Climate Change Could Pose a National Security Threat

As climate change accelerates, its consequences are reshaping global security. At the Climate Forward live event, Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said the Trump administration’s climate policies could pose a national security threat to the United States.

This risk is already real to many in the military, he said. “Any man or woman with stars on their shoulders or general officers,” Sullivan said, “and they will tell you the climate crisis is real and has an operational impact on them.”

In a conversation with Helene Cooper, Sullivan discussed about how climate change was shaping the U.S. competition with China and how a rapidly warming planet was creating new threats, from growing food insecurity in developing nations to transforming the battlefields of the future.

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