ABSTRACT
Held amidst the neo-classical splendour of London’s Lancaster House, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s 2012 conference on climate and resource security brought together a couple of hundred diplomats, politicians, military officials, and corporate and NGO representatives to push forward the ‘international debate’ on climate security. The conference was opened by Ed Davey, UK Secretary of State for Climate Change and Energy, who characterised global climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’ that would
magnify existing resource pressures, especially in ‘fragile’ states ‘already under threat’, and concluded that ‘we need to be ready for a world where climate instability drives political instability’.1 Thereupon followed a series of gloom-ridden pronouncements – from President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon’s assertion that climate change in Africa ‘will cause armed conflicts in 23 countries and political unrest in another 13’ (by what exact date wasn’t clear); to the claim that there are currently 350,000 climate-related deaths per year worldwide, rising to 1 million per year by 2030 if no action is taken.2
