🌏 The push: A group of former Australian defence leaders, including former Chief of the Defence Force Admiral Chris Barrie, say the government should publish climate hazard risk assessments for each country alongside the existing travel warnings.
Barrie is a founding executive member of the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group (ASLCG), which has spent years pushing the government to treat climate change as a national security threat.
He said climate change "isn't some distant environmental concern," and is "an immediate threat to the security of Australians at home and travelling overseas."
🏔️ Why now? Barrie pointed to last week's floods and landslides on the Nepal-Tibet border. The region is among the fastest-warming in the world and vulnerable to accelerating glacier loss and unstable glacial lakes.
As of Thursday, 38 Australians remain missing in the aftermath of the floods.
🗺️Global Problem: What’s happened in Nepal isn’t isolated. Several other countries are currently facing similar hazards.
The Weisshorn East hanging glacier has been on watch for a potential collapse since June, though authorities are confident it won't reach the 500 people living in the village of Randa, in Switzerland's Valais canton.
In Peru, a glacial lake threatening a city of 120,000 people has been under watch for years as it's slowly filled by the retreating glacier above it.
Last month, catastrophic bushfires forced hundreds of thousands from their homes in southern Spain and France.
💰 The other ask: ASLCG also wants Australia, one of the world's largest fossil fuel exporters, to help fund climate adaptation in the countries hit hardest by disasters like these.
Barrie said the most effective thing the Australian government could do to protect Australians is cut the emissions it produces and exports.
Watch the National Account's Archie Milligan below:
Thumbnail: AAP