US Secret Services: Climate Crisis Is A National Security Threat

Enlarge image

Arid soil in South Africa: The US secret services have now for the first time also determined how great the danger posed by the climate crisis is to the national security of the USA

Photo: Mike Hutchings / REUTERS

Not that they do is amazing.

But that they did not do it much earlier: The US secret services have for the first time produced a special report on the effects of the climate crisis and classified global warming as a threat to national security.

"In our estimation, climate change will increasingly exacerbate the risks to US national security interests," said the report submitted on Thursday by intelligence coordinator Avril Haines.

Not only would the effects of global warming itself increase, but also "geopolitical tensions over how to respond to the challenge."

"Contest over the control of resources"

Under the item »geopolitical tensions«, the 18 US secret services cite, among other things, a dispute over the question of which country should reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases and to what extent and pay for the financing of climate protection measures.

"In addition, countries will compete over the control of resources and dominant new technologies that are necessary for a transition to clean energy."

The report makes particular reference to China.

"Conflicts over Water and Migration"

Under the second point, "cross-border geopolitical trouble spots", the secret services list a "growing risk of conflicts over water and migration" as a result of global warming.

There are also warnings of conflicts over the Arctic, where a shrinking ice layer is likely to intensify the competition for raw materials.

"Instability"

Finally, as a third point, the report refers to the threat of "instability" within states as a result of, among other things, food and energy shortages.

Developing countries are most likely to be affected by this.

In their analysis, the secret services warn that the goal anchored in the Paris climate protection agreement of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees in the long term will "most likely" be missed.

Therefore, the effects of climate change are likely to increase.

The report was published around ten days before the start of the UN climate conference COP26 in Glasgow.

It is the first time that the US intelligence services have presented a so-called National Intelligence Service assessment on the subject of climate change.

A major concern for Joe Biden for a long time

The White House said government departments and agencies responsible for US security are planning the effects of climate change.

This affects, among other things, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Homeland Security, which is responsible for border security.

US President Joe Biden has made the fight against global warming one of the main concerns of his policy.

He has an ambitious climate protection agenda, the concrete implementation of which is met with opposition in Congress.

According to research by the New York Times, the climate protection plans are threatened with a serious setback: A central part of the plans, which provides for the timely replacement of coal and gas-fired power plants with wind, solar and nuclear energy, could therefore be removed from the billion-dollar reform package.

Under Biden, the United States had returned to the Paris climate protection agreement, from which his predecessor Donald Trump had led the country.

oka / AFP