WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters) — The White House is readying a presidential panel that would question American military and intelligence reports showing human-driven climate change poses risks to national security, according to an internal document seen by Reuters and the Washington Post.
The effort comes as United States President Donald Trump seeks to expand U.S. production of crude oil, natural gas, and coal, and unwind regulatory hurdles on doing so.
The panel, to be formed by an executive order by Trump, would be headed by William Happer, a retired Princeton University physics professor currently on the White House’s National Security Council.
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Happer disagrees with mainstream climate science and believes that emissions of the main greenhouse gas that scientists blame for climate change, carbon dioxide, benefits the planet by helping plants grow.
The document calls into question U.S. government reports that say climate change poses risks to national security, including the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment from the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Dan Coats.
“These scientific and national security judgments have not undergone a rigorous independent and adversarial scientific peer review to examine the certainties and uncertainties of climate science, as well as implications for national security,” the document said.
The annual DNI report, issued in January, said droughts, floods, wildfires and rising seas made worse by climate change and environmental degradation pose global threats to infrastructure and security.
In January, the Department of Defence said climate change was a national security issue and listed 79 domestic bases at risk from floods, drought, encroaching deserts, wildfires and in Alaska, thawing permafrost.
U.S. officials have also said that climate change can burden the military by increasing the number of global humanitarian missions in which it participates.
Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the science of climate change, arguing that the causes and impacts are not yet settled.
