- Climate Change
Overview
3.1Climate change is a global issue that requires international action as it is a shared threat to all countries. The climate change crisis is disrupting the way governments and organisations trade, causing water and energy shortages, increasing risks of pandemics, conflict and displacement, and restricting progress in the fight against poverty.
3.2Communities in the Indo-Pacific region are facing devasting impacts of climate change due to increasing droughts, fires, cyclones, flooding, storm and sea damage and rising sea-water levels. These disasters are all having a major impact on vulnerable communities, especially as millions of people in the region live on coastal low-lying lands.
3.3Pacific island leaders have repeatedly identified climate change as the greatest threat for its future security and prosperity. This has been confirmed in official declarations from the Pacific Islands Forum, such as the 2018 Boe Declaration, which states that ‘climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific.’
3.4The Australia Government recognises that climate change is impacting on natural disasters with a frequency never seen before. This has ramifications for Australian citizens and for citizens who live in our region as it creates significant strain on social, economic and national security issues which negatively impacts democracies in our region.
3.5This chapter discusses the impact that climate change is having on the stability and governance of countries in our region. It examines the impact climate change is having on social and economic prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and how Australia can assist in building stronger partnerships to support these countries and mitigate against climate change.
Climate change, democracy and national security
3.6Countries across the region have felt the devastating effects of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. These events can negatively impact the social and economic outcomes of society and may lead to civil unrest if not adequately addressed. The Asia Pacific Forum stated:
Traditions and cultures based on connection to place will be threatened. Nations are experiencing environmental degradation at an alarming rate, with pollution threatening the health and safety of communities.
3.7The Australia Institute commented that with climate change adding to inequality this is a big issue for all governments.
Whether it results from decisions by governments to privilege one part of the community at the expense of another, from autocracy and dictatorship, or from global warming, inequality is a direct attack on democracy.
3.8The Australia Institute suggested the following:
There are innumerable ways in which Australia can partner with countries in our region to promote democracy and the international rules-based order. Most need not involve significant expenditure or extra effort – although better resourcing Australia’s diplomats and aid program would be most welcome.
Instead, Australia’s greatest contribution to promoting good governance in our region could be to address our own significant policy challenges, particularly where these directly impact our neighbours as in the case of climate policy and resource sector governance and taxation.
3.9RAND commented that focusing Australian Official Development Assistance on climate change is important for two reasons:
- firstly, it would help regional nations adopt policy decisions that are more effective in addressing the threat, thus increasing responsiveness to society and supporting democratic upturn
- secondly, it would demonstrate that Australia is addressing climate change, thus strengthening relationships and reflecting positively on Australia as a democracy.
- RAND projected that climate change threats will fuel instability and amplify security threats to the region. RAND outlined to the Committee that ‘efforts to address climate change are critical to regional stability and, in addition to influencing democratisation, may mitigate the prospects of conflict.’
- The Australia Institute observed that Defence forces will be increasingly overstretched as climate change intensifies, stating that extreme weather events will increase and there will be an increasing reliance on defence force as first responders.
This is an example of what is meant by the suggestion that climate change is a threat multiplier. The global governance system is ill-equipped to deal with the security risks posed by climate change.
3.12The Asia Pacific Development Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue (AP4D) suggested that Australia could be a catalyst for civil military cooperation by modelling positive behaviour and building civil society links. They suggested:
Australia could implement a Regional Military/Civil Society framework to manage Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief in Southeast [Asia] to prepare the Australian Defence Force and regional military partners for future operations while promoting a model and culture for regional militaries within their societies.
3.13To avoid war and conflict in our region, the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group identified climate mitigation as the number one priority of politics and economics.
Nations must strive to build an international culture of ‘cooperation, not conflict’ in order to maximise the global capacity to respond to this existential climate risk and its anti-democratic consequences.
Sea level rises and impact on population
3.14Dr Robert Glasser, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), advised that in Maritime Southeast Asia (MSEA), sea-level is rising four times faster than the global average, driven by climate change and other factors, such as groundwater extraction.
MSEA has the world’s highest average sea-level rise per kilometre of coastline and the largest coastal population affected by it. Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country, and 60% of its population (165 million people) is in coastal areas. The same is true for over half of the Philippines’ municipalities and 10 of its largest cities.
3.15Dr Robert Glasser highlighted the urgency of the impact of climate change:
The impacts are already severe (the Indonesian Government recently announced that it’s planning to relocate its capital from Jakarta to escape rising floodwaters), but the acceleration of the risk is astounding. In only a matter of decades, what has historically been a 1-in-100 year extreme flood will become an annual event across much of the region.
