Climate change 'will lead to warfare over food and water'

Climate change will have a long-term impact on the nation's security as wars break out over food and water supplies around the world, a report said yesterday.

Hundreds of millions of environmental refugees will seek new places to live, with many of them heading for Britain, according to the report for the Oxford Research Group.

The report said that security services would be challenged increasingly by the number of refugees, and the Government would need to consider stronger border controls. Protests against companies that continued to emit greenhouse gases were possible as climate change intensified and they might even provoke riots. In other parts of the world the pressures caused by global warming, particularly through changes in rainfall patterns and the disappearance of glaciers, would provoke wars over agriculture and water rights.