generating their statehood is
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  sinking. Exactly, and in response to
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  this, the Pacific Islands Forum issued a landmark declaration in
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  2021. They basically declared that
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  once their maritime coordinates are deposited with the UN, those
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  boundaries are permanently fixed.
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  Even if sea level rise turns an island into a submerged rock, or
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  like a low tide elevation that vanishes completely at high
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  tide, they intend to keep their 200 mile EZ.
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  'S which is a massive paradigm shift.
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  But looking at the mechanics of this, how do you enforce a 200
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  mile sovereign boundary around a point on the map that is just
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  open water? Doesn't that completely fracture
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  the traditional Westphalian concept of sovereignty?
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  It fractures it completely. Westphalian sovereignty, which
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  has been the foundation of the international system since the
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  1640s, is predicated on a state having absolute, exclusive
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  control over a defined piece of physical territory.
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  So no land, no state. Exactly.
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  If the physical territory ceases to exist, the traditional legal
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  framework suggests the state and its associated maritime rights
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  should also cease to exist. Wow.
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  But we are watching real time legal innovation driven by
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  existential necessity. The Pacific island states are
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  rejecting the traditional concept of ambulatory baselines.
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  Ambulatory meaning baselines that move as the physical coast
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  moves. Correct.
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  Instead, they are pushing a fixed boundary approach and they
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  are building a legal precedent. They point to a 2014 ruling by
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  the Permanent Court of Arbitration regarding the Bay of
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  Bengal, which stated that maritime baselines must be
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  stable and definitive to ensure security.
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  And the geopolitical reactions to this legal shift are
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  incredibly revealing. The military documents highlight
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  that the US, along with allies like the UK and France, publicly
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  supports this fixed boundary approach.
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  Right. They want to lock in those
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  boundaries to preserve stability and protect the fishing and
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  security rights of the Pacific island states.
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  Conversely, nations like the PRC and Russia have adopted A
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  posture the documents described as caution.
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  They argue that international state practice is not yet
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  established enough to simply freeze maritime borders
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  indefinitely. And that cautious posture is
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  heavily rooted in strategic calculus In international
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  relations. Legal ambiguity is highly useful
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  for major powers. How so?
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  Well, if the maritime boundaries of sinking nations are left
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  unresolved, it creates massive Gray zones in the Pacific.
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  A shrinking EEZ means those waters revert to international
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  high seas. Oh, I see.
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  And when waters become high seas, large state subsidized
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  distant water fishing fleets or naval vessels can legally
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  exploit the area. Freezing the baselines removes
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  that ambiguity and protects the sovereign wealth of smaller
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  states. The physical vanishing of the
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  land is forcing A fundamental rewrite of maritime law.
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  OK, so we've covered the weaponization of data and the
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  shifting of maritime borders. But territory isn't just about
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  resource extraction, it's fundamentally about the
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  populations who inhabit it. Absolutely.
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  When these territories become fully uninhabitable, whether
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  it's the sinking atolls in the Pacific or, say, the drought
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  devastated regions of the Central American Dry Corridor,
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  populations will move. They have to.
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  And the diplomatic framing of that human movement is deeply
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  contentious. We looked at analysis from
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  London University and the Diva Portal regarding how different
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  global blocks frame climate induced migration.
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  And the framing dictates the legal obligations.
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  The sources utilize an analytical framework developed
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  by Carol Bachi called WPR, which stands for What's the Problem
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  Represented to Be? It's a method of reading policy
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  documents not just for what they propose, but for how they
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  construct the underlying problem.
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  The researchers apply this WPR analysis to the European Union's
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  proposed Joint Africa EU strategy from 2020.
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  And what did they find? When you dissect the specific
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  language used in these EU documents, you realize the EU
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  does not primarily frame African climate migration as an
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  ecological crisis requiring global emission reductions.
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  Instead, they frame it as a localized deficit of economic
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  development and a border security risk.
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  Here's where it gets really interesting, because the WPR
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  analysis shows us the actual mechanism of how this is done.
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  The EU documents repeatedly emphasize phrases like building
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  local African resilience and fostering green growth
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  opportunities within Africa. By framing the problem as a lack
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  of local African resilience rather than the result of a
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  globally altered atmosphere caused heavily by European
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  industrialization, the EU engages in what post colonial
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  scholars call othering. Exactly.
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  It makes the migration an African problem to be managed
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  rather than a shared global consequence.
