‘Near unliveable’ extreme heat poses national security risk
Climate change could render parts of northern Australia almost unliveable, throwing into doubt the feasibility of crucial military bases, a group of leading Defence figures has warned.
The Australian Security Leaders Climate Group, led by former Australian Defence Force chief Chris Barrie, is calling on the federal government to put climate change at the centre of its thinking on national security, rather than focusing on the strategic risk of a more powerful China.
Former Australian Defence Force chief Chris Barrie is calling on the government to focus on the national security risks of climate change. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
In a report, Too Hot to Handle: The Scorching Reality of Australia’s Climate-Security Failure, the group said key government documents, including last month’s national Defence strategy and the 2023 Defence strategic review, had made only tokenistic and fleeting references to climate change risks.
The government’s 10-year Defence spending plan, released last month, allocated up to an extra $18 billion over the next decade for bases in northern Australia, an already hot region that is especially vulnerable to rising temperatures.
The security leaders’ group found that with a 2.7-degree average rise in global temperatures, some of Australia’s most important military assets would be subjected to “near unliveable” extreme heat. The United Nations warned in 2021 that the world was on track for a “catastrophic” average 2.7-degree rise by the end of the century if countries did not reduce their carbon emissions.
These sites include Royal Australian Air Force bases in Darwin and Katherine, army barracks and a naval base in Darwin, plus the Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt in Exmouth, Western Australia.
“There are many places where one may choose to fight a war, but not wish to live or work or choose to locate large numbers of defence personnel in peacetime due to the harshness of conditions,” Barrie said.
“Northern Australia in the future will be one of those places.”
Darwin and Katherine could experience almost 300 days a year with temperatures above 35 degrees if climate change was not brought under control, the report found.
Extreme temperatures would make military training exercises and maintenance operations difficult, if not impossible, it said, raising the question of whether some bases would need to be relocated south to cooler locations.
The RAAF base in Darwin.Credit: ADF
“Once northern Australia reaches a state of ‘near unliveable conditions’, the area will be likely to partially depopulate and the services and infrastructure on which civil society and the military depend – transport and logistics, utilities, health and social and education services for families – will degrade,” the report said.
“The issue is not simply operability, but also of liveability, civilian infrastructure and compounding impacts.
“The general conditions and degradation of services and infrastructure will make it extremely difficult to impossible for the families of Defence personnel.”
The national Defence strategy released last month said extreme weather events linked to climate change would put the Defence Force under greater stress, including by having to provide more humanitarian and disaster relief assistance in the region.
“The effects of climate change are amplifying existing stressors across the region, such as poverty, food security and cross-border migration and displacement,” the strategy said.
“These effects may also intensify transboundary tensions and have impacts on Australia’s national security.”
The Australian Security Leaders Climate Group includes retired air vice-marshal John Blackburn and the Department of Defence’s former head of preparedness and mobilisation, Cheryl Durrant.
The group last year criticised the government for refusing to release a declassified version of a landmark Office of National Intelligence report, prepared in 2022, on the national security risks posed by climate change.
As well as publishing a version of the report, the group is now also calling on the government to establish a climate threat intelligence branch within the Office of National Intelligence. Such a branch should deliver an annual, de-classified briefing to parliament on the national security risks of climate change, the group said.
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