Climate Security Climate Security and the Trump Administration
Basic Page Sidebar Menu Perry World House
January 22, 2025
By
Erin Sikorsky
The year 2024 was the hottest year on record, with climate change–driven extreme weather events causing thousands of deaths and destroying billions of dollars of infrastructure globally. Both in the United States and countries around the world, climate disasters required the deployment of tens of thousands of military troops. In September alone, Poland activated 26,000 troops in response to Storm Boris, a whopping 450,000 soldiers supported flood and landslide rescues in Vietnam, and 6,000 members of the U.S. National Guard from more than a dozen states were sent to North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene. Meanwhile, the year saw increased tensions between the China and the West over electric vehicle subsidies and clean energy supply chains, while the Global South’s frustration with a lack of climate finance from the Global North spilled over into debates on other areas of security concern for the United States. In fragile and conflict-affected states, such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen, and Haiti, acute climate disasters as well as slow-onset threats to food and water security, layered on top of existing dynamics, further undermine stability.
While climate change poses a range of national security and foreign policy challenges, it is also a problem of physics. Though the incoming Trump administration has made clear its skepticism of climate change and outlined plans to step back from U.S. international commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions, it will not be able to avoid more frequent and intense climate hazards during the next four years. The “actorless threat” of climate change does not know or care who is in the White House. Without a proactive, preventative approach aimed at building resilience to climate disasters, the homeland security of the United States will suffer, and the U.S. military’s operational readiness and capabilities will be undermined. A reluctance to integrate a climate lens into foreign and security policy will mean getting key issues wrong or missing opportunities to advance U.S. interests.
What to Watch
During the next presidential term, climate change will affect U.S. national security and foreign policy in myriad ways. Two of the most acute challenges for the Trump administration will be the direct impact of extreme weather events on U.S. security and the intersection of the climate and the energy transition with competition from China.
Direct Impacts of Disasters
The United States suffered $24 billion in weather- and climate-related disasters in 2024. Beyond such blockbuster events, communities around the country more frequently faced repeated extreme weather events that erode resilience over time. For example, last year in Houston, immediately after Hurricane Beryl hit, knocking out the city’s power grid, an extreme heat wave emerged. The city’s cooling centers lacked back-up power or were damaged in the storm, and heat-related illnesses overwhelmed hospitals. More broadly, at the federal level, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other emergency management programs were increasingly stretched thin by multiple hazards across the country; for example, at the height of the response to Hurricane Helene in the east last fall, the western United States was also facing high levels of fire danger, requiring federal resources.
Such disasters also affect U.S. military installations and readiness. In 2023, Typhoon Mawar devastated U.S. military facilities in Guam, a critical hub for projecting power in Asia, to the tune of $10 billion. This was double the cost of Hurricane Michael’s hit on Tyndall Air Force Base in 2018, which destroyed 95 percent of all buildings on base and twelve F22 raptors. What isn’t counted in these costs is devastation to local communities, which bases rely on to function, nor the morale costs to troops. In the wake of the Tyndall disaster, low morale among airmen who were moved around and uncertain about where they would be stationed led to separation from the U.S. military.
U.S. adversaries and competitors recognize America’s vulnerability when disasters hit. Both Russia and China have spread disinformation after fires and storms to amplify conspiracy theories about the US government or to divide communities. For example, Russian disinformation has falsely claimed US assistance to Ukraine has diminished resources available to help communities after disasters, while China spread rumors that the Maui wildfires in 2023 were caused by a malfunctioning US military “weather weapon.”
During the next four years, these types of direct impacts from climate hazards will demand the administration’s attention and, if not proactively addressed, distract from other priorities.
Climate Change, Energy Transition, and Geopolitical Competition
After President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement during his first term, Beijing wasted no time trying to step into an international leadership role on climate issues. During last year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku in the wake of the US election, it became clear China intends to do the same during the second Trump term—and that other countries will be looking to Beijing for leadership. In an oblique reference to the United States during a press conference in Baku, Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang said, “Regardless of how the international situation or other countries’ policies change, China’s resolve and actions to actively address climate change will not waver.”
China is also eager to take advantage of perceptions among Global South countries that the United States is not doing its part on climate change, in part to obscure the fact that frustration with Beijing’s lack of climate finance investment is also growing within the Global South. A retreat from international climate engagement would therefore be an unforced error on the part of the United States, handing China an opportunity to advance its geopolitical agenda.
Another area in which the Trump administration will have to square its interest in successfully competing with China and its campaign-trail bluster is in clean energy investment. According to Carbon Brief, clean energy technology was the biggest driver of Chinese economic growth in 2023; the country leads the world in development of everything from solar panels to electric vehicle batteries. For its part, the new U.S. administration has made clear it plans to launch a trade war with China, raising tariffs across the board, including on clean energy tech. Yet, at the same time, Trump promises to curb U.S. investment in developing its own clean energy sector, claiming he will reverse tax incentives for electric vehicles and other provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Such a course will put the United States at a global disadvantage, undermining U.S. economic competitiveness. Members of the incoming president’s party on Capitol Hill get this: eighteen of them signed a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson last year urging him not to reverse tax incentives in the IRA, writing, “American energy dominance increases national security, creates American jobs, and ensures energy independence. … Energy tax credits have spurred innovation, incentivized investment, and created good jobs in many parts of the country - including many districts represented by [Republicans].”
Conclusion
Over the past two decades, a broad bipartisan and global consensus has emerged that climate change poses national security threats. The U.S. Congress in 2017, under a Republican majority, passed a National Defense Authorization Act that codified a definition of climate security that was signed into law by President Trump. Incoming National Security Advisor Michael Walz has spoken publicly about the need for adaptation and resilience to ensure the U.S. military can meet its operational needs. And most U.S. allies and its key competitor, China, regularly include climate change and environmental threats in their national security and defense strategies. If the Trump administration chooses to ignore this consensus and eliminate climate considerations from U.S. security policy, it puts the United States at risk.
Erin Sikorsky is the director of the Center for Climate and Security and director of the International Military Council on Climate and Security at the Council on Strategic Risks. She is a former visiting fellow at Perry World House.