International Security Issues

Climate change is likely to have important ramifications for security and the global balance of power. It is expected to change the pattern of agricultural productivity (through altered rainfall and increased temperature), cause increased numbers of refugees as a result of flooding in low-lying states, increase the range of certain diseases, and reduce freshwater supply. In turn, such stresses may bring about conflict. In 2001, environmental policy analyst Hermann Ott wrote:

Climate policy, in short, equals security and peace politics. Water and food shortages, rising sea levels and generally changing patterns of precipitation will lead to mass migrations and a considerable increase in low- and high-intensity warfare in many parts of the southern world.

In late 2006, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called climate change an all-encompassing threat, and Sir Nicholas Stern warned the British Government in his report on the economics of climate change that:

Climate change will affect the basic elements of life for people around the world—access to water, food production, health, and the environment. Hundreds of millions of people could suffer hunger, water shortages and coastal flooding as the world warms.

As a result of these concerns, in 2007 the United Nations Security Council held its first debate on the impact of climate change on peace and security. Two United States Congressional Committees (Senate Foreign Relations and House Science and Technology) held hearings to explore ways ‘in which climate-related security threats can be predicted, forestalled, mitigated, or remedied’.

In Australia, the Office of National Assessments (ONA) has produced five recent reports on the issue. In 2007, the Chief of the Australian Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, identified climate change as a security issue that would affect the armed forces. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute endorsed these concerns, but noted that there has been little analysis on the implications for the military. Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty recently commented that food and water shortages may cause mass migration and that ‘climate change is going to be the security issue of the 21st century’. The Australian Labor Party has stated in its plan for International Development Assistance and Climate Change that the impacts of climate change ‘have security issues which cannot be ignored’.

The German Advisory Council on Global Change has written a report World in transition: climate change as a security risk. It concludes that ‘climate change could become a major international security risk in the 21^st century. Policymakers must therefore lose no time in developing strategies …’.

Documentation
Alan Dupont and Graeme Pearman, Heating up the planet: climate change and security, Lowy Institute, 2006.
Royal United Services Institute web site—Climate change and national security.