Climate change is not only warming the planet but also increasing humidity. This report focuses primarily on the broad category of extreme humid-heat events. The report’s main objective is to show that the impacts aren’t isolated: they cascade through societies, magnified by other climate hazards, such as storms and flooding.

Climate change is much more than an environmental crisis—it’s a systemic crisis that will transform the geopolitical landscape. In this publication, leading experts explore the impacts of this rapidly emerging climate threat on regional systems by interrogating a 1.5°C 2035 climate change scenario developed by the ASPI Climate and Security Policy Centre.

This publication is being released in anticipation of a federal election as a guide for the next government within its first months and over the full term. This 2022 agenda acknowledges that an economically prosperous and socially cohesive Australia is a secure and resilient Australia.

In this report, Robert Glasser, head of ASPI's new Climate and Security Policy Centre, documents the Southeast Asian region’s globally unique exposure to climate hazards and the increasingly significant cascading societal impacts they will trigger.

This report warns that we are entering a new era in the security of Australia, not because of terrorism, the rise of China or even the cybersecurity threat, but because of climate change.