Environmental sесurity in the national security system: Ukraine

Abstract

This chapter examines the role of environmental security in regional and national development. The authors argue that enhancing environmental security necessitates a focus on the rational consumption of natural resources and the implementation of new approaches to economic activities. The purpose of the chapter is to study the theoretical and methodological foundations of environmental security, develop tools for its assessment, and assess its level in the EU and Ukraine. The authors systematize the conceptual foundations of environmental security, including its constituent elements and related aspects. The subjects and objects of environmental security, environmental security standards, and levels of environmental quality are then determined, before the principles, criteria, and types of environmental security are grouped. The mechanism for ensuring environmental security is determined through the identification of several functions: organizational and preventive, regulatory and stimulating, administrative and executive, security and protective, and restorative. This text examines modern approaches to environmental security measurement and systematizes its evaluation criteria. The authors identify factors contributing to changes in the state of environmental security and develop an algorithm for its assessment. The algorithm involves systematizing environmental indicators that can be used for assessment, grading the complex indicator using an expert method, and calculating both indices and an integral indicator of the environmental component of national security for the countries of Europe and Ukraine. The proposed tools make it possible to rank the EU countries and Ukraine according to their level of environmental security. This ranking includes the Air Quality Index, the Climate Change Performance Index, and the Environmental Performance Index. Countries are also grouped by level of danger. This information can be used to develop policies that make economic development more sustainable while taking environmental aspects into account.