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Building Climate Security at the State and Local Level
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.
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2025 Annual Threat Assessment First in Over A Decade to Omit Climate Change
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.
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The United States Risks Undermining Its Pacific Power By Withdrawing Disaster Relief and Food Security Support
By Francisco Bencosme
On 5 March, the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs held a hearing titled “Examining the Office of Insular Affairs’ Role in Fostering Prosperity in the Pacific Territories and Addressing External Threats to Peace and Security.” This article is based on Francisco Bencosme’s written testimony focused on transnational crises like climate change undermining Pacific peace and security. Bencosme served as the China Policy Lead at USAID until January 2025.
The United States is at risk of ceding its influence in the Pacific Islands and repeating the mistakes it failed to learn after World War II. Our partners in the Pacific are calling it our “yo-yo” policy towards the region. The United States spent the last six years saying it would intensify our engagement in a crucial national security region, and we did so, only to now pull back US presence on the ground and self-sabotage American influence. Gutting foreign assistance limits our ability to influence and address challenges in the Pacific, especially climate change, disaster response, and food security, key areas of strategic competition.
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Read, Watch, Listen: CCS Across the Web | January-February 2025
Welcome to “Read, Watch, Listen” from the Center for Climate and Security (CCS), a round-up highlighting some of the articles, interviews, and podcasts featuring the CCS network of experts.
January and February saw wide-ranging US policy shifts and funding cuts under the new Administration, affecting climate, energy, foreign policy, and defense. See how CCS experts weighed in on these and other issues below.
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