Obama: Climate change ‘serious threat to global security’

by Timothy Cama - 05/20/15 6:00 AM ET

President Obama will highlight his view that climate change is one of the most significant military threats to the United States and the world in a speech Wednesday.

Obama will argue in his address to graduates at the United States Coast Guard Academy that the fight against climate change is a fight for global peace and against the conflicts that lead to war, according to a White House preview of the remarks.

“I am here today to say that climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security, and, make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country,” Obama will tell the new Coast Guard officers. “And so we need to act — and we need to act now.”

{mosads}A White House official said the speech will demonstrate that climate change “poses immediate risks to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters and resulting in humanitarian crises, and potentially increasing refugee flows and exacerbating conflicts over basic resources like food and water.”

Also Wednesday, the White House is releasing an 11-page report on the national security implications of climate change, aggregating information from various federal reports on the subject.

Obama has highlighted security implications of climate change in recent months to drum up more support for his efforts to invest in climate adaptation and reduce greenhouse gases, including a landmark regulation to limit carbon emissions from power plants.

In addition to the international problems that global warming can cause, Obama has argued the effects threaten military facilities and readiness.

The White House said in February that climate change threatens more people than terrorism.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), in his infamous snowball speech, chided Obama for comparing global warming to terrorism.

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