The prominence of climate change has risen to the point that the issue is discussed in the White House Situation Room, President Obama said during a State Department forum for oceanic matters Thursday morning.
The president credited Secretary of State John Kerry for “elevating” the subject in public discourse, adding that doing so helps the administration more completely address the policies pertaining to it.
“[Kerry] has elevated the profile of climate change, ocean protection to the point where we have conversations about this not just in the Oval Office, but in the Situation Room,” Obama said in the nation’s capital at the Our Ocean Conference. “And that is critical in helping us mobilize all of government around the issues that all of you care so deeply about.”
The “Sit Room”, as it’s nicknamed, was established during the Kennedy administration as a real-time intelligence hub for the president and his national security staff. It was expanded in 2007, and “also allows the President to communicate securely with American military commanders and foreign heads of state around the world,” according to the White House’s website.
It was made famous in a 2011 photo that showed President Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and members of the administration’s national security staff monitoring the mission that took out Osama bin Laden.
The Obama administration has consistently framed climate change as a national security issue, with the president saying last year that “no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations”. Obama has said he plans to continue working on the matter in his post-presidency, and has dedicated considerable time in the waning months of his final term discussing it across the globe.
