President Trump is set to announce his new (even Russia-friendlier) national security strategy this week. While the strategy’s hard stance toward China is making headlines, another change could have even bigger implications for the future. According to reports, the U.S. will officially remove climate change from the list of national security threats in the doctrine.
In yet another complete shift away from Barack Obama’s policies, the strategy appears like another instance of the Trump administration ignoring the realities of climate change — after a first year in office marked by a number of calamitous natural disasters. From the New York Times:
The document instead places climate under a section on embracing “energy dominance,” and says that while “climate policies will continue to shape the global energy system,” American leadership will be “indispensable to countering an anti-growth energy agenda.”
That puts it at odds with the Pentagon, which has continued to highlight national security threats from a changing climate, including refugee flows as a result of droughts and intensifying storms and the repercussions of rising sea waters.
Climate change was added to the country’s national security strategy doctrine in 2015. The updated doctrine will instead focus on economic competition and securing the nation’s borders as part of Trump’s ongoing “America First” strategy.
(Via Axios & New York Times)