Herald Sun - Charles Miranda
AS Cyclone Gita moved into the
South Western Pacific corridor two weeks ago, on Russell Hill in
Canberra Defence Department officials began reviewing contingency plans
for worst case scenarios.
By the time the category 5 struck
the region, RAAF humanitarian relief plans were well advanced and led to
six flights to Tonga by a giant C-17A Globemaster carrying 140,000kg of
humanitarian aid and the deployment of 30 ADF and civilian disaster
response personnel.
In the historic capital Nuku’alofa,
century-old churches, shops, homes and the parliament building were
flattened forcing 3000 people into temporary shelter.
At the
request of the Fijian Government, overflight missions were also made by
the RAAF’s AP-3C Orion spy plane to assess damage to outlying islands in
the southern Lau group.
New Zealand’s military also swung into
action with 12 tonnes of aid for the region while in the United States,
President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency in American Samoa
allowing his Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide equipment
and resources to help the 50,000 residents there recover.
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| Emergency aid pallets unloaded from RAAF C-17A Globemaster at Tonga’s
Fua’amotu International Airport in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Gita.
Picture: Defence |
It is exactly this type of widespread devastation scenario that has
prompted a parliamentary inquiry which will later this month report on
the implications of climate change for Australia’s national security.
The
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Senate committee probe, which began
last June, has painted a fairly bleak picture where category 5 cyclone
responses are the norm rather than the exception.
Indeed such is
the ever-increasing regularity of such storms in New Zealand, scientists
are looking at creating a sixth cyclone category to capture new weather
pattern ferocities.
This is not a debate about climate change and
its predicted future apocalyptic consequences as described in some
quarters, but rather about what is happening right now and its
worse-case scenario knock-on effect of mass migration of displaced
persons, rising seas already threatening coastlines and conflict over
resources namely water.
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| Aid agency Care Australia staff distributing aid in Tonga post Cyclone Gita. Picture: Supplied |
The impetus for Australia’s inquiry stemmed from a 2015 report by the
US Department of Defense which concluded the impact of climate change
from increased natural disasters, refugee flow and conflict was already
occurring and further instability was likely.
“I think we’ll been
using the ‘once-in-a-100-year storm’ phrase for such weather events more
often than every 100 years,” former Australian Defence Force chief and
retired Royal Australian Navy admiral Chris Barrie told News Corp
Australia, referring to a descriptor used for the storm that this week
hammered Canberra.
The now honorary professor of strategic defence
studies said storms and events like Cyclone Gita will happen more often
and questioned the attitude by some in government and the public that
whatever happened the ADF would just clean it up.
He said with
just 58,500 personnel the resources and capacity to respond were finite
and greater action should have been done years ago, most recently in
2014 when any mention of climate effects on national security had to be
omitted from the Defence White Paper because of the very public denials
of then Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
He said thankfully those
attitude’s within whole of government were now changing and in Australia
planning was underway to deal with climate-security from heatwaves,
shifting rainfall patterns and flooding, rising sea levels, bushfire
extremes and property and infrastructure.
 |
| Damage in Tonga's capital of Nuku'alofa after Cyclone Gita and locals
woke to scenes of devastation on February 13 after the most powerful
cyclone ever recorded in that country. Picture: AFP |
 |
ADF Sergeant Sammy Melville cradles a baby evacuated from the Island of
Tanna in Vanuatu during tropical Cyclone Pam in 2015. Picture: Supplied
|
“Military forces around the globe perceive climate change as a threat
multiplier because its impacts can seriously undermine individual and
societal wellbeing,” he said.
“The anticipated impacts will affect
the availability of food, water and energy creating basic insecurities,
as well as fostering migratory movements forced on people by sea level
rises and the greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather events
such as storms, floods, and heatwaves. These pressures have the
potential to lead to conflict.”
In May 2016, the Global Military
Advisory Council on Climate Change, a network of serving and retired
military personnel formed in 2009 to look at the climate security
implications, cited the disappearance of glaciers on the Tibetan plateau
which fed freshwater into China, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan among
others as a typical potential flashpoint.
India has since built a
fence and has armed patrols on the Bangladeshi border. But worse-case
scenario would be mass migration of tens of millions of people trying to
get to Australia and New Zealand from this Pacific Rim.
Department
of Home Affairs deputy secretary Linda Geddes, who has worked in the
ADF, Defence Intelligence and Department of the Prime Minister and
Cabinet, also recognises the threat in what she describes as complex and
unpredictable possible mass migration.
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| Smoke visible from Kyeemagh Beach Baths, rising off an out-of-control bushfire burning in the Royal National Park. Picture: Jenny Evans |
“While the department’s
critical functions have business continuity plans that are activated
when there is significant disruption to normal business, climate change
effects could permanently alter normal business including the
accessibility of assets and capability and the nature of challenges to
our management of the border and migration,” she has concluded in her
submission to the parliamentary inquiry.
The Hawaii-headquartered US Pacific Command (USPACOM), to which
Australia has an unspecified number of ADF seconded staff, has now
integrated Australia, Canada and New Zealand into its climate-security
emergency mobilisation plans including allowing US troops based in
Australia to assist in an emergency here.
It concluded: “The
Department of Defense sees climate change as a present security threat,
not strictly a long-term risk. We are already observing the impacts of
climate change in shocks and stressors to vulnerable nations and
communities, including in the United States, and in the Arctic, Middle
East, Africa, Asia, and South America.”
Australia’s Defence
Department has equally painted a bleak picture from a “threat
multiplier” climate change as it now rushed to “embed” the forecast into
all future military planning.
“However, the current most likely
forecast climate changes may require higher levels of commitment that
may create concurrency pressures for Defence from as early as the middle
of the next decade or earlier if climate change related impacts on
security threats accelerate,” Defence concluded.
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