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  And reading through this, it looks like a brilliant, if
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  cynical, legal maneuver. If you categorize these moving
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  populations simply as economic migrants seeking better
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  opportunities due to local instability, you avoid
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  triggering the 1951 Refugee Convention.
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  You've hit on the core legal objective of the framing.
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  The 1951 Refugee Convention defines A refugee strictly
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  around persecution based on race, religion, nationality or
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  political opinion. It does not include
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  environmental degradation. It does not.
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  By vigorously categorizing climate migrants under the
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  umbrella of economic development and border security, the global
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  N avoids the monumental task of rewriting international refugee
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  law, which would mandate legally binding protections and asylum
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  quotas. Wow.
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  This debate showcases A profound clash between international
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  relations theories. The E US language heavily
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  reflects a realist perspective. Realism being the framework
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  where states operate primarily out of self-interest, viewing
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  the international system as anarchic and prioritizing their
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  own physical and economic security above all else.
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  So like taller fences and stronger border patrols?
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  Correct realism views the moving population as an external
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  variable threatening state sovereignty.
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  But if you look at the counter narrative from the global S
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  again, notably the Pacific Islands Forum, their diplomatic
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  framing is rooted in a constructivist and liberal
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  perspective. How does that differ?
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  Well, constructivism argues that international relations are
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  shaped by historical context, shared ideas, and moral norms.
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  From the perspective of the global S, climate migration is
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  viewed through the lens of historical responsibility and
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  climate justice. Because they didn't cause the
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  emissions. Right.
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  Their diplomatic argument is that because the global N
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  altered the atmospheric chemistry, the global N bears a
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  direct legal obligation to facilitate safe pathways for
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  migration and provide human rights protections.
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  The very definition of a human being moving across a border is
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  trapped in a diplomatic tug of war.
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  So pulling all these threads together, we have epistemic
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  hedge of money skewing the data, physical geography, breaking the
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  laws of the sea, and competing legal frameworks over migration.
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  It's a lot of pressure. Yeah.
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  How is the international governance system functioning
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  under this multifaceted pressure?
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  According to the texts from Gasimova and Arslan, the
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  architecture of global diplomacy is buckling.
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  We are looking at severe systemic gridlock.
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  We really are. The traditional mechanisms of
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  global governance are struggling to process these compounding
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  crises, largely because they are entangled with overarching
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  geopolitical conflicts. Right.
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  The texts note that structural tensions between the US and
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  China over technological dominance and trade frequently
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  spill over, stalling bilateral climate cooperation.
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  And there are other massive conflicts diverting attention to
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  yes. Looking strictly at Gasimova's
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  analysis of the geopolitical data, the conflict click in
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  Ukraine has created an undeniable ripple effect.
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  And our sources state that the resulting global energy crisis
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  forced a massive redirection of financial resources and
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  political capital away from sustainable initiatives.
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  Exactly. It compelled several European
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  states to temporarily reactivate coal facilities just to secure
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  their immediate energy grids. The international system is
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  trying to manage a long term atmospheric transition while
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  constantly being derailed by short term security crises.
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  So to manage this gridlock, the sources detail how the
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  diplomatic architecture itself has had to evolve.
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  They discuss a concept called the regime complex.
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  The texts trace the evolution for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to
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  the 2015 Paris Agreement. To explain this.
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  Under the Kyoto Protocol, the approach was a rigid top down
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  mandate. It imposed legally binding
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  emission reduction targets on specific countries.
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  But because it was so rigid, major global emitters either
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  refused to ratify it or eventually withdrew.
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  Right. It was a centralized system that
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  ultimately failed to capture universal participation, so the
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  international community pivoted to the Paris Agreement, which
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  operates on what they call Nationally Determined
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  Contributions, or NDC's. And that shift to NDC's
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  represents the core of the regime complex theory.
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  A regime complex is not a single powerful hierarchical
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  organization like the UN Security Council.
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  Instead, it is a fragmented, decentralized network of loosely
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  coupled agreements and institutions.
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  You know, it looks exactly like a shift in corporate management
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  philosophy. We moved from a strict top down
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  corporate mandate where half the departments actively rebelled,
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  to a global suggestion box model.
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  A suggestion box model. Yeah, in the Paris Agreement
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  participation is incredibly high because every state gets to
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  volunteer their own targets, but actual enforceable
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  accountability is practically non existent.
