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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/03/climate-crisis-australia-must-ready-for-devastating-regional-disruption-mps-told>
"Australia must prepare for “devastating” climate-fuelled disruption in the
Asia Pacific, including failed states, forced migration and regional conflicts
over water shortages, a stark briefing for federal politicians warns.
The Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration thinktank has
summarised the potential threats and impacts of the climate crisis in a note
targeted at MPs.
Breakthrough is seeking to galvanise political debate on the scale of the
challenges posed, as the findings of a recent threat assessment by Australia’s
Office of National Intelligence (ONI) remain classified.
In a paper to be released on Thursday, the thinktank says the ONI report is
“likely to have said that the world is dangerously off track to meet the Paris
Agreement goals, the risks are compounding and the impacts will be devastating
in the coming decades”.
“In the Asia-Pacific region, states will fail and climate impacts will drive
political instability, greater national insecurity and forced migration, and
fuel conflict,” the paper says.
“There will likely be a further retreat to authoritarian and hyper-nationalist
politics, the diminution of instruments of regional cooperation, and increased
risks of regional conflict, including over shared water resources from the
Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, encompassing India, Pakistan, China and
south-east Asian nations.”
Prepared by Breakthrough research director David Spratt, the note acknowledges
projections are difficult to make because the physical impacts of climate
change and the system-level changes “compound and cascade” in a nonlinear way.
“What we do know is that there will be outcomes that virtually no one will see
coming, such as happened when drought and desertification in eastern Syria
compounded with the dynamics of the Arab Spring to unleash the Syrian war.”
Spratt’s paper said while the consequences remained uncertain, it was possible
to prepare “a sketch of some plausible outcomes before mid-century in the
Asia-Pacific”.
They may include severe economic jolts caused by conflict and labour
displacement, as well as the “inundation and destruction of economic
infrastructure, and disruption to supply chains, including in the South China
Sea”.
The paper suggested “a worsening of extreme and concurrent climate events with
impacts beyond the response capacity of national governments”, which could
result in China taking on a bigger role in responding to events in vulnerable
states, “especially as Australia’s disaster relief capacity is underfunded and
overwhelmed”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
