Western governments from Washington to Canberra view the climate crisis through the lens of national security. Even though they are the primary cause behind global warming, they are constantly looking for ways to separate themselves from its consequences.
This is why the world’s biggest polluters - including the US, which has emitted more metric tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution than any other country since the Industrial Revolution - are constructing unprecedented border regimes. These governments are seeing climate migrants not as people but “security threats” and heavily investing in private companies that are promising to eliminate this threat using walls, bullets, drones and cages.
Thanks to the Western fear of migrants and unwillingness to come up with a sustainable and humane solution to the climate crisis, this border-industrial complex has grown strong enough to help shape national immigration policies and fuel militarisation and human rights abuses across the world.