Climate
change will stir 'unimaginable' refugee crisis, says military
Unchecked
global warming is greatest threat to 21st-century security where mass
migration could be ‘new normal’, say senior military
Damian Carrington
Thursday 1 December
2016 06.00 GMT
Climate change is
set to cause a refugee crisis of “unimaginable scale”, according
to senior military figures, who warn that global warming is the
greatest security threat of the 21st century and that mass migration
will become the “new normal”.
The generals said
the impacts of climate change were already factors in the conflicts
driving a current crisis of migration into Europe, having been linked
to the Arab Spring, the war in Syria and the Boko Haram terrorist
insurgency.
Military leaders
have long warned that global warming could multiply and accelerate
security threats around the world by provoking conflicts and
migration. They are now warning that immediate action is required.
“Climate change is
the greatest security threat of the 21st century,” said Maj Gen
Munir Muniruzzaman, chairman of the Global Military Advisory Council
on climate change and a former military adviser to the president of
Bangladesh. He said one metre of sea level rise will flood 20% of his
nation. “We’re going to see refugee problems on an unimaginable
scale, potentially above 30 million people.”
Previously,
Bangladesh’s finance minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, called on
Britain and other wealthy countries to accept millions of displaced
people.
Brig Gen Stephen
Cheney, a member of the US Department of State’s foreign affairs
policy board and CEO of the American Security Project, said: “Climate
change could lead to a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. We’re
already seeing migration of large numbers of people around the world
because of food scarcity, water insecurity and extreme weather, and
this is set to become the new normal.
“Climate change
impacts are also acting as an accelerant of instability in parts of
the world on Europe’s doorstep, including the Middle East and
Africa,” Cheney said. “There are direct links to climate change
in the Arab Spring, the war in Syria, and the Boko Haram terrorist
insurgency in sub-Saharan Africa.”
After Donald Trump,
who has called climate change a hoax, won the US presidential
election in November, Cheney said he expected senior military
officials to impress upon Trump the grave threat posed to national
security by global warming. “I’ve got to believe there are enough
folks on the national security side that we can make a dent in this.”
R Adm Neil
Morisetti, a former commander of the UK maritime forces and the UK’s
climate and energy security envoy, said: “Climate change is a
strategic security threat that sits alongside others like terrorism
and state-on-state conflict, but it also interacts with these
threats. It is complex and challenging; this is not a concern for
tomorrow, the impacts are playing out today.”
Morisetti said
climate change would mean the UK military will be deployed more often
to conflict and disaster zones. The military leaders were speaking
ahead of an event in London on Thursday.
In September, a
coalition of 25 US military and national security experts, including
former advisers to Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, warned that
climate change poses a “significant risk to US national security
and international security” that requires more attention from the
US federal government.
In 2015, a UK
foreign office report made a stark assessment of the dangers posed by
unchecked global warming, including very large risks to global food
security, increased risk of terrorism as states fail, and
unprecedented migration that would overwhelm international
assistance.
“Countries are
going to pay for climate change one way or another,” said Cheney.
“The best way to pay for it is by tackling the root causes of
climate change and cutting greenhouse gas emissions. If we do not,
the national security impacts will be increasingly costly and
challenging.”
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