Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
5/22/2015
President Barack Obama stressed this week the importance of addressing climate change as a national security issue and noted the progress the United States has made on the issue. Obama specifically cited the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emissions standard for new and existing coal-fired power plants that would require carbon capture and storage technology to be installed on all new coal-fired power plants and would require states to meet federally set emissions reduction targets related to existing coal-fired power plants. “We all have to step up. And it will not be easy. It will require sacrifice, and the politics will be tough. But there is no other way,” Obama said in commencement remarks at the Coast Guard Academy. “We have to move ahead with standards to cut the amount of carbon pollution in our power plants.”
Climate change is not just a natural threat, but could also pose security threats by increasing conflicts around the world, Obama said. “Around the world, climate change increases the risk of instability and conflict. Rising seas are already swallowing low-lying lands, from Bangladesh to Pacific islands, forcing people from their homes. Caribbean islands and Central American coasts are vulnerable, as well. Globally, we could see a rise in climate change refugees,” Obama said. “Elsewhere, more intense droughts will exacerbate shortages of water and food, increase competition for resources, and create the potential for mass migrations and new tensions. All of which is why the Pentagon calls climate change a ‘threat multiplier.’”
Climate Change Not Greatest Security Threat, Coal Group Says
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity this week, though, challenged Obama’s remarks, saying that climate change pales in comparison to other threats to national security. “President Obama missed the boat this morning by failing to elevate America’s real national security threat: the expansion of terrorism stemming from global poverty,” Laura Sheehan, senior vice president for communications at ACCCE, said in a release. “As Americans witness the horrendous attacks on human life at the hands of terrorists on their evening news, the threats on our freedom hit closer and closer to home. It is this real and current threat from radical terrorism the president should focus on, not issues which have clearly been identified by the American public as non-priorities,” Sheehan said.
