A version of this article first appeared on Hot Fronts: Security in a Warming World.
Last week, the US Director of National Intelligence provided Congress with the US intelligence community’s annual threat assessment (ATA) of the top security risks facing the United States. While the hearing itself focused largely on the war in Iran, the submitted written testimony provides a snapshot into what the intelligence community (IC) is focused on and why.
Last year was the first time in over a decade that the threat assessment issued by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) did not mention climate change. This year followed that pattern. The closest the ATA comes to the topic is a sentence on drivers of migration:
“Extreme weather events are likely to continue to indirectly drive migration by worsening the economic and food security of many low-income countries, particularly in Central America.”
The Arctic does get a whole section, but the reader would never know from the text why so many countries are focused on it. The ATA makes references to it becoming more “accessible” – with this accessibility driving Chinese interest in particular – without ever explaining why that accessibility is growing.
Mentions of energy and critical minerals are largely focused on opportunities for extraction rather than on the risks of instability or conflict. The document identifies critical minerals, oil, and gas as a potential opportunity for the United States in the South Caucasus, Central Asia, and Venezuela. The ATA had this to say about Africa:
“Africa harbors vast reserves of critical minerals that are vital to U.S. advanced defense systems and economic competitiveness.”
The section on the fallout of Operation Epic Fury, the US military’s war in Iran, says nothing about how the conflict is affecting energy markets, food, or water security in the region. In some ways, this is understandable given the fast-moving nature of the conflict, but the assessment does comment on other aspects of the war, including its effect on terrorism.
A More Politicized Approach to Climate and Environment Analysis?
The 2025 and 2026 ATAs are a departure from the first Trump Administration, where the Intelligence Community (IC) retained its independence and regularly warned of climate change risks. For example, in 2019, the year that President Trump tried (and failed) to give climate denier William Happer a perch on the National Security Council from which to censor climate analysis, the ATA said this about climate change:
“Global environmental and ecological degradation, as well as climate change, are likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond. Climate hazards such as extreme weather, higher temperatures, droughts, floods, wildfires, storms, sea level rise, soil degradation, and acidifying oceans are intensifying, threatening infrastructure, health, and water and food security. Irreversible damage to ecosystems and habitats will undermine the economic benefits they provide, worsened by air, soil, water, and marine pollution.”
The 2026 ATA is the latest indication that the Trump Administration is politicizing the US intelligence community’s climate and environment analysis. Last year, the DNI gutted the office on the National Intelligence Council that covered climate and environment issues, with DNI Gabbard claiming at the time that the office was pushing a “political agenda that ran counter to all of the current President’s national security priorities.”
As Josh Busby, Greg Pollack, and I wrote in Foreign Policy at the time, this politicization creates a blind spot for the United States: “Destroying government capacity to analyze future trends and implement policy—whether related to climate change, artificial intelligence, global public health, or other challenges—puts U.S. national security at risk and cedes influence to the country’s competitors. China certainly isn’t stopping its long-term planning for how to manage climate change and navigate the energy transition to its own advantage.“
With the US intelligence community stepping back on its analysis of climate and environment risks, it is more important than ever that other countries that once relied on US information step up with their own assessments. Germany published its own intelligence assessment of climate risk in 2024, and the UK released a report on nature, biodiversity, and security earlier this year. Australia has conducted a similar effort, but has not publicly released the assessment yet. More countries should consider developing their own climate intelligence efforts to fill the gaps left by the US retreat.
For more details on previous US intelligence assessments of climate and environmental risks, visit the Center for Climate and Security Resource Hub.