The election campaign was largely devoid of debate about national security, and one of the neglected security issues was the impact of climate change. There are now few sceptics about global warming, given that the effects are apparent even to flat-earth proponents. The focus is now on how rapid (or delayed) climate change might be, the extent to which human countermeasures can mitigate the effects, and consideration of best and worst case scenarios.
In Britain, on November 12, Prime Minister Gordon Brown in his first major foreign policy speech as PM noted that "The unprecedented impact of climate change transforms the very purpose of government. Once quality of life meant the pursuit of two objectives: economic growth and social cohesion. Now there is a trinity of aims: prosperity, fairness and environmental care." And "As we move to a post 2012 global climate change agreement, we need a strengthened UN role for environmental protection". He noted that "without environmental sustainability, justice and prosperity are both imperilled and that the best route to long-term economic growth lies in action to tackle climate change".
Climate change is also a trigger for internal strife, instability and disease, and for tensions between nation states. It can result in substantial loss of life, population migration and need for deployment of external police, military forces and NGOs, and can have severe socio-economic consequences for affected states. In extremis, it could lead to conflict between nation states.
In April this year, the UN Security Council addressed the issue of global warming for the first time, warning about its potential to be a conflict catalyst. London-based conflict resolution group International Alert has identified 46 countries at risk of violent conflict and a further 56 facing a high risk of instability as a result of climate change.
The US Center for Naval Analyses published a recent study which stated that climate change presents significant national security challenges to the US and is a threat multiplier for volatile regions.
In Asia and the South Pacific, the main climate change concerns relate to food and water security, infectious diseases, natural disasters, sea-level rise, energy security, environmental degradation and population displacement and the economic consequences of all of the above.
We need to recognise that climate change has the potential to generate major humanitarian crises in Asia through a greater frequency and intensity of natural disasters, particularly severe storms and flooding. Extreme weather events can result in mass mortality and grave subsistence complications for affected communities, as we have seen recently in Bangladesh.
If the environmental effect is severe and prolonged, it can also lead to mass displacement of human populations, which may well destabilise the affected area and neighbouring states. Again, Bangladesh is a prime candidate.
Population migration is already occurring on a small scale from slowly submerging islands of the South-west Pacific. This can lead to disputes between neighbours like Australia and New Zealand about the absorption of climate change refugees. Effectively what is happening in New Zealand is societal change as it absorbs most of the climate refugees (and a lot of Asian migrants), while other New Zealanders are coming to Australia in record numbers (40,000 in the past year).
Health experts have already noted the growing nexus between climate change and the emergence and spread of diseases, particularly tropical diseases, which are spreading to warming areas. Mosquito-borne diseases, for example, are occurring at much higher elevations than before, and in geographic areas where they have not previously been a problem.
National security planners are most concerned about the disease threats to human populations, but they can also endanger livestock, crops and fisheries.
Climate change within Australia will gradually modify the distribution of arable land, agricultural products, fresh water, and fish stocks. Over the longer term, some of our coastal land will become higher-risk to storm surges. The forward-looking insurance industry is already limiting its coverage for vulnerable coastal properties.
Perhaps the major external threat to Australia over the next 20 years or so will be to our fisheries. Over-fishing and the decline in fish stocks in Asian waters has led to much of the poaching in Australia's northern waters. We can expect climate change to accelerate that process, including into the Southern Ocean, particularly as a more prosperous China makes poaching more lucrative.
Surprisingly, climate change did not even rate a mention in Australia's "Defence Update 2007". Our Department of Defence has traditionally focused on conflict between nation states, protective alliances, actions in support of our major ally, and peacekeeping or peace enforcement. Some of these are used to justify ever more capable and expensive combat ships and aircraft. The reality of the future for the ADF will most likely be more Afghanistan and Timor-type deployments, providing basic training team assistance, playing a major role in regional disaster relief operations, enhancing Australian fisheries protection, and support for government agencies struggling to cope with climate change problems.
The shape of the future ADF to meet these challenges will be a key issue for the new Defence white paper.
Clive Williams is an Adjunct Professor at Macquarie University's Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism and a Visiting Fellow at the ANU's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre.