President Trump unveiled a new U.S. national security strategy Monday that abandons the prior administration’s focus on climate change as a top threat and instead touts energy dominance.
But the strategy comes less than a week after Trump signed an annual defense policy bill that identifies climate change as a “direct threat” to national security and orders a Pentagon report on the 10 military bases considered the most vulnerable.
The new security strategy’s exchange of climate concern for dominance in fossil fuels, nuclear and renewable energy is in line with the president’s focus on revving up the American economy and his years of open climate change skepticism. It also highlights what appears to be a growing rift between the White House and a Republican-led Congress and Pentagon that are increasingly open to recognizing climate change as a security risk.
“I’d say it is an unusual disconnect,” said Francesco Femia, co-founder and president of the Center for Climate and Security, a nonpartisan think tank with an advisory board of security and military experts.
Last week, Trump held a signing ceremony for the National Defense Authorization Act, a 2,400-page piece of legislation written by the Republican-led armed services committees in Congress.
Among its hundreds of provisions, the NDAA calls climate change a “direct threat” to U.S. national security that is endangering 128 military bases with sea rise and that could fuel terror groups by destabilizing parts of the world. It also orders the Pentagon report on bases and how it plans to protect them.
It quotes Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who says, “I agree that the effects of a changing climate — such as increased maritime access to the Arctic, rising sea levels, desertification, among others — impact our security situation.”
The provision was originally proposed by a House Democrat but survived floor votes and conference negotiations with Republicans. The NDAA statement is proof that Congress is shifting from being a headwind opposing examination of climate change risk to being a tailwind encouraging it, according to the Center for Climate Security.
Trump was considered certain to sign the NDAA because it authorizes a hike in military spending for more aircraft, ships, and troops that he had been touting for months.
“This legislation represents a momentous step toward rebuilding our military and securing the future for our children,” Trump said during the signing. “I applaud the work of the members of both parties who came together to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support — something that sounds very nice to my ears.”
The national security strategy released Monday, which provides a blueprint for the administration, includes a single mention of climate in terms of weather patterns.
“Climate change is not identified as a national security threat, but climate and the importance of the environment, and environmental stewardship are discussed,” a senior administration official said during a briefing for reporters on the national security strategy Sunday.
It acknowledges that climate policies will likely shape the global energy system but that the U.S. role will be countering what it terms an “anti-growth energy agenda” that could harm the economy.
Still, the U.S. will “remain a global leader in reducing traditional pollution, as well as greenhouse gases, while expanding our economy,” according to the strategy.
The last national security strategy released by the Obama administration in 2015 mentioned climate change 13 times and called it an “urgent and growing threat to our national security.”
“The United States will remain a global leader in reducing traditional pollution, as well as greenhouse gases, while expanding our economy,” according to Trump’s strategy.
Femia, of the Center for Climate and Security, said the new strategy probably will not have a big effect on how the Pentagon deals with climate change. The military has recognized it as a potential risk for more than a decade.
Despite a signal from the White House, the NDAA has made clear that investigating and planning for such risk is part of the military’s job, Femia said.
“I don’t believe that this is an explicit sort of signal to the Department of Defense that the DoD can’t or shouldn’t be looking at climate change,” he said. “They’re going to keep assessing it, preparing for the risks to military infrastructure and operations and strategy, and I don’t think the national security strategy is going to have much of an impact on that.”
