James Dyke – No war on a dead planet

Finally, we get to see the previously supressed UK government’s Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security report. This was meant to have been published last Autumn but was held back because the Prime Minister’s office was concerned that it would be ‘too negative’. It’s main findings include:

• Ecosystem degradation is occurring across all regions. Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse.
• Cascading risks of ecosystem degradation are likely to include geopolitical instability, economic insecurity, conflict, migration and increased inter-state competition for resources.
• Global ecosystem degradation and collapse threaten UK national security and prosperity.
• Without significant increases in UK food system and supply chain resilience, it is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food

None of this is new. These findings are all consistent with the existing literature. What makes it  newsworthy is who is saying it. The report was produced by the UK’s intelligence and secret service agencies. This includes MI5 & MI6, neither renowned as bunny hugging environmentalists.

The report was finally released as a result of a freedom of information request. However, a piece by Ben Cooke at The Times on Friday states that the report released was actually an abridged version. The full ‘internal’ report also concluded that:

degradation of rainforests in the Congo and the drying up of rivers fed by the Himalayas could drive people to flee to Europe, leading to more polarised and populist politics in the UK [while] collapsing ecosystems could motivate acts of eco-terrorism in Britain, as well as drawing Nato into conflicts over remaining breadbaskets in Russia and Ukraine… decline of Himalayan rivers would “almost certainly escalate tensions” between China, India and Pakistan, potentially leading to nuclear war.

One way to contextualise this, is that even if you don’t care a hoot about rare newts and ancient rainforests, then you should be extremely concerned about the wrecking ball we have swung through the biosphere along with the torrent of carbon poured into the atmosphere, because this has been hacking away at the stability of the earth system on which national security fundamentally depends. This UK report continues an assessment of the risks posed to national security that stem from climate change. For example, back in 2014 the US Department of Defence produced a Climate Change Adaption Roadmap that began with:  

Rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, climbing sea levels, and more extreme weather events will intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict. They will likely lead to food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe.

The 2024 Department of Defence Climate Adaptation Plan continues in the same vein. Perhaps to get the attention of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, such reports should be titled: no war on a dead planet. While he may have rebranded the US Department of Defense to the Department of War (presumably minilove.com was already taken), the organisation over which he presides still resides on planet Earth. And the US military is acutely aware that this planet is rapidly warming. While Hegseth and others in Trump’s administration act as if they are irredeemably stupid, I’m confident they too know the risks that climate change poses. 

Plus ça change… The campaign Exxon Knew tries to hold the company accountable for its role in the climate crisis. Back in the 1970s’s Exxon’s scientists concluded that the burning of fossil fuels was changing the earth’s climate, and if this continued we faced disaster. Management’s response was to close the research labs, lock the reports away, and conduct a decades-long campaign of deceiving the public and funding climate denial. So of course they knew. They decided to prioritise profits over planet.

While defending corporate interests is a simple explanation of why politicians continue to fail to act with any urgency to the climate and ecological crisis, there may be deeper motivations. The prospect of climate breakdown would make the mouths of many fascists water. Collapsing agriculture would demand muscular control of food systems. Escalating dissent and protest met with increased surveillance and incarceration. Rising sea levels driving millions away from their land equates to a potential flood of refugees clamouring at increasingly fortified borders.

The thousands of ICE and other federal agents currently terrorising Minneapolis provides a glimpse of this future for the United States. The UK may think it is immune to such monstrosities. It is not. Climate breakdown doesn’t just mean a rupture in the climate dynamics of the earth system, but the collapse of human institutions, and values. If you want a picture of climate breakdown then, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever. But of course it won’t be forever. Just as there would have been a glorious period of returning value to shareholders, so there would have been a golden age of militarism, nationalism, xenophobia, authoritarianism, and fascism.

This is what’s at stake now. We are well within dangerous climate change and things are going to get worse. How we respond to that will mean not only whether we can maintain a liveable climate, but if we can preserve societies that are worth living for.