Terrorism boost with change of climate?

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By Pamela Hess

WASHINGTON (AP) — Global warming is likely to increase illegal immigration, create humanitarian disasters and destabilize precarious governments and may add to terrorism - all of which could threaten U.S. national security, according to an assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies.

"Logic suggests the conditions exacerbated [by climate change] would increase the pool of potential recruits for terrorism," said Tom Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, who testified before a joint House committee hearing Wednesday.

Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central and Southeast Asia are most vulnerable to warming-related drought, flooding, extreme weather and hunger. The intelligence assessment warns of a global spillover of those troubles with increased migration and water-related disputes, he said in prepared remarks.

Climate change alone would not topple governments, but it could worsen problems such as poverty, disease, migration, and hunger that could destabilize already vulnerable areas, Mr. Fingar told the committee.

But he warned that efforts to reduce global warming by changing energy policies "may affect U.S. national security interests even more than the physical impacts of climate change itself."

"The operative word there is 'may.' We don't know," Mr. Fingar said.

The national intelligence assessment on the national security implications of global climate change through 2030 is one of a series of periodic intelligence reports that offer the consensus judgment of top analysts at all 16 U.S. spy agencies on major foreign policy, security and global economic issues. Congress requested the report last year. The assessment is classified "confidential."

It predicts that the United States and most of its allies will have the means to cope with climate change economically. Unspecified "regional partners" could face severe problems.

Mr. Fingar said that the quality of the analysis is hampered by the fact that climate data tend not to focus on specific countries but on broad global changes.