http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,,1795489,00.html
Climate change a bigger security threat than terrorism, says report
The government's obsession with the "war on terror" is counterproductive and distracting politicians from more fundamental threats to global security, a leading UK thinktank warns today.
The most likely causes of future conflict are climate change, competition for natural resources, social and economic marginalisation and militarisation, it says.
The independent Oxford Research Group says in its report Global Responses to Global Threats that the effects of climate change - displacement of peoples, food shortages, social unrest - have long-term security implications far greater than those of terrorism, and notes that the Pentagon's office of net assessment takes the same view.
However, it adds that the response to climate change should not involve greater reliance on nuclear power because this would encourage the spread of nuclear weapons and increase the risk of terrorists getting hold of them.
Deepening global socio-economic divisions will be a serious trend, it says: "The marginalised majority is increasingly likely to support political violence against the rich minorities of the world."