Climate change poses major risks to national security. But the Trump administration is scaling back on military programs to assess new threats.
Climate change brings both direct and abstract threats to national security—from fueling deadly extreme weather events to making submarine detection more challenging through warming water. Over the past decade, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence has formally recognized human-driven warming as a top security risk in its annual threat assessment report, alongside the likes of terrorism and cyberattacks.