Asia in spotlight over global warming and security

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - Global warming is a major threat to world security that must not be allowed to degenerate into regional bickering, climate change ambassador John Ashton said on Tuesday.

Defending Britain's move to have the climate crisis discussed last week for the first time by the United Nations' Security Council, Ashton said it was a global challenge that demanded global answers across all sectors.

"This is an issue of collective security," Ashton told a conference on climate change and security focussing on Asia. "There are no nations or regions that will be winners if the world fails to face up to the challenge of climate change."

"This is not a conventional security issue. No amount of investment in guns and missiles will help deal with climate change," he added. "But everyone must recognise that there is a security dimension to climate change."

Several countries last week accused Britain of scare-mongering by taking the issue to the Security Council and raising the spectre of spreading insecurity.

But on Tuesday Ashton noted drought-related conflicts in Kenya and Sudan, and pointed out that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni had called climate change an "act of aggression" by rich nations against poor ones.

Ashton said world wheat prices were already 40 percent up on two years ago because of a major drought in Australia which he said was directly attributable to global warming.

"We have to do far more than we have done so far to help those most impacted by climate change," Ashton told the meeting which is part of a global debate on taking forward the Kyoto Protocol on combating global warming.