WASHINGTON (AP) -
President Barack Obama is framing the challenges of
climate change as a matter of national security that
threatens to aggravate poverty and political instability
around the globe and jeopardize the readiness of
U.S. forces.
"Make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends
our country," the president says in excerpts of a
commencement address prepared for delivery Wednesday at the
U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. "And so
we need to act and we need to act now."
The president in recent months has pressed for action on
climate change as a matter of health, as a matter of
environmental protection and as a matter of international
obligation. He's even couched it as a family matter, linking
it to the worry he felt when one his daughters had an asthma
attack as a preschooler.
His speech to the cadets, by contrast, is focused on what
the Obama administration says are immediate risks to
national security, including contributing to more natural
disasters that result in humanitarian crises and potential
new flows of refugees. Further, the president sees climate
change aggravating poverty and social tensions that can fuel
instability and foster terrorist activity and other
violence.
Obama said the cadets would be part of the first generation
of officers to begin their service in a world where it is
increasingly clear that "climate
change will shape how every one of our services plan,
operate, train, equip and protect their infrastructure."
His prepared remarks said climate change "is not just a
problem for countries on the coast or for certain regions of
the world. Climate change impacts every country on the
planet."
As for the impact in the U.S., Obama pointed to streets in
Miami and Charleston, South Carolina, that flood at high
tide and to military bases around the country already
feeling negative effects.
"Around Norfolk, high tides and storms increasingly flood
parts of our Navy base and an air base," Obama said of
military facilities in Virginia. "In Alaska, thawing
permafrost is damaging military facilities. Out West, deeper
droughts and longer wildfires could threaten training areas
our troops depend on."
With the Republican-led Congress indifferent to Obama's
entreaties, the president has been doing what he can to
combat climate change through executive orders to cut
greenhouse gas emissions and through the powers of
persuasion. But his climate change agenda has drawn strong
political opposition and a number of legal challenges. Many
of the Republican presidential candidates for 2016 have said
that taking unilateral steps to address climate change could
hurt the U.S. economy.
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