Climate change a “security threat”
Defence ministers discussed the security threat posed by climate change during the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier security summit.
Maldives and Fiji made powerful portrayals of the existential threat posed by climate change to their countries, which could be submerged by the end of the century if the direst climate predictions play out.
Security officials also discussed the ways defence organizations, including the armed forces of all nations, could reduce their carbon footprint to contribute to efforts to curb global warming.
“In our blue Pacific continent, machine guns, fighter jets, grey ships and green battalions are not our primary security concern,” said Fiji Defense Minister Inia Batikoto Seruiratu.
“The single greatest threat to our very existence is climate change. It threatens our very hopes and dreams of prosperity,” he added.
In addition, Maldives’ Defense Minister Mariya Ahmed Didi spoke of evidence from her country that climate change could make conditions ripe for conflict and violence, and make communities more vulnerable to extremist indoctrination.
“It (climate change) can serve as an underlying motive and, at times of acute environmental insecurity, it becomes a precipitant for violence and conflict. As we enter into never-before-seen climate projections, these conflicts are likely to be more frequent, more widespread, and far bloodier,” she said on Saturday, during a smaller session that dealt specifically with climate change as a security challenge.
Impacts of climate change like rising sea levels, water salinization, heat waves, and ocean acidification could lead to food shortages, the disruption of livelihoods, and large-scale migration – making climate refugees out of entire communities. These crises could upend societies and drive violence.
“We have evidence to indicate that social cohesion and dynamics in the case of internal migration and relocation are severely disrupted and undermined. Such societies become favourable breeding grounds for violent extremism. Narcotics, illicit smuggling, and other transnational criminal vectors become entrenched,” said Minister Didi.
The Maldives is particularly threatened by sea-level rise, a phenomenon exacerbated by climate change because of how higher temperatures can melt icecaps. Most of the country’s islands are barely three feet above sea level. Over 70% of its infrastructure and half of its urban areas are located within a hundred meters of the sea.
Meanwhile, officials in the Saturday session spoke of ways to move forward with “green defense.”
New Zealand Defense Minister Peeni Henare spoke of how his country’s defence force aims to reduce the size of its commercial line vehicle fleet by 15% by end of 2025 or 2026. There is also a target to make half of its vehicle fleet electronic or hybrid vehicles by end of 2029 or 2030.
New Zealand has banned new offshore oil exploration, in an effort to discourage more burning of fossil fuels for energy, and doubled aid to Pacific island states facing impacts of climate change.
Ministers and defence officials present acknowledged the difficulty of making militaries part of the carbon neutrality goal that scientists have said is the only way humanity can avert catastrophic impacts of a warmer planet. But they also pointed out that it is also in the interest of defence organizations to adopt clean energy and green technology.
“From an operational and tactical standpoint, it’s an advantage to have tanks, to have jets, to have ships that need less fossil fuels,” said Germany’s Minister of State Tobias Lindner.