Howard 'fails to plan for climate security'

September 25, 2007
From News.com.au



THE Federal Government has left Australia unprepared for global turmoil caused by climate change, which the nation's top police officer has called this century's greatest security risk, Labor said today.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said water and food shortages caused by global warming could have disastrous implications, particularly for border security.

Mr Keelty said the world could see a "catastrophic'' decline in the availability of fresh water in populated areas.

"Crops could fail, disease could be rampant and flooding might be so frequent that people en masse would be on the move,'' he said in a speech last night.

"Even if only some, if not all, of this occurs, climate change is going to be the security issue of the 21st century.

"It's not difficult to see the policing implications that might arise in the not-too-distant future.''

Mr Keelty said people in their millions would be attempting to cross oceans and borders to escape their plight.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute in July said the military would find itself involved in more disaster and relief missions because of climate change and spend more time protecting the nation's borders.

Federal Labor said such threats posed critical questions for the nation's strategic and capability planning.

"Yet the Howard Government is still working off a Defence White Paper developed in the late 1990s and released in the year 2000, which takes no account of the implications of climate change,'' defence spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon said.

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