WIREDGOV

Climate and nature can no longer be pigeonholed as an environmental problem.

In January, the UK government quietly released a national security assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and the related threats to national and international security. Originally due out last October, its publication was reportedly delayed by Downing Street, but the unflinching reality of its findings has never felt more urgent.

Cascading Impacts of Ecological Collapse

In bleak brutal language, the report lays out the accelerating first-order impacts faced by UK security and prosperity as global ecosystem degradation speeds up and critical ecosystems collapse. These include crop failures, disease and natural disasters, all of which will intensify as important ecosystems reach critical thresholds and tip over into collapse.

Examples of this are already evident – the UK has suffered three of the five worst harvests in the last ten years; the World Meteorological Association estimates that natural disasters have increased fivefold in the last 50 years; and, well, Covid-19 taught us all a thing or two about pandemics.

But it doesn’t end there. Every critical ecosystem the UK depends upon is on a pathway to potentially irreversible collapse, once it passes critical thresholds. Some of these are estimated to arrive as soon as 2030. That is just four years away. And the UK is not alone. All countries are exposed to the risks of ecosystem collapse within and beyond their borders. Some will be exposed sooner than others and are likely to act to secure their interests, particularly water and food security.

The cascading risks caused by ecosystems collapsing twill likely include geopolitical instability, economic insecurity, conflict, migration and increased inter-state competition for resources. Anyone with even half an eye on the news cycle can confirm these dystopian trends are already part of our reality, but unless we take rapid action, they will intensify in truly dystopian ways.

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