Australia’s national security faces a growing threat from climate change, including climate-induced political upheaval in the Indo-Pacific, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has warned.
The alert comes as Australia’s Pacific neighbours face the existential threat of climate change with sea level rise threatening to contaminate soil and water supply, and potentially inundate whole nations.
Releasing the annual Climate Change Statement in parliament on Thursday, Mr Bowen will caution that while global warming already presents “serious risks” to Australia and its neighbours, this will likely worsen as the planet becomes hotter.
“Climate change could lead to mass migration, demands for peacekeeping and peace enforcement, and intra‐ and inter‐state conflict while increasing demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief tasks at home and abroad,” the statement reads.
As a result, Mr Bowen will paint a grim picture of the demands on Australia’s national security and emergency service capability.
“Dealing with climate extremes is likely to place additional stress on national co-ordination arrangements and domestic crisis management agencies, stretching Australia’s emergency capabilities that deploy domestically and internationally,” Minister Bowen will say.
Amid criticism over the costs of the green energy transition, Mr Bowen will use the address to bolster the government’s case for increased intervention on the basis that national security risks to Australia will increase in severity and frequency without action.
“The National Security imperative just adds to the need for strong action this decade, and reinforces the importance of our domestic transformation and international engagement,” Mr Bowen will say.
“Australia will not sit on its hands, pause the transformation and expect to deploy speculative solutions in 2049 to address a climate emergency that is with us now.”
The annual Climate Change Statement is also expected to project that Australia will cut greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per cent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade – just short of Labor’s 43 per cent target.
While the government has brought the security risks posed by climate change into focus, it has defied calls from the crossbench and the Greens on the issue.
After forming government in 2022, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese tasked the Office of National Intelligence with analysing the security implications of climate change.
However, the results of the assessment remain top secret.