To learn how to manage security and initiate decision making whilst accommodating the characteristics of complexity, change, non-linearity, and uncertainty it is necessary to develop a security risk framework. Section one explains at length how the risk framework is comprised of: 1) the most likely physical impacts and social perturbations; 2) the vulnerability of strategic areas of interest (AOIs) to these impacts; and 3) the consequences for New Zealand should certain risk scenarios unfold. Subsequently, section two provides an essential overview of the broad strategic and climate change context. Section three identifies the continuous and dynamic interactions between the social perturbations and the physical impacts that could create the causal pathways triggering a range of periphery security challenges or, eventually, cases of large scale organized violence. The social perturbations of water scarcity, disruptions to food production and supply, extreme weather disasters and climate induced migration provide the critical interface between the climatic changes and security.4 In section four the risk framework is utilized to produce a preliminary assessment of selected risk scenarios. These scenarios are not predictions, but plausible descriptions about how the future may develop based on a set of relationships linking the contemporary security context, key physical impacts and the social perturbations. The utility of this preliminary assessment is to:

scenarios; and

 rehearse plausible scenarios to which leaders are better able to respond should they occur.

The final section has two objectives. First, it presents a case for what is seen as the most substantial risk facing New Zealand from largely unabated climate change. Second, it outlines an imperative for resilience and adaptive capacity that can be integrated into New Zealand’s security strategies. With regard to risk, I argue that a corrosive synergy of security challenges is the most troubling since any final outcome could prove greater than the sum of individual consequences. A climate affected security environment characterized by complexity, tight coupling and a high rate of change may leave political leaders juggling multiple security challenges simultaneously. At worst this could result in what some commentators term a ‘perfect storm’ where an adverse combination of challenges diffuses instability throughout New Zealand’s strategic areas of interest. This has significant consequences: The capacity to manage, adapt, and cope in such circumstances may be overwhelmed at national and global levels possibly transforming how states or actors pursue their political objectives.