Polanski calls for report on ecosystem collapse to be published in full

Green leader says ministers must stop ‘hiding the truth’ about threat to UK security from climate and nature crisis

Zack Polanski has challenged 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 said the prime minister should come clean about the scale and impact of the climate and nature crisis and called 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 asked 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, argued that the extreme weather experienced by much of the UK this summer should be a wake-up call for ministers.

“It was a bleak preview of what is to come if we continue to allow the greed of corporations to come above the survival of our natural world – and all that relies on it. 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.

In an interview with the Guardian after his speech, Polanski said the Green party would introduce a nature, biodiversity and national security bill to make climate adaptation “fundamental to everything we do”. The party would also seek to appoint a climate resilience minister whose principal job would be to address problems such as extreme heat, surface-water flooding and wildfires.

Polanski reiterated a commitment to introduce a basic income for farmers to “ensure those producing the food we rely on are paid properly for their work”.

“We know farmers have had wrecked harvest after wrecked harvest. Their crops are struggling and on top of that you’ve got supermarkets where the bosses are taking record bonuses while fleecing farmers,” he said.

Simultaneously on Wednesday, 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”.

“Your government has diplomatic and legal obligations to halt the decline of wildlife and protect 30% of the land and sea for nature by 2030 … On the current path the UK will miss those targets,” the groups warn the prime minister in the letter.

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. The groups warn this leaves communities and businesses exposed to flooding, drought, wildfires and pollution. This warning comes as new research finds that about £2bn a year needs to be invested in protected nature sites – up from roughly £1.1bn today – to restore them by 2042. The groups are calling for more funding, stronger laws and decisive enforcement to “stop the abuses that are hollowing out our natural world”.

A Labour spokesperson said: “This is the first government to take seriously the risks that climate change and nature loss pose to our food security, economic resilience, and national security.

“We’re taking decisive action, including launching the UK’s first taskforce on the national security and resilience risks of climate change and nature loss, investing in nature recovery at home and abroad, and delivering the largest nature-friendly farming budget in history.”