EXCLUSIVE: U.S. military worries about climate change

By Kelly Hearn (Contact) | Thursday, November 13, 2008

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EXCLUSIVE

As a new administration committed to addressing climate change takes office, intelligence and defense officials are laying plans to address the national security implications of a warmer planet.

In recent months, U.S. military planners have discussed the impact on personnel, equipment and installations of extreme weather events, rising ocean temperatures, shifts in rainfall patterns and stresses on natural resources.

Among the concerns: 63 U.S. coastal military facilities and several nuclear reactors are in danger of flooding from storm surges, said Tom Fingar, the deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.

President-elect Barack Obama next month will receive a key intelligence report, Global Trends 2025. Sources who reviewed the document for the government but asked not to be named said the report gives top priority to climate change.

The Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a Pentagon-funded think tank, issued a report last year that called climate change a "serious national security threat."

The U.S. intelligence apparatus has worked up the first national intelligence assessment to focus on the implications of climate change for U.S. national security by 2030.

"There is increasing attention on the hard security side of climate change, and officials in the Pentagon are starting to take the topic a lot more seriously," said Richard Moss, a climate-change specialist with the World Wildlife Fund.

Researchers say climate change poses a range of security concerns. They include:

Military installations. Coastal military facilities are threatened by rising sea levels and more frequent major, damaging weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

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