Miliband Warns Cop31: Climate Crisis Now a National Security Threat

UK foreign secretary Ed Miliband will tell world leaders on Wednesday that the climate crisis now threatens the national security of every country, with "science fiction" scenarios of destruction already playing out in daily news.

Miliband arrives at the Cop31 UN climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, to argue that security and defence objectives have become the new "frontier" of climate action. Rapid planetary heating, he says, will drive food shortages, economic disruption, migration and conflict.

"National security is the next frontier of the fight for climate action – the scenarios once of science fiction are now regular occurrences in the daily news," Miliband told the Guardian ahead of his address.

What does Miliband want leaders to accept?

The foreign secretary will press governments to reckon with three decades of failed emissions cuts. "It is a disaster for people and the planet, and we must reckon with its implications," he will tell the summit on Wednesday. "It will drive hardship and insecurity for billions of people."

He will confirm that an "overshoot" of the 1.5C threshold above preindustrial levels is now inevitable. Global temperatures have exceeded that level for two years and are unlikely to subside significantly. That overshoot, he argues, demands stronger policies to stop heating accelerating and to find ways of returning temperatures to safer levels in decades ahead.

Miliband also takes aim at domestic opponents. In a veiled swipe at the Conservatives and Reform UK, both of which want to scrap emissions-cutting efforts, he said: "Those who seek to stick their heads in the sand on climate are putting our national security at risk."

Why does he call fossil fuels a security risk?

Economic shocks from oil and gas are now the norm, not the exception, according to Miliband. He points to the soaring oil price that followed the Iran war this year, which fuelled rampant inflation and forced interest rate rises from central banks.

"A new era of global insecurity means fossil fuel shocks are now the norm – the fossil fuel rollercoaster is here to stay," he told the Guardian. "First Russia, now Iran, next others, have identified global chokepoints and systemic overreliance [on fossil fuels] and the vulnerability of countries around the world that they expose."

His answer is to "double down" on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and building resilience to extreme weather. "Next year will be the year of climate fightback, as governments, movements and communities across the world step up to defend our shared home," he said.

His policy wishlist includes:

• More investment in clean energy, including its use for transport and heating
• Urgent action to cut methane, a powerful greenhouse gas
• Protection and expansion of forests

Who is at Cop31 – and who is skipping it?

Miliband landed in Turkey on Tuesday evening for the two-day leaders' segment on Wednesday and Thursday. The fortnight-long talks opened on Monday.

UK prime minister Andy Burnham is expected to travel on Wednesday and hold bilateral meetings with fellow leaders on Thursday. Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will open the leaders' summit, alongside speeches from UN secretary general António Guterres, Brazil's president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – whose country hosted last year's Cop – and Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed, who will host next year's meeting.

Several major leaders are absent, though. China's Xi Jinping, India's Narendra Modi, France's Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Friedrich Merz are all skipping this year's summit. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will attend.

Does the UK's own record complicate the message?

Burnham's government faces criticism at home over policy moves that campaigners say will push the UK off-track for its legally framed net zero target of 2050 – and set a poor example globally.

The government plans to weaken a mandate requiring carmakers to sell more electric vehicles by 2030. It has approved a new North Sea gasfield, Jackdaw, and is considering licensing Rosebank, a new oilfield west of Shetland.

That gap between rhetoric and policy will hang over Miliband's security pitch as he asks other governments to accelerate their own transitions.