Zack Polanski will challenge Andy Burnham’s government to publish an unredacted version of an explosive report by the UK’s spy chiefs that found the collapse of overseas ecosystems would have catastrophic consequences for the UK’s national security. The Green party leader in England will demand that the prime minister come clean about the scale and impact of the climate and nature crisis and call on the government to publish in full the report that warns the UK faces devastating security consequences. Speaking at the Wild Summit event in Bristol on Wednesday, Polanski will ask the prime minister: “Will you tell the truth – and release the full unredacted report from the joint intelligence chiefs?
Or will you keep hiding the truth from the public?” The Guardian revealed last year that the report paints a devastating picture of severe food shortages, price rises, migration, political destabilisation and possible war, resulting from the collapse of ecosystems, fuelled by the human-induced climate crisis and over-exploitation. A redacted 14-page version, including some of the report’s findings, was published in January but the government has repeatedly refused to publish the full version, despite repeated freedom of information requests from journalists and calls from MPs. Polanski, who is expected to be the Green party candidate in the upcoming byelection in Holborn and St Pancras, will argue that the extreme weather experienced by much of the UK this summer should be a wake-up call for ministers.
This must mark a turning point. Where we say: no more loss, no more quieting of birdsong, no more steady trickling of sewage and poison into our waters.” The report by the joint intelligence committee and other government departments, revealed by the Guardian last October, shows that the UK will face catastrophic consequences from the collapse of key ecosystems in other countries. These include the Amazon rainforest, which scientists fear is reaching a “tipping point” triggered by deforestation and rising temperatures, which would turn the ecosystem from a huge absorber of carbon dioxide into a net source of carbon.
Food shortages would be almost certain to result from the decline of ecosystems overseas, the report found, as would a big increase in global migration, with the potential to fuel unrest. Among the most alarming findings was that armed conflict, which includes nuclear war, was also a potential consequence. The report was due to be published at an event last October, attended by King Charles, in the Natural History Museum.
However, at the last minute the publication was pulled, at the behest of Downing Street. Simultaneously, in a letter to Burnham, a coalition of green groups has warned that national security, public health and economic growth are at risk without urgent action to restore nature. The UK has a legally binding target to restore 30% of nature by 2030.
This target, which was set by more than 100 countries during Cop15 negotiations in Montreal in 2022, is considered the minimum restoration needed to halt and reverse the global decline in nature. The UK is currently on track to miss this target, with a recent plan to reach this target in England condemned as “pathetic” and “completely insufficient”. The letter also highlights that two-thirds of the UK’s protected nature sites need “urgent repair”, with many of these sites neglected or damaged by intensive industry, pollution and the climate crisis.
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