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President Donald Trump has signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. The act would require the Pentagon to do a report on how military installations and overseas staff may be vulnerable to climate change over the next 20 years.
The following language was included in the act: ‘Climate change is a direct threat to the national security of the United States and is impacting stability in areas of the world both where the United States Armed Forces are operating today, and where strategic implications for future conflict exist.’
Angela Ledford Anderson, director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), said the move was ‘a bright spot in an otherwise bleak Congress’, but added that we need to do much, much more to support local and state governments in their efforts to combat climate change.
‘Does President Trump know that with a stroke of his pen he just confirmed what climate scientists and military officials have been saying for years: climate change is a major threat to U.S. national security and our armed forces overseas?’
ANGELA LEDFORD ANDERSON
Director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists
Angela Ledford Anderson added that ‘certainly more needs to be done to convince the president of the scientific truths of climate change and the importance of acting sooner rather than later on the risks it poses.’
She underlined that climate change ‘couldn’t care less’ about political party affiliation, and explained that’s why legislators ‘on both sides of the aisle’—especially those on the frontlines of climate change impacts—fought to retain this language in the final bill.
Click here for a list of things Americans fear most – from climate change to corruption.
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