【2011 Archives】

Going against scientific findings as well as the advice of his own military011 Archivesintelligence agencies, President Donald Trump on Monday unveiled a national security strategy that omits global climate change as a threat to U.S. interests.

Trump's security doctrine is in stark contrast to the Obama administration's strategy, which in 2015 elevated climate change to a top "strategic risk" to the U.S., along with a "catastrophic attack on the U.S. homeland or critical infrastructure" and other potential developments.

Whereas former president Barack Obama's national security strategy contained 19 instances of the term "climate change," Trump's has zero, although there are 4 uses of the word "climate."

Trump's national security strategy, which is a political document that does not have the force of law, comes less than a week after Trump signed into law a defense bill that explicitly recognizes that climate change is a security threat.

This contrast offers a glimmer of hope for those who work on the intersection between climate change and security issues.

“His own Department of Defense is taking the matter very seriously,” said Francesco Femia, co-founder and president of the Center for Climate and Security, in an interview. Femia said the intelligence community has agreed that climate change is a threat to the U.S. since the George W. Bush administration, so this isn't simply a case of Trump trying to erase an Obama White House's policy.

“It’s a really odd throwback,” he said. “It sends a signal that I think can make it more difficult for the military to do its job in adapting to these risks,” Femia said.

Past reports have identified sea level rise, droughts, and Arctic sea ice melt as issues that the U.S. military already must already contend with, with growing impacts as the world continues to warm.

“The Administration’s National Security Strategy won’t stop Arctic ice from melting. It will continue to melt at an increasing rate and our national security leaders know that we need to address it as we manage many other risks from climate change," said David Titley, director of the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at Penn State University and a Rear Admiral in the Navy, in an email.

Interestingly, the Trump administration's security strategy contains both a reference to the need to continue reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which are the main cause of global warming, as well as phrasing which is typically used to refer to developing more fossil fuel resources, which would emit more greenhouse gases.

"U.S. leadership is indispensable to countering an anti-growth energy agenda that is detrimental to U.S. economic and energy security interests," the document states, using strikingly similar language to the Energy Department, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and White House when talking about bringing about a resurgence of the coal industry.

Trump's strategy also ignores the scientific studies which show that there is growing potential for climate change to undermine U.S. national security, and in fact this may already be occurring, such as in the case of the civil war in Syria. In addition, sea level rise is already increasing flooding woes at military facilities at home and abroad, particularly in the Norfolk, Virginia area, home to the largest naval base in the world.

The document also alludes to the potential for fossil fuels, such as coal, to alleviate poverty, which is a popular argument within the Trump administration, but one that ignores the major health risks associated with burning coal.

"Given future global energy demand, much of the developing world will require fossil fuels, as well as other forms of energy, to power their economies and lift their people out of poverty," the document states.

The administration has been seeking to boost U.S. fossil fuel exports. Last week, for example, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt was in Morocco, pushing for liquified natural gas deals (which is not the typical role of an EPA leader).

Some countries, notably India and China, are trying to move away from coal and into renewables, such as solar power, as quickly as possible.