Britain’s national security is under threat from climate change

In a troubled world, with real concerns about cost of living, the creeping dangers posed by climate change are too easily ignored – but we do so at our peril, write Peter Ricketts and Emily Shuckburgh

Climate change threatens our globalised supply chains for goods, services and, most crucially, food (Getty )

We need to stop thinking of climate change as future hazard. It is happening right now, and it is damaging our national security as well as our way of life.

Global warming has not yet reached the Paris-agreed limit of 1.5C, and already the shocks to global weather are ravaging communities around the world. Speaking as the IPCC delivered their latest assessment, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres called it a “ticking climate time bomb”.

In a troubled world, with real concerns about cost of living, the creeping dangers posed by climate change are too easily ignored. But we do so at our peril. Borders are no protection against its effects and, as authoritarian states mount a challenge to the entire international system, climate change further amplifies existing threats to UK national security. Heat, drought, water shortages, food scarcity and fuel conflict drive huge numbers of people from their homes.