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Presidential Memorandum on climate change<br />
directs 20 federal agencies to develop Climate<br />
Change and National Security Action Plan<br />
By Schuyler Null, Cara Thuringer,<br />
Lauren Herzer Risi<br />
<strong>Sep</strong>tember 22, 2016 - Yesterday<br />
afternoon President Obama announced<br />
a new Presidential Memorandum<br />
on climate change and national<br />
security. The policy directs<br />
20 federal agencies to consider the<br />
national security implications of climate<br />
change and establish a working<br />
group that will develop a Climate<br />
Change and National Security<br />
Action Plan for the federal government.<br />
Released alongside the new policy<br />
is the first unclassified report by the<br />
U.S. intelligence community that<br />
examines the pathways by which<br />
climate change may affect national<br />
security. The concerns expressed in<br />
the assessment by the U.S. National<br />
Intelligence Council echo sentiments<br />
shared by the Pentagon and a<br />
bevy of retired U.S. military officers:<br />
“Climate change and its resulting effects<br />
are likely to pose wide-ranging<br />
national security challenges for the<br />
United States and other countries.”<br />
The two releases represent major<br />
steps by different parts of the<br />
U.S. government. The White House<br />
memo continues the president’s efforts<br />
to instill responses to climate<br />
change into the mechanics of the<br />
federal government, while the intelligence<br />
assessment represents a consensus<br />
opinion from the intelligence<br />
community on climate change’s<br />
threat level to national security interests.<br />
Incorporating Into the<br />
Federal Government<br />
President Obama has signed a series<br />
of executive orders since his first<br />
year in office requiring all federal<br />
agencies, including the Department<br />
of Defense, to produce and regularly<br />
4<br />
update a climate change adaptation<br />
plan and reduce certain greenhouse<br />
gas emissions. This new memo establishes<br />
procedures to try to catch<br />
and address national security implications<br />
as well.<br />
A Federal Climate and National<br />
Security Working Group is being<br />
created, made up of members of<br />
the National Security Council staff,<br />
the White House Office of Science<br />
and Technology Policy, and “over<br />
20 federal agencies and offices with<br />
climate science, intelligence, and<br />
national security responsibilities.”<br />
Over the course of the next 90 days<br />
the group will identify priorities,<br />
develop ways that climate science