It is not just climate change, national security is at stake

Nearly 30 years ago, I attended the Rio Earth Summit as environment secretary and helped to negotiate the UN framework convention on climate change, the first international agreement to limit global warming. This agreement was an important step, not just because we owe it to future generations to pass on a healthy environment, but also because of the threat that unchecked climate change poses to our way of life and our security.

Today, the scientific consensus on the climate threat grows stronger each year. In turn, the evidence continues to mount that threatens UK interests at home and abroad, and the livelihoods of our people. We have a responsibility to do what we can.

The economic cost of climate action has been the focus of recent political debates within the Conservative Party. While the latest projections from the climate change committee say it may cost 1 per cent of GDP every year for Britain to reach net zero by 2050 – amounting in total over 30 years to less than our national response to Covid-19 these past 18 months alone – the cost of inaction is much greater. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that doing nothing would cause public debt to soar to 289 per cent of GDP by the end of this century.

But extreme weather events and ecological collapse would not just wreak havoc on supply chains, living standards and economic well-being. It’s a question of security too. Climate change doesn’t just mean more heatwaves and heavy rainfall; it acts as what the defence community calls a “threat multiplier”.

In Madagascar, we’re witnessing the first climate change-induced famine. A warmer planet will make these kinds of events more common.

Huge population movements inevitably beget political instability and strife, risking even worse outcomes like terrorism and war over resources and habitable land. In many parts of the world, states and potentially entire regions could collapse into ungovernable spaces. Judging by the population trends of Asia and Africa, this could lead to a monumental refugee crisis in Europe which would dwarf that of the past decade. This would be calamitous for the stability of the whole continent, with the results reaching our shores. The imperative to tackle climate change, therefore, is not just about staving off global temperature rises, but their significant socioeconomic consequences too. Happily, however, climate action will not just mitigate temperature rises and stave off new migrant crises, but help us to enhance our national security in other ways.

By reaching net zero here at home, and using trade and diplomacy to drive similar action around the world, we will also make ourselves and other democracies less dependent on gas and oil from authoritarian regimes through the production of more home-grown green energy.

But we must be clear-eyed about what this transition away from fossil fuels would mean, in that it will drive competition of a different kind. China is already seeking to corner the market in lithium-ion batteries and solar panels, as it did with 5G. By acting now and getting ahead in net zero technology and developing diverse global supply chains for critical minerals, we can avoid being in hock to China later this century.

Conservatives have always understood the first duty of any government is to protect its citizens. With the Glasgow climate summit just two weeks away, we should all embrace this opportunity to safeguard our national security by fighting climate change at home and abroad through diplomatic and political leadership. Britain has never shrunk from a global leadership role, nor have we passed the responsibility of securing our own interests to others. We should not and cannot start now.