The Albanese government is currently under intense pressure to release a declassified version of a secret report into the security threats caused by the climate crisis, in the same way it released the defence strategic review.
According to reports, the Greens are seeking to use a Senate procedure to push for transparency, saying the security report will help parliamentarians to “weigh up predicted wars, water shortages and supply chain collapses against every new coal and gas approval”.
The party is said to have given notice that it will move a motion in the Senate on Monday to produce documents within one month. The notice demands that the government release a declassified version of an Office of National Intelligence report that was originally handed to the government in late 2022.
The acting leader of the Greens, Mehreen Faruqi, was quoted as saying that Labor was “sitting on a report full of explosive truths” and the public deserved to know the projected impacts.
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“If the White House can release the US’s National Intelligence Assessment and assessments by the Pentagon, the prime minister should be able to release a declassified version of the Office of National Intelligence’s climate risk assessment for Australia,” she said.
Released in 2021, the US report warned that “Intensifying physical effects will exacerbate geopolitical flashpoints, particularly after 2030, and key countries and regions will face increasing risks of instability and need for humanitarian assistance.”
The US intelligence community further warned that the US and its partners “face costly challenges that will become more difficult to manage without concerted effort to reduce emissions and cap warming”. The Greens senator David Shoebridge, who submitted the notice of motion, said Australia was “increasingly isolated in wanting to suppress security assessments of the big climate risks the world is facing”.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
