Emerging threatsIntegrating climate change into U.S. national security planning
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum to address climate change and national security. The Department of Defense calls it a “threat multiplier.” The Department of Homeland Security considers it a major homeland security risk. As President Obama said in to the G-20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, “the growing threat of climate change could define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other challenge.”
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum to address climate change and national security. Susan Rice, the president’s national security adviser, and Brian Deese, a senior adviser at the National Security Council, write about new requirements fully to assess the impacts of climate change on U.S. national security.
Earlier this month, we accompanied President Obama to the G-20 Summit in Hangzhou, China. It was a productive summit across the board. But perhaps the most significant moment came when President Obama and President Xi stood together and formally joined the landmark Paris Agreement, committing the two nations responsible for roughly 40 percent of global carbon emissions to take serious and sustained action to combat climate change.
For all the challenges and threats we face as a nation — from terrorist groups like ISIL and al Qaeda to increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, from diseases like Ebola and Zika to Russian aggression in Ukraine — no threat is more terrifying in its global reach or more potentially destructive and destabilizing than climate change. The Department of Defense calls it a “threat multiplier.” The Department of Homeland Security considers it a major homeland security risk. As President Obama said in China, “the growing threat of climate change could define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other challenge.”
That is why, today [Tuesday], President Obama took another major step to address the threat of climate change by signing a Presidential Memorandum requiring the federal government to fully consider the impacts of climate change in the development and implementation of all national security policies and plans. First, the president’s memorandum directs twenty agencies from across the government to establish a dedicated working group to identify the U.S. national security priorities related to climate change. Second, it instructs these agencies to develop a Climate Change and National Security Action Plan outlining how they will develop and share information on these risks. Third, it directs each agency to develop strategies to address climate-related threats, from impacts on our economy to our food security to the flow of migrants and refugees. The system this memorandum puts into place will ensure that data and insights from climate science become a meaningful component of national security policymaking.
