The Intelligence Community and Climate Change
In an article posted yesterday, Northwestern University’s Medill National Security Reporting Project discusses the U.S. intelligence community’s history with and concern over the growing security risks posed by climate change.
For nearly two decades now, climate change has been recognized as a security risk by many within the U.S. intelligence community. From contracting with university scientists to collaborating with other governments, the intelligence community has worked to understand and prepare for the many security implications posed by climate change. For example, according to one CIA climate change analyst interviewed, most recent research has included the flooding last year in Pakistan:
We wanted to know: What are the conditions that lead to a situation like the Pakistan flooding? What are the important things for water flows, food security …radicalization, disease, and displaced people?
With almost twenties years of work under their belts, one would assume that the U.S. Intelligence community would be a leading authority on climate change. However, the endeavors of the intelligence community to understand the security risks of climate change have been hampered over the years by partisan politics and climate change skeptics, miring almost all efforts by the intelligence community to assess the dangers of climate change.
According to a congressional oversight report, the George W. Bush administration,
Engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.
Retired General and former CIA director (2006-2009), Michael Hayden, reported,
I didn’t have a market for it when I was director,” Hayden said in a recent interview. “It was all terrorism all the time, and when it wasn’t, it was all Iran.
In recent years, the military, lawmakers, and policy analysts have all begun to express how ill-equipped the U.S. is to deal with the risks posed by climate change. The military claims it lacks the intel to properly plan their missions and the intelligence community reports it lacks the functional structures to address an issue such as climate change.
According to one 23-year veteran of the CIA,
I consider what the U.S. government is doing on climate change to be lip service… It’s not serious.
A real chance to move forward came when, in 2007, a report issued by high ranking military officers explicitly stating that climate change was a serious and imminent threat to U.S. national security got the ball rolling. Members of Congress on both sides of the isle began addressing climate change and the intelligence agencies began implementing programs to address the most pressing security issues resulting from climate change.
Nevertheless, we are not out of the woods. Climate science skepticism has, once again, formed a formidable road block to addressing climate change and its effects. If there is to be a continued serious consideration of security risks posed by climate change, the national security community and our leaders in Congress and the White House must do a better job at articulating just how grave those security risks are.
