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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

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