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  The suggestion box analogy is structurally accurate.
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  It trades enforcement for participation.
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  But what's fascinating here is what happens in the spaces
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  between those fragmented agreements.
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  Because state level diplomacy is frequently paralyzed, with
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  national governments endlessly weighing their domestic economic
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  growth against their historical emission targets, a diplomatic
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  vacuum has opened up. And into that vacuum we are
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  seeing the aggressive rise of non state actors.
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  Non state actors, meaning entities operating outside the
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  traditional Westphalian framework of national
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  governments. Yes, since the traditional
• 16:49
  nation states are gridlocked, alternative networks are
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  bypassing them entirely to establish global norms.
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  You have transnational civil society movements like Friday's
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  for future, applying relentless normative pressure from the
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  bottom up, challenging the legitimacy of state inaction.
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  You have massive multinational tech corporations setting their
• 17:10
  own internal carbon pricing and renewable energy targets that
• 17:13
  rival the GDP of small countries.
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  And perhaps most impactfully, you have local municipalities
• 17:20
  taking on international diplomatic roles, mayors of
• 17:23
  massive global hubs. Through networks like the C 40s,
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  cities are sharing green infrastructure technology,
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  establishing 0 emission zones and negotiating direct
• 17:33
  partnerships with foreign entities.
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  Completely independent of their national presidents or prime
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  ministers. Exactly.
• 17:38
  The actual architecture of climate diplomacy is no longer
• 17:41
  confined to state ambassadors in Geneva.
• 17:43
  It's a horizontal multi layered web spanning across all levels
• 17:47
  of society. It's as if the global system is
• 17:50
  the biological Organism desperately trying to route
• 17:53
  around a blockage in its main artery.
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  We've traced this incredible arc today.
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  We really have. We started in the 1950s, where
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  atmospheric data was essentially meteorological trivia, to a
• 18:05
  present where that data dictates the legality of sovereign
• 18:08
  maritime borders, defines the human rights of moving
• 18:11
  populations, and is forcing city mayors to bypass their own
• 18:15
  federal governments to establish international policy.
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  It's. A profound transformation.
• 18:20
  So what does this all mean for the future of international
• 18:22
  relations? Where is this fragmented complex
• 18:25
  web ultimately heading? Well, the Arsalan text offers a
• 18:28
  highly compelling forward-looking assessment on
• 18:31
  exactly that question. We discussed earlier how control
• 18:34
  over supercomputers and data archives created the current
• 18:37
  epistemic hegemony, right the. Global N controlling the math.
• 18:40
  Exactly. But the architecture of that
• 18:42
  power is currently undergoing a massive paradigm shift.
• 18:46
  As artificial intelligence and highly advanced algorithmic
• 18:50
  prediction systems increasingly take over the modeling of
• 18:53
  planetary systems, the sources suggest we are hurtling toward a
• 18:56
  completely new epistemic divide. A divide based not just on who
• 19:00
  has the data, but who has the algorithms to process it.
• 19:04
  Exactly. The geopolitical battles of the
• 19:06
  20th century were fought over physical territory and fossil
• 19:09
  fuel reserves. The international relations
• 19:12
  struggle of the coming decades will be fiercely focused on data
• 19:15
  sovereignty. Data sovereignty, yes.
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  The states or corporations that develop and control the
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  proprietary AI models, the algorithms that predict
• 19:23
  localized climate risks, optimize global resource
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  allocation, and ultimately dictate the parameters of global
• 19:29
  climate policies, Those entities will hold unparalleled
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  structural power. The future map of global
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  influence won't just be determined by sinking coastlines
• 19:38
  or shifting populations. It will be written in code.
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  A geopolitical battle for the algorithms that will literally
• 19:45
  decide the fate of the physical world.
• 19:48
  That is an incredibly heavy, fascinating thought to end on.
• 19:52
  If you found this comprehensive analysis of international
• 19:54
  relations and global governance valuable, please follow the show
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• 20:07
  who want to understand the mechanics of our changing world.
• 20:10
  Because circling back to where we began, the map of the world
• 20:14
  is not a fixed historical document.
• 20:16
  The ink is running, the borders are moving, and if you want to
• 20:18
  know where you actually stand, you have to look past the paper
• 20:21
  and understand the unseen forces washing it away.
• 20:24
  We'll be back. Next time.
• 20:25
  Keep questioning the map.