Climate security

Experts to Trump: climate change threatens the US military

President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement has come under attack from elected officials across the United States and the CEOs of some of America's biggest companies. But it’s also likely to cause anger and unease at a surprising place: the Pentagon.

That’s because some of the Defense Department’s top officials have already expressed their fears that a warming planet poses serious threats to the US. Defense Secretary James Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee that climate change would make the world less stable and require the entire government to curb it. Obama’s last defense chief, Ashton Carter, said that climate change was a top strategic challenge for the US on par with terrorism and North Korea’s nuclear program.

And back in 2015, the Pentagon released a report that showed it knew climate change was, and would continue to be, a problem. “DoD recognizes the reality of climate change and the significant risk it poses to US interests globally,” it stated.