MSEA is also a hotspot for cyclones, which strike the Philippines more often than any other country. The warming climate is making cyclones more powerful and, together with sea level rise, is rapidly amplifying storm surges and flooding.
3.16Furthermore, communities are being relocated, particularly in the Pacific.
If you just think of the exposure of an entire country, for the Pacific, particularly low-lying atolls, it is an existential threat. Already communities are being relocated in places like Fiji because of sea level rise. So the humanitarian impact is severe. It involves concerns about freshwater access, food, supply chain risk and a whole range of issues, potentially including instability linked to the existing disputes that exist in some countries.
Fires and floods
3.17Dr Glasser commented on the damage that increasing global temperatures will have on the region.
In 2015, for example, an El Niño contributed to drought, food insecurity and record fires in Indonesia. The fires burned 2.6 million hectares (an area four and half times the size of Bali). Tens of millions of Indonesians suffered health effects, and the cost to the Indonesian economy from the fires alone was over US$16 billion.
3.18Dr Glasser was concerned that over time the continued negative impacts of severe fire and flood will have major consequences for affected countries.
The frequency of extreme El Niño events is expected to double under 1.5°C of warming—a level that could be reached within a decade—and both El Niños and La Niñas are likely to intensify. Consequently, the region will not only experience more severe extremes, but also more frequent swings from extreme heat and drought to severe floods. The diminishing time for recovery in between such events will have major consequences for food security and resilience.
Food security
3.19Evidence was received highlighting the consequences of climate change on food security. Dr Glasser stated:
Scientists have determined that by 2040, at 2°C of warming, Southeast Asia’s per capita crop production may decline by one-third. Climate impacts occurring outside of the region will further diminish the options available to countries to offset the domestic effects, such as by importing additional food, as Indonesia did on an unprecedented scale during its severe drought in 1998.
3.20Dr Glasser discussed the impact climate change has on food security in the region as temperatures increase and disrupt crop production.
Regarding food security, we are already seeing simultaneous disruptions to global bread baskets around the world from the existing warming. With climate change increasing, that will happen more often. That is important because one of the main coping mechanisms relating to climate risk that countries like Indonesia have when their own crops fail is to make big purchases on the global market. That may not be an option in future. In 1998, which was a very severe El Nino year, Indonesia made the largest purchase of rice ever made at that point on the global market. Those coping mechanisms will not be there anymore.
3.21Dr Glasser described how the negative impacts of climate change will result in food security problems for both crops and fisheries.
Amplifying the food insecurity risks is the region’s reliance on fisheries. Indonesia obtains more than half of its animal-source protein from fish, while in the Philippines the figure is about 40%. Fish species are already moving out of the region to escape warming waters, and the region’s coral reefs, the ‘nursery’ for roughly 10% of the world’s fish supply, are degrading rapidly; globally, over 90% of reefs will have collapsed at 1.5°C of warming.
National security
3.22Over time, the constant challenges and costs that governments have to navigate with more frequent disasters impacting communities starts to erode the government’s power and ultimately democracy.
The Maritime Southeast Asia sub-region on Australia’s doorstep is ‘exceptionally affected by the hazards that climate change is amplifying. Those hazards will not only exacerbate the traditional regional security threats that currently dominate military and foreign policy planning in Canberra, such as the rise of China and terrorism, but also lead to new threats and the prospect of multiple, simultaneous crises, including food insecurity, population displacement and humanitarian disasters that will greatly test our national capacities, commitments, and resilience.
So these hazards have serious implications for regional economic development, political stability and security. They arguably represent the single gravest threat to democracy in our region.
3.23The issue of embedding climate change risk across all government agencies was discussed and it was suggested that climate change risk needed to be mainstreamed across government. Dr Glasser commented:
We have this climate and security risk assessment, a classified assessment from Office of National Intelligence (ONI), that certainly addresses risks. I know Defence is very focused on this because of the concurrency issue—the challenge of increasingly having to respond to domestic disasters in Australia, with force posture trade-offs in terms of engaging regionally.
3.24The Committee received evidence that the Bureau of Meteorology, for example, was now supporting key national security agencies to identify the potential impacts of adverse weather and climate on food security, refugee migration and conflict. However, Dr Glasser suggested that climate change must become part of a much wider, whole-of-government process involving Defence, Home Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Trade, CSIRO, Health, Agriculture, and other departments and agencies.
