koom

Excerpt from The Times (UK, Not New York):

Ministers suppressed a report after intelligence chiefs warned that climate change could drive mass migration to Britain and trigger a nuclear war in Asia.

The study, entitled Global Biodiversity Loss, Ecosystem Collapse and National Security, was put together with the help of the joint intelligence committee, which oversees MI5 and MI6.

Initially due to be published last autumn, it was blocked by No 10 for being too negative.

When the government was forced to release the report after a freedom of information request, it published an abridged version that outlined a “realistic possibility” that the decline of forests and glacier-fed rivers would lead to “global competition for food” beginning in the 2030s.

But a full, internal version of the report, seen by The Times, goes further, suggesting that the degradation of rainforests in the Congo and the drying up of rivers fed by the Himalayas could drive people to flee to Europe, leading to “more polarised and populist politics in the UK” and putting “additional pressure on already strained national infrastructure”.

It noted that Britain’s large south Asian diaspora could make it an attractive destination to people from the region.

The internal version also warned that collapsing ecosystems could motivate acts of eco-terrorism in Britain, as well as drawing Nato into conflicts over remaining breadbaskets in Russia and Ukraine.