The Australian government is refusing to release its secret report on how the climate crisis will fuel national security threats and is also refusing to say when it was completed.
The government insists the date, too, is classified. The approach has sparked claims of a “cult of secrecy in Canberra”.
Anthony Albanese ordered the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) last year to investigate national security threats posed by global heating, in line with an election promise.
When it notified the United Nations of Australia’s stronger 2030 emissions reduction target, the government trumpeted its commitment to “an urgent climate risk assessment of the implications of climate change for national security”.
So far, however, the government has rebuffed calls to release the assessment – or even a sanitised public version, as it did with the defence strategic review.
In a new response to Senate questions on notice, the prime minister confirmed the ONI’s climate assessment was finalised “within the last 12 months”. But Albanese added: “The specific timing of the assessment board is classified.”
Five other questions from the Greens’ defence spokesperson, David Shoebridge, were answered with an identical response: “The content and judgments of the assessment are classified.”
Shoebridge also asked the direct question: “Will the government make a declassified version of the assessment public? If not, why not?”
Albanese responded that the report “contains classified material” but the government continued to consider the issue.
“Along with the government’s climate statement, tabled in parliament on 1 December 2022, there is already considerable material available in the public domain discussing national security threats from climate change,” he said.
A single page of that 80-page climate statement was devoted to national security, saying global heating would “increasingly exacerbate risks” as “geopolitical tensions mount about how to respond”.
The same statement mentioned the ONI’s work in future tense, saying it “will inform how the government considers climate risk”.
Shoebridge said it was “bizarre that the government won’t even reveal the date the climate risk assessment was completed”.
“When you can’t even get the date of a high-profile, publicly acknowledged report then you know that something’s gone wrong with the cult of secrecy in Canberra,” the NSW senator said.
Shoebridge said transparency was less of a risk to national security than “not dealing with the threat of climate change in the first place”.
The independent ACT senator, David Pocock, said providing a declassified version of reports, including a climate risk assessment, was “not an unreasonable ask” and that some of our closest allies, including the US, had already done so.
“This is something I will continue to pursue.”
Both Pocock and Shoebridge proposed Senate motions to order the government to produce key documents, but the major parties combined to defeat them on 10 August.
Albanese has described the climate crisis as “a direct threat to global security” but has also defended the secrecy.
“We make no apologies for not releasing national security advice, which, appropriately, goes to the national security committee,” he told parliament this month.
“That is a position that we have had for a long period of time, and that will remain the position.”
In 2021, the US intelligence community released a report that warned: “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.”
