Policy Recommendations

POLICY 1: AN URGENT CLIMATE & SECURITY RISK ASSESSMENT

• Appoint a well-resourced, independently-chaired, expert panel to urgently conduct a comprehensive Climate and Security Risk Assessment, using the best available information, to report publicly within six months.
• This is what the US is doing.  US President Biden’s “Tackling the climate crisis at home and abroad” Executive Order put the climate crisis “at the center of US foreign policy and national security” and directs the Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence and others to analyze the security implications of climate change and incorporate them into modeling, simulation, war-gaming and other analyses.

POLICY 2: ESTABLISH A DEDICATED OFFICE OF CLIMATE THREAT INTELLIGENCE

• Australia’s intelligence services have not given climate the priority it needs as the greatest threat to the nation.
• A dedicated Office of Climate Threat Intelligence can provide a “full spectrum” strategic approach by building an Australian climate risk “early warning system” capacity to identify and respond to current or emerging direct climate risks to national interests.

POLICY 3: TRIENNIAL NATIONAL CLIMATE RISK ASSESSMENTS

• Based on the model used in the USA, with triennial reports to Parliament, prepared by a high-level expert group working with relevant agencies including BoM, CSIRO and university researchers, to provide a regular, publicly-available assessment of climate trends, risks and impacts.
• In short, it would provide a regular national synthesis, in the way the IPCC aims to do at a global level.  This capacity is missing at the moment. It is a necessary part of an effective climate-security risk assessment process.

POLICY 4: BUILD AN AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL PREVENTION & RESILIENCE FRAMEWORK

• Prepare a prevention and mitigation roadmap based on the best scientific advice and a precautionary risk-management framework.
• We must prepare for a world of rapidly changing global alliances and institutions; we cannot rely primarily on reactive responses as we have, given the growing scale and complexity of the threats we face as a nation.
• Military concepts of protection, prevention, preparedness and leadership will be critically important in addressing the climate emergency.