By Tom Ellison and Noah Fritzhand

Introduction: Is All Climate Security Local?

Climate change and security discussions often focus on national and global challenges, but climate security risks are relevant for US states and cities as well. Recently, Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the Los Angeles wildfires have cost lives and livelihoods, strained infrastructure and insurance markets, enabled extremists, and triggered damaging disinformation, underscoring the local and national security impacts of such hazards. Since 2022, the National Guard and other US military forces have deployed on average more than weekly for climate-related hazards in the United States. State and city authorities play key roles in building resilience to these strains, ranging from public safety and emergency services, governance of climate-vulnerable infrastructure, or planning adaptation efforts for wildfires and coastal hazards. These challenges are growing increasingly urgent as the US federal government cuts support for climate and weather data and forecasting and disaster relief, even as climate change intensifies and the United States approaches wildfire and hurricane season. 

Focusing on state and local action has long been a coping strategy for the wider climate and clean energy community in the face of federal setbacks. But less attention has been paid to subnational adaptation and resilience to prevent climate-related security challenges. To address this gap, the Center for Climate and Security (CCS) convened a roundtable discussion of these issues in late March 2025. Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow and former NSC Senior Director for Resilience Alice Hill provided opening remarks, after which participants discussed key climate security risks, challenges, and opportunities for states and cities. Participants included experts on US national security, defense and the National Guard, state and local resilience, climate and environmental policy, critical infrastructure, technological innovation, philanthropy and civil society (attendees listed below). This article summarizes key takeaways and next steps from the discussion.

Key Risks, Roadblocks, and Roles

Participants identified multiple ways in which climate change, security, and subnational issues overlap and intersect. Increasing extreme weather, such as extreme heat, not only poses direct risks to US lives through increasing heat-related deaths but also poses security risks to communities, given that heat is associated with increased violent crime. Extreme weather also leaves all people more vulnerable, particularly girls and women, to trafficking. States and cities must contend with climate change hazards impacting election administration and eroding trust, and most lack training and data on how extreme weather can impact access, turnout, and processes. Additionally, states and localities are on the front lines of managing internal US climate migration, navigating natural resource constraints, and addressing property insurance crises, all of which are impacted by climate change and can create security vulnerabilities.

Roundtable participants agreed that long-term planning capacity and adaptation investment at the subnational level is inadequate to address these risks fully. Some participants noted that while major disasters understandably receive attention, key challenges to local climate resilience and security relate to longer-term climate stresses, inadequate planning, and perverse incentive structures. Obstacles to overcoming those challenges include resource shortfalls, siloed state and local policymaking, deficiencies in framing, and a lack of political will. Participants noted that injecting climate-informed processes into non-climate entities is critical, because state and local climate resilience offices are minimally staffed and key decisions rest with existing policy organizations, such as utilities, municipal planning organizations/transportation, housing, and insurance. The conversation highlighted that state and local investments in resilient long-term planning do not receive the same political enthusiasm as “ribbon-cutting” projects in transportation and other sectors. 

The discussion also highlighted the different respective strengths of federal, state, and local authorities on climate security and resilience. The federal government is uniquely able to stockpile resources, mobilize funding, spread best practices, and develop science at scale, while states and cities are best equipped to make resilience decisions about their particular environment. Participants acknowledged that federal disaster response spending has grown over the decades, at times creating a moral hazard for states and cities to accept climate risk in pursuit of short-term development, in expectation of federal assistance if needed. However, participants warned that the Trump Administration’s slashing of federal resources like NOAA observational data and forecasting and FEMA disaster recovery risks irreparable harm. Adequate subnational resilience and adaptation (and by extension national security), will not be possible without support from these agencies, whether NOAA data on sea level rise and flooding to enable climate-informed municipal planning or FEMA training and long-term recovery support to contend with climate disasters.

Future Priorities for State and Local Climate Security

Several priorities emerged from the discussion to inform the way forward on state and local climate security: 

Reframing Adaptation and Resilience Investments

With adaptation and resilience underfunded at the local level (as it is globally), messaging that conveys the local return on investment is critical. One participant highlighted survey data that found investments in resilience received greater support from the public and private sector when tied to specific benefits for jobs, business, affordability, and other tangible local concerns, compared to more abstract risk assessments.

Building Capacity and Planning Ahead

States and localities need new funding, personnel, and skill sets for resilience, and must also make more climate-informed use of existing resources. Both are critical for the politically challenging long-term planning and standard-setting needed to alleviate climate security risks (with one participant noting “we’re building new vulnerabilities faster than we can fix our past mistakes”). Such planning is also necessary groundwork for if and when federal funding returns.

Cultivating Healthy Disaster Response

States and localities must be prepared for disasters that are flashpoints for politicization, misinformation, and foreign exploitation. Participants noted that without federal support, the National Guard would likely come under increased strain and communities would face challenges bearing the cost of this relief, underscoring the importance of the federal role. Others noted the importance of local media in combating climate disinformation, whether foreign or domestic.

Prioritizing Subnational Cooperation

With the federal government retreating, state/local governments, civil society, and philanthropy will need to expand cooperation amongst themselves to preserve key datasets, share best practices, and pool resources. In addition to coalitions like the US Climate Alliance, trade associations like the Water Utility Climate Alliance and Urban Sustainability Directors Network are key entry points. 

Conclusion

Tangible next steps on these priorities might include convening additional network-building opportunities across states, cities, funders, and technical fields; and piloting new climate security plans in key jurisdictions reflecting these perspectives. With climate change impacts continuing to worsen and the US federal government stepping back from assessing and addressing the risks, these initiatives are more important than ever. CCS looks forward to engaging stakeholders to support these critical priorities.

Addendum: Roundtable Attendees

Adelle Thomas 

Senior Director, Climate Adaptation & Environmental Health, Natural Resources Defense Council

A.J. D’Amico 

Director, Media and Democracy, Knight Foundation

Aletia Alvarez

Senior Manager Maritime Planning, Port of Seattle

Alex Stapleton

Senior Climate Policy Advisor, Foreign Policy for America

Alice Hill 

Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; former National Security Council Senior Director for Resilience

RADM Ann Phillips (USN, Ret.) 

Former Administrator, US Maritime Administration; former Virginia Special Advisor for Coastal Resilience and Adaptation

Ben McFarlane

Chief Resilience Officer, Hampton Roads Planning District Commission

Beth Gibbons 

Director, Resiliency Office, Washtenaw County Michigan

Caroline Baxter 

Director, Converging Risks Lab

Danielle Butsick 

Senior Environmental Program Manager, Port of Seattle

Erin Sikorsky 

Director, CCS

John Conger 

Senior Advisor, CCS

Kari Bowen 

Colorado National Guard; CIESRDS Scientific and Administrative Manager, CU Boulder

Maura Sullivan 

Program Officer, Henry M. Jackson Foundation

Michael Martinez

Chief of Staff, Salt River Valley Project

Noah Fritzhand 

Research Fellow, CCS

Rob Moore 

Director, Water & Climate Team, Natural Resources Defense Council

Sam Malloy 

Director of Research and Development, Colorado-Wyoming Climate Resilience Engine

Sandra Kilroy 

Senior Director Environment and Sustainability, Port of Seattle

Susan Crawford 

Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Taylor Dimsdale 

Senior Fellow, Resilience, Fors Marsh

Tom Ellison 

Deputy Director, CCS 

Will Rogers 

Principal, Converge Strategies; former US Army Senior Climate Advisor