Energy

REPORT: Trump Won’t List Global Warming As A National Security Threat

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

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Michael Bastasch DCNF Managing Editor
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The Trump administration will reportedly remove manmade global warming from its list of national security threats, reversing an Obama-era policy putting the global climate at the center of foreign and national security policy.

“Climate policies will continue to shape the global energy system,” reads a draft of the National Security Strategy obtained by The Federalist.

“U.S. leadership is indispensable to countering an anti-growth, energy agenda that is detrimental to U.S. economic and energy security interests,” reads the draft report, which is set for release Monday. “Given future global energy demand, much of the developing world will require fossil fuels, as well as other forms of energy, to power their economies and lift their people out of poverty.”

The Obama administration listed global warming as a top national security threat, and administration officials even blamed climate changes for sparking the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS.

“Climate change will impact every country on the planet,” former President Barack Obama told U.S. Coast Guard Academy graduates in 2015.

“No nation is immune,” Obama said. “So 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.”

It’s not an unexpected move. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March dismantling much of his predecessor’s global warming policies, including requiring the military to take global warming into account in national security assessments.

Trump announced in June that he would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, and he’s also stopped funding the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund.

Earlier this year, reporters pointed out that Defense Secretary James Mattis’s stance on global warming was at odds with Trump’s. ProPublica obtained Mattis’s written responses to Senate lawmakers where he said “climate change is already destabilising the world.”

With this report, Trump will announce he’s aligning his security strategy with his overall agenda — prioritizing economic growth over global warming.

“The United States will remain a global leader in reducing traditional pollution, as well as greenhouse gases, while growing its economy,” reads the draft report. “This achievement, which can serve as model to other countries, flows from innovation, technology breakthroughs, and energy efficiency gains – not from onerous regulation.”

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