Every year, the Director of National Intelligence delivers to Congress an Annual Threat Assessment (ATA) meant to warn of the top national security risks facing the United States. The 2025 ATA, briefed to the Senate on 25 March by DNI Tulsi Gabbard, was the first to omit any mention of climate change in over a decade. Even a textbox on Russia and the Arctic does not mention climate, melting ice, or the changing environment – despite repeated, previous warnings from the US Intelligence Community (IC), across both Democratic and Republican administrations (including the first Trump term), about warming temperatures’ exacerbating risks of instability and geopolitical competition in the region.
Omitting warnings of the security risks posed by climate change means the US national security community is operating with a blind spot, putting the country at risk. In 2024 alone, the US military responded to dozens of extreme weather events domestically and abroad, US military facilities in Guam and Kwajalein were devastated by climate super-charged typhoons and rogue waves, respectively, and hundreds of lives and thousands of livelihoods were lost in the United States due to events such as the LA wildfires and Hurricanes Helene and Milton. At the same time, in the wake of extreme weather events, US allies Poland and Spain faced coordinated disinformation campaigns from Russia and China respectively in the wake of extreme weather events, aimed at undermining public trust in government.
As early as 2009, the ATA noted that while climate change was, “…not traditionally viewed as “threats” to US national security, [it] will affect Americans in major ways,” and that “unprecedented developments” had caused the IC to increase its focus on the topic. The report went on to warn of a range of climate security risks and highlight key takeaways from the 2008 National Intelligence Assessment on climate change, stating:
“The IC judges global climate change will have important and extensive implications for US national security interests over the next 20 years. Although the United States itself could be less affected and is better equipped than most nations to deal with climate change and may even see a benefit in the near term owing to increases in agriculture productivity, infrastructure repair and replacement will be costly. We judge the most significant impact for the United States to be indirect and result from climate-driven effects on many other countries and their potential to seriously affect US national security interests.”
The IC and the ATA did not shrink from climate and environmental security threats throughout the first Trump Administration. The 2017 ATA highlighted risks from heatwaves, pollution, water insecurity and biodiversity loss, while the 2018 report provided this stark warning: “The impacts of the long-term trends toward a warming climate, more air pollution, biodiversity loss, and water scarcity are likely to fuel economic and social discontent—and possibly upheaval—through 2018.”
The US intelligence community has a proud history and tradition of speaking truth to power and calling threats as it sees them, irrespective of politics. Given the trajectory of climate hazards and the range of risks posed to US resilience, homeland security, and national security as outlined under previous DNIs, it has never been more important for the IC to uphold that tradition.