Climate change defence threat facing military

massey-university

Thu Sep 03 2009 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Climate change defence threat facing military

Thursday, 3 September 2009, 9:27 am
Press Release: Massey University

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Climate change defence threat facing world's military

A defence conference at the Manawatu campus today was told that armies throughout the word face rapidly emerging new challenges from the weather due to climate change.

Pandemics, food and water shortages, natural disasters and displaced populations all pose strategic challenges for defence forces, according to speakers at the biennial conference hosted by the University's Centre for Defence Studies.

Among them was Professor Peter Leahy from the University of Canberra, a former Australian Defence Force Chief of Army. “I don’t think we’ve done enough to prepare for the future threat of climate change," Professor Leahy said. "The old certainties are gone and the emerging world is more volatile...dynamic and unpredictable.”

He urged the New Zealand military to make the implications represented by climate change a priority in future planning.

New Zealand’s Climate Change Ambassador Dr Adrian Macey also spoke, describing the atmospheric warming arising from burning too many fossil fuels as a “threat multiplier” with disease, hunger water wars and the displacement of people as possible “worst case” outcomes.

“Climate change is a real challenge in the strategic analysis and I think New Zealand has to front up more than what I’ve seen,” he told more that 220 assembled army personnel.

New Zealand Chief of Army, Major General Rhys Jones acknowledged that environmental challenges where just one example of changes “unparalleled to what we had before.” A tough economic climate actually provided the Army with the opportunity to change as it adapted its personnel’s operational and technical skills to particular situations as they arose, he said

Centre for Defence Studies director Professor Glyn Harper said the conference reinforced the close relationship the New Zealand Army had with Massey. “It’s a significant event on our calendar for the year. It expresses the relationship between Massey as a learning organisation and the Army which has to be a learning organisation to face its multitude of challenges.”

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