Climate Security Policy Recommendations for the New Administration

The policy brief argues that climate change threatens US national security by damaging critical infrastructure, increasing state fragility, and intensifying geopolitical competition. It recommends that the US government implement a National Adaptation Plan, integrate 'Operational Resilience' into military budgets, scale up resilience funding for strategic allies, and strengthen interagency coordination on the food-climate-security nexus to protect US interests and economic competitiveness.

• Climate change directly threatens US national security and critical infrastructure, with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency stating that it affects all sixteen national critical infrastructure sectors. Specific examples include Typhoon Mawar in 2023, which caused an estimated $10 billion in damage to facilities in Guam, and Hurricane Michael in 2018, which caused damage to Tyndall Air Force Base that took 6 years to rebuild.
• Climate-driven hazards exacerbate state fragility and migration; for instance, drier growing seasons in Central America are linked to a more than 70 percent increase in out-migration to the United States. Additionally, food-related protests in twenty countries in 2022 contributed to government collapses in Sri Lanka and Haiti.
• Climate change creates new geopolitical competition for diminishing fish stocks, critical minerals, and new transportation routes in the Arctic. It also provides opportunities for adversaries; China and Russia use disinformation campaigns following domestic disasters to blame the US government, and China competes with the US in the deployment of renewables, batteries, nuclear, hydrogen, and carbon capture technologies.
• The US military faces operational risks from climate change, including heat-related illnesses among soldiers, flooding at the US Naval Academy campus forty times a year, and warming ocean temperatures that threaten the cooling systems of aircraft carriers.
• Domestic resilience spending is highly cost-effective, with the Chamber of Commerce finding that every dollar spent on resilience saves $13 in recovery, economic downturn, and damages.
• Global food and water insecurity is intensified by the food-water nexus, where intensive farming practices pollute water systems and dwindling water resources create tensions around the Mekong, Tigris-Euphrates, Indus, and Nile river basins.

APA

Sikorsky, E., Baxter, C., Cicarelli, S., Conger, J., & Ellison, T. (2025). Climate Security Policy Recommendations for the New Administration. The Council on Strategic Risks. https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2025/01/13/climate-security-policy-recommendations-for-the-new-administration/

Chicago

Sikorsky, Erin, Caroline Baxter, Siena Cicarelli, John Conger, and Tom Ellison. Climate Security Policy Recommendations for the New Administration. The Council on Strategic Risks, 2025. https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2025/01/13/climate-security-policy-recommendations-for-the-new-administration/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Sikorsky |first1=Erin |last2=Baxter |first2=Caroline |last3=Cicarelli |first3=Siena |last4=Conger |first4=John |last5=Ellison |first5=Tom |title=Climate Security Policy Recommendations for the New Administration |publisher=The Council on Strategic Risks |date=13 January 2025 |url=https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2025/01/13/climate-security-policy-recommendations-for-the-new-administration/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{sikorsky2025climate, author = {Sikorsky, Erin and Baxter, Caroline and Cicarelli, Siena and Conger, John and Ellison, Tom}, title = {{Climate Security Policy Recommendations for the New Administration}}, institution = {The Council on Strategic Risks}, year = {2025}, month = jan, url = {https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/2025/01/13/climate-security-policy-recommendations-for-the-new-administration/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }