Last year, the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia out out a paper Heating up the planet which has scenarios of weather extremes and wilder fluctuations in rainfall and temperatures transforming the region, resulting in a large-scale displacement of people in heavily populated areas and triggering a surge of "climate change refugees".

Now the British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett says climate change could threaten world peace.

It's a view echoed by Tim Flannery, scientist and author of The Weather Makers.

"We've seen what happened after September 11," Flannery told the Sydney Morning Herald . "People bunker down and see enemies everywhere. It's a world full of nuclear weapons, so who is going to be the first to push the button? That tribalism, that breakdown of international law and order, is to me the greatest threat."