Australia should develop an action plan that identifies priority investments to build the capability within Defence, Foreign Affairs, the intelligence agencies, Home Affairs and other departments to recognise emerging climate impacts and should establish an ongoing process to re-evaluate the evolving strategic equation in the light of regional developments and as our capacities and understanding improve. With that greater knowledge, we will also be in a better position to identify opportunities, such as Australian aid interventions, to reduce the risk at critical points in the chain, but also investments that build our capacity for regional stabilisation and humanitarian response missions.
3.25Dr Glasser recommended Australia consider ensuring the ADF increase its capabilities.
… training and capabilities are changed to be part of Australia’s response to more frequent, higher impact regional natural disasters. Its capability set will also need to evolve to equip it to operate at greater scale and in places affected by large natural disasters. Alternatively, Australia may have to establish a civilian national disaster response capacity.
3.26In its report, Inquiry into the Department of Defence Annual Report 2021-22, published in September 2023, this Committee concluded that the near-persistent pressure for the Australian Defence Force to respond to domestic natural disasters and crises risks degrading its warfighting capability. The Committee supported the development of resilience and response options, such as assigning a national body to address domestic climate crises, and greater resources being made available to the states and territories and institutional and community-based responders.
Global cooperation
3.27The Committee received evidence that Climate change is a global challenge and requires good will and cooperation and dialogue with all countries. The Australian Security Leaders Climate Group stated:
Climate change requires unprecedented levels of global cooperation to dramatically reduce carbon emissions and atmospheric carbon concentrations, and manage climate interventions constructively. Cooperation may seem fanciful at a time with war in Ukraine, increasing tension between the US and China, and other countries moving toward isolationism. However this is an existential threat that is bigger than any individual country, and unlike anything humanity has previously experienced.
3.28Stakeholders suggested Australia should put climate and security concerns at the centre of Pacific security and defence policy if it is to regain trust in the region.
3.29The Australian Institute commented that the impacts of climate change on national and global security are preoccupying security planners increasingly, both in developed countries like the United States and in developing countries like Papua New Guinea.
In 2007, the Papua New Guinea representative told the UN Security Council that the dangers faced by small island states and their populations were ‘no less serious than those faced by nations and peoples threatened by guns and bombs.
3.30The Australia Institute reaffirmed that all governments need to continue to invest in climate change policies:
To address the long-term impacts of climate change, governments everywhere need to reinvest in policies that enhance social equity, deliver greater inclusion and counter the forces that generate division, alienation and marginalisation.
3.31The Academy of Science noted that in relation to the Pacific countries and climate change mitigation, there was a significant amount of funding that was not coordinated going into these regions. It commented that Australia could play a role in assisting in the coordination efforts:
For many of the nations … particularly in the Pacific, our best efforts can be towards adaptation and to assisting in the coordination of effort. You'd be aware that in recent times many countries around the world are providing funds to Pacific nations to assist them with climate adaptation and mitigation. Whilst that is generous and significant, without coordination and best use of those resources the best possible outcomes may not be achieved. Some of those countries do not necessarily have the capabilities and capacity to be able to bring about that broad and multifaceted adaptation strategies that are needed, that are also inclusive.
Committee comment
3.32The Committee recognises that to mitigate against the major challenges of climate change for both Australia and the countries in our region, it will take concerted effort, careful planning and building of partnerships and ongoing resources from the Australian Government.
3.33The evidence received highlighted the very real threats that may impact on democracies in our region in the near future such as disaster management, food insecurity, and rising levels of poverty. The Committee contends it is necessary for Australia to continue to engage and strengthen bi-lateral and multi-lateral partnerships to support climate action in the Indo-Pacific region.
3.34The Committee is concerned about the long-term climate change challenges for small country’s democratically elected governments to respond to natural disasters, and the strain that these natural disasters will put on the relationship between government and community.
3.35The Committee considers that Australia’s development programs should continue to have a strong focus on supporting climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience for vulnerable communities in the Indo-Pacific region. The Committee notes the Pacific nations have identified ongoing challenges of climate change as their number one priority and recognises the significant impact climate change may have on communities and the need to provide support for education, health, water and sanitation. These areas require large investments in development assistance and will require continuous support from Australia and multi-lateral banks and agencies now and into the future.
3.36Given Pacific nations have identified ongoing challenges of climate change the Committee recommends the Australian Government increase support for international communities in our region. This support may include adaptation and mitigation works to prepare for rising sea levels and extreme weather events given the adverse effect climate change has on institutions, national security, and civil society which negatively impacts democracy.
3.37The Committee recommends the Minister for International Development and the Pacific report back to Parliament annually on Australia’s engagement and delivery of services to Pacific countries regarding its development initiatives to combat, mitigate and adapt to climate change.