Australia and New Zealand warn about China’s missile test while spending billions on military integration and lagging on the climate threat facing Pacific neighbours.

Late last year, the British government suppressed a report that contained warnings from its intelligence agencies that climate change could drive mass migration and trigger a nuclear war in Asia.

A copy of the report, obtained by The Times, warned of collapsing ecosystems potentially triggering acts of eco-terrorism, and the possibility of Nato being drawn into conflicts over remaining breadbaskets in Russia and Ukraine.

It said: “Forests in Canada and Russia might pass a tipping point by 2030, as might glaciers in the Himalayas that fed rivers on which two billion people depended.”

In Australia, a 2022 climate change threat assessment by the Office of National Intelligence was described as “terrifying” by senator David Pocock.

Similarly to the UK, the Albanese government has refused to release the full report.

A 2018 New Zealand Defence Force assessment declared climate change “one of the most significant security threats of our time, and one that is already having adverse impacts both at home and in New Zealand’s neighbourhood.”

New Zealand’s neighbourhood – otherwise known as the South Pacific – is on the frontlines of climate change, with low-lying atoll nations like Tuvalu and Kiribati predicted to be uninhabitable by the end of the century.

Pacific Island nations have been at the forefront of efforts to force the world – particularly the rich world – to act.

Last year’s historic advisory ruling........

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