Spying on Climate: Inside the Intelligence Community’s Environmental Legacy

Washington, D.C., June 30, 2025 – For over 20 years, the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) has viewed climate change as a serious national security threat that will create “new and compounded stresses on people and societies around the world,” according to one of the records featured in a repository of U.S. intelligence reports published online today by the National Security Archive. From early evaluations of Russia’s post-Soviet environmental challenges in the 1990s to present-day threat assessments on human and environmental security, the 45-document collection follows the evolution of the IC’s environmental monitoring and its increasingly dire warnings about the security threats posed by climate change.

The bottom line, according to the 2019 testimony of one State Department intelligence analyst: “Fundamental characteristics” about the planet “are moving outside the bounds experienced in modern history.” (Document 36A)

Despite a clear societal interest in having a more complete picture about climate change, there are obviously many pertinent records that remain outside public view. One that has long been identified, and which the U.S. continues to shield, is a 2008 National Intelligence Assessment (NIA) on “Climate Change Impacts to 2030.” As part of today’s publication, the Archive renews its earlier call for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to declassify that document, still being withheld after 17 years, even though it is only classified at the “Confidential” level.

The assessments published here today grow increasingly sophisticated over time in their analyses, evaluations, and warnings about the risks of climate change to U.S. interests, with more recent reports placing greater emphasis on complex threats like ecological degradation and biodiversity loss. Still, from 1999 to present, the IC has generally overlooked the domestic impacts, human-driven causes, and systemic contributors to climate change.

These analyses also reveal a deeply siloed approach to climate intelligence, the result of a state-centric analytical framework that typically focused on “hard” security issues like terrorism and great power competition. By structuring its climate focus around regions and nation states—such as extreme heat in the Middle East and flooding in Southeast Asia—U.S. intelligence agencies treat climate change like a nonstate, tactical actor, rather than a borderless, existential threat. The IC’s focus on geopolitics reflects a “narrow understanding of national security” that ultimately “downplays the risks” of climate change, according to the former State Department intelligence analyst, Dr. Rod Schoonover, who resigned in 2019 after the Trump administration blocked congressional testimony he prepared on the risks of climate change.[1]

The repository below offers a comprehensive look at how the IC has collected, monitored, and assessed its findings on the national security implications of climate change. The intelligence products published today include:

National Intelligence Estimates, Assessments, and Memoranda (Documents 1, 4, 28, 37, and 39)
Annual Threat Assessments produced for Congress (Documents 7, 9, 11, 14, 19, 23, 24, 26, 30, 31, 33, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, and 45)
Global Trends Reports (Documents 2, 3, 6, 10, 17, 29, and 38)
National Intelligence Strategies (Documents 8, 22, and 32)
Testimony before congressional intelligence committees (Documents 34, 35, and 36A-36B)
And intelligence reports, conference reports, and IC-commissioned research reports (Documents 5A-5L, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 25, and 27)

The collection concludes with the most recent Annual Threat Assessment (ATA) published by the ODNI, the agency responsible for coordinating all other intelligence agencies. (Document 45) Under current DNI Tulsi Gabbard, the 2025 ATA is the first assessment of its kind that does not mention climate change since 2009 (see Document 7), raising concerns among former officials and policy experts about national preparedness and whether the IC is in alignment with scientific consensus on the issue.[2]

This posting comes at a time when critical environmental resources and datasets are being scrubbed from federal agency websites.[3] Since President Trump’s inauguration, large swaths of government data—including information on climate change, extreme weather events, greenhouse gas emissions, energy production, and environmental justice—have gone dark. In May, the ODNI website was down for several days. When it came back online, its Freedom of Information Act page “was visibly slimmed down,” with various investigative reports, case processing notes, and inspector general reports missing.[4]

The National Security Archive would like to thank the Center for Climate & Security for publishing the core documents included in this repository under its U.S. Government Intelligence Resource Hub. This collection also includes additional reports produced or commissioned by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), marking the first time all 45 intel products are being published together.

Among the NIC documents are two Global Trends Reports projected to the years 2015 and 2020 (Documents 2 and 3) which are the first Global Trends reports to discuss or mention climate change; a Global Governance Report projected to the year 2025 (Document 10), the first unclassified report jointly developed and produced by the NIC with a non-U.S. body; and two special NIC-commissioned reports exploring global food security. (Documents 12 and 21) The Global Trends and Governance reports capture early collaborative efforts within the intelligence apparatus to develop comprehensive scenarios about how ongoing planetary warming, fossil fuel consumption, and environmental degradation might impact natural resources, energy demand, and other environmental challenges. The NIC global food security reports from the mid-2010s reveal an IC less constrained by the “hard vs. soft” threat narrative and more willing to explore the complex intersections of climate change, food and water scarcity, agriculture production, infrastructure, and changes in disease patterns.

Key takeaways from the full 45-document intelligence repository reveal that:

The IC’s focus remains skewed toward geopolitical impacts on countries outside of the U.S., with little attention to domestic security or humanitarian risks, such as impacts to health, food, water, infrastructure, and the military within “the homeland.”
Climate risks are often discussed as “threat multipliers” without addressing the root causes of climate change.
The IC frequently relies on external open sources, such as scientists, NGOs, academic scholars, and workshops, signaling both openness and a lack of internal capacity or prioritization.
CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, particularly through fossil fuel consumption, are absent from the IC’s official threat language despite focusing largely on the global energy supply and threats of a potential energy crisis.
The IC heavily monitors international climate negotiations such as the 2015 Paris Agreement but avoids scrutiny of domestic policy gaps in reducing emissions.
U.S. contributions to climate change—including those of the Department of Defense, which is exempt from key environmental treaties—are not acknowledged.
Multiple intelligence products rely heavily on the classified 2008 National Intelligence Assessment on the National Security Implications of Global Climate Change to 2030 and the 5th IPCC Assessment Report, indicating the significance and rigor of these original reports, as well as a lack of capacity building in more recent reports.[5]

A Cold War Legacy

The Intelligence Community’s modern environmental awareness is actually rooted in the Cold War, when, from 1960 to 1972, the CIA operated a top-secret satellite program codenamed CORONA, which produced imagery of Soviet military installations. The program dramatically improved U.S. knowledge of Soviet capabilities and activities and cataloged a range of Soviet defense systems. In total, the program produced almost a million images of the Soviet Union and other regions of the world.[6]

Then, in the 1990s, at the urging of then-Senator Al Gore, the CIA established the Environmental Task Force (ETF) to review the classified CORONA satellite imagery for information that could help to understand the changing climate. The task force, which would later evolve into the MEDEA program,[7] found that the images could fill critical gaps for the environmental science community and be studied without revealing sensitive intelligence sources and methods. In 1995, President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12951, effectively releasing all 850,000 images captured during the CORONA program. Clinton’s signing marked one of the largest declassification efforts in U.S. history.[8]

Early Environmental Assessments

In conjunction with the CIA’s review and declassification of the CORONA program, the IC’s growing emphasis on the environment became more apparent through its National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) products. The NIE is a classified document published by the NIC that assesses a national issue and provides information on likely future events. Through a formalized process, the NIC produces NIEs to project existing military, political, and economic trends into the future and to estimate for policymakers the likely implications of those trends. Nominally, NIEs are perhaps the most authoritative written judgements of the IC, but other intelligence products, like the President’s Daily Briefs (PDBs) are generally considered to be more influential on policy decisions.

In January 1999, the NIC published its first environmentally focused National Intelligence Estimate, which assessed that Russia would be “unable to deal effectively with the formidable environmental challenges posed by decades of Soviet and post-Soviet environmental mismanagement.” (Document 1) The estimate—while not referencing climate change—highlights pollution, hazardous waste, and ecological degradation as pressing issues that could destabilize the region, a departure from the IC’s usual focus on adversarial threats. This report signaled the beginning of a broader understanding of environmental factors as relevant national and regional security concerns.

Shortly after, the NIC prepared its “Global Trends 2015” report, the second publication of its kind, which provided policymakers and citizens with a long-range view of an array of possible futures.[9] (Document 2) Rather than make specific predictions about the world, Global Trends reports are designed to provide an analytic framework for policymakers as they craft national security strategy and navigate uncertain futures. In general, Global Trends reports are comprehensive, detailed, and less constrained by the “hard vs. soft threat” dichotomy that hampers other intelligence products like the NIE.

The Global Trends 2015 report, published in December 2000 under the Clinton administration, included an entire section dedicated to “Natural Resources and Environment,” which discussed world food production, water scarcity, global energy efficiency, and environmental issues. In it, the NIC cites the successes of the 1987 Montreal Protocol in restoring the ozone layer as well as the importance of new environmental agreements and the “challenges the international community” will face due to global warming, “such as meltbacks of polar ice, sea level rise, and increasing frequency of major storms.”

Under the George W. Bush administration, the Intelligence Community continued the Global Trends tradition with the publication of the “Mapping the Global Future” report on scenarios to the year 2020 (Document 3) and “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World.” (Document 6) Through consultations with “leading outside experts” like Ged Davis, former head of Shell International’s scenarios projects, the NIC established a methodology for its scenario development process.

Both reports emphasize concerns that greenhouse gas emissions from countries like China and India will grow, but they vary in confidence in how they attribute the impacts of climate change to natural disasters and resource degradation. For example, the Global Trends 2020 report concludes its climate change section stating that “there are likely to be numerous weather-related events that, correctly or not, will be linked to global warming.” Meanwhile, the Global Trends 2025 report asserts that “climate change is expected to exacerbate resource scarcity…[and] harmful effects, particularly water scarcity and loss of agricultural production.”

The Classified 2008 NIA

It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that the intel agencies began to explicitly link climate change and national security concerns. In 2007, the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) Military Advisory Board published the “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,” one of the first publicly collaborative efforts within the U.S. military establishment to acknowledge climate as a national security issue.[10] The “Retired Generals Report,” as it was colloquially known, was the first report to describe climate change as a “threat multiplier,” a term widely used throughout future intelligence products.

Shortly after, in part due to pressures from Congress, the NIC produced its own National Intelligence Assessment (NIA) on the “National Security Implications of Global Climate Change to 2030.” Although the assessment relied heavily on open-source resources, the NIA remains classified at the “Confidential” level to this day. Earlier this year, the National Security Archive publicly called for its declassification.[11] As this report remains unavailable, the National Security Archive is once again publishing the 2008 testimony of Dr. Thomas Fingar, chairman of the NIC, before the House Committees on Intelligence and Energy Independence and Global Warming, in which he discusses the still classified report. (Document 4)

Over the next two years, the NIC embarked on research efforts to explore the detailed national security implications of climate change on six countries and regions: India, China, Russia, North Africa, Mexico and the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Island states. Inspired by the 2008 NIA, the NIC produced various global research publications and organized a series of workshops and conferences of experts outside the IC to discuss the effects of climate change (Documents 5A to 5L). Beyond this series, future intelligence products would go on to cite the 2008 NIA as their foundation, indicating the rigor of this original report, while simultaneously calling into question its ongoing classification.

An Evolving but Siloed Approach

Early in the Obama administration, the IC for the first time ever integrated climate change into its Annual Threat Assessments, the reports produced by the DNI for public hearings of the intelligence oversight committees in Congress. Often referred to simply as the ATA, these reports provide an unclassified summary of the IC’s evaluation of current threats to U.S. national security. From 2009 to 2016, the IC under President Obama regularly evaluated the implications of climate change and environmental degradation in sections of the report with titles like “Environmental Security,” “Regional Impacts of Climate Change,” and “Natural Resources.” (Documents 7, 9, 11, 14, 19, 23, 24, and 26)

In some years, climate change is infrequently mentioned in the ATA (Documents 11, 14, and 23), while in other years, especially toward the end of Obama’s second term, the ATAs include dedicated sections on climate change. (Documents 7, 9, 19, 24, and 26) Of the assessments that do discuss the security implications of climate change in detail, the NIC does so through a regionally focused lens, concentrating on country-specific capacities for human displacement and migