Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti, the Climate and Energy Security Envoy of the UK Ministry of Defence and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, spoke with California’s Orange County Register on Thursday about the relationship between climate change and international conflict, and the role of climate change as a “threat multiplier.” Here’s an excerpt:

Both sides of the Atlantic are reminded that climate change does not directly cause conflict. Rather, there could be a threat-multiplier impact. In second and third-world countries, with climate change, people lose land and livelihood because of crop failures, rising temperatures, sea level rises. What do they do? Migrate? Find legal livelihoods that are legitimate? Or are they susceptible to some kind of organized crime, or terrorism?

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