Podcast # 2: Dr. Albert Palazzo - Climate Change, Security and Conflict

In this episode, Dr. Albert Palazzo — Adjunct Professor at UNSW Canberra and former Director of War Studies for the Australian Army — challenges Australia’s deepest assumptions about security.

Drawing on his new book The Big Fix: Rebuilding Australia's National Security, Palazzo argues that our leaders have chosen to see China as the primary threat, while ignoring the far greater danger posed by climate change. We unpack what happens when climate is omitted from defence policy: a military unprepared for natural disasters and the paradoxes and consequences it poses, a society strained by repeated crises, and a nation locked into fragile energy and supply chains.

Palazzo explains why AUKUS narrows our imagination, how the Overton Window of Australian security has been shifted away from reality, and what a climate-centred ‘Strategic Defensive’ posture could look like. This is a fearless conversation about courage, consequences, and the urgent need to redefine national security in a warming world.