Climate change a bigger security threat than terrorism, says report

The government’s obsession with the “war on terror” is counterproductive and distracting politicians from more fundamental threats to global security, a leading UK thinktank warns today.

The most likely causes of future conflict are climate change, competition for natural resources, social and economic marginalisation and militarisation, it says.

The independent Oxford Research Group says in its report Global Responses to Global Threats that the effects of climate change – displacement of peoples, food shortages, social unrest – have long-term security implications far greater than those of terrorism, and notes that the Pentagon’s office of net assessment takes the same view.

Guardian