The White House called climate change a top national security issue in its National Security Strategy released Friday, linking a warming planet to increased extremism, violent conflicts and extreme weather that has battered coastal communities.
The document builds on other Obama administration efforts to convey the scope and breadth that climate change has across sectors of government and society.
“Climate change is an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows and conflicts over basic resources like food and water,” the White House said in the document.
Acting soon is key for global as well as national security, the document said. It repeated many of the warnings the Pentagon has made since 2010, when it first said that climate change poses a national security risk.
Military time and personnel is now increasingly being used for humanitarian aid in flood- and typhoon-stricken areas in Southeast Asia. Thawing Arctic ice cover is drawing more countries and oil companies to the region, creating new tensions over territorial disputes and mineral resources. Food insecurity from shifting crop yields has created starvation and pushed people into extremist groups that often can provide more than governments.
Those comments are not without controversy. The 2012 Republican platform attacked the Obama administration for calling climate change a “severe” national security threat in its 2010 national security strategy.
“The strategy subordinates our national security interests to environmental, energy and international health issues, and elevates ‘climate change’ to the level of a ‘severe threat’ equivalent to foreign aggression,” the GOP platform said.
But Republican sentiment on climate change is warming to the idea of addressing emissions head-on. Five Republican senators voted for a non-binding amendment that said humans “significantly” contribute to climate change. Fifteen signed onto a measure that said humans simply contribute to a warming planet.
A joint New York Times, Stanford University and Resources for the Future poll released last week showed 60 percent of Republicans backed federal action to confront climate change. Nearly half — 48 percent — said they were more likely to support a candidate who said humans significantly contribute to climate change, largely by burning fossil fuels.
The strategy touted the international role President Obama intends to take heading into global climate talks in Paris at the end of this year. Nations there will seek to strike a deal governing emissions beyond 2020 in hopes of keeping global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, an outcome that appears unlikely given current global emissions trends and previous struggles reaching international agreements.
Still, many conservatives are concerned about how costly it might be to curb climate change and don’t want the U.S. to go it alone.
Congressional Republicans have balked at a non-binding deal Obama inked with China. The deal called for the U.S. to slash emissions at least 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, while China set a target of 2030 for when emissions in the world’s top greenhouse gas-polluting nation would peak and then decline.
Most Republicans also don’t believe climate change is a major threat and argue that abandoning existing coal-fired power plants for clean energy would raise energy costs.
But climate change poses an economic cost as well, the White House said in its national security strategy. It attempts to cast inaction on slowing greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say warm the planet as more expensive than transitioning to low-carbon energy sources.
“Increased sea levels and storm surges threaten coastal regions, infrastructure, and property. In turn, the global economy suffers, compounding the growing costs of preparing and restoring infrastructure,” the strategy said.
That echoes a July report from the White House that made an economic case for slashing emissions. It said delaying action a decade could increase the costs for mitigating climate change by 40 percent. That report said the United States would stand to lose 0.9 percent of gross domestic product — about $150 billion — if global temperatures rose 3 degrees Celsius, rather than 2 degrees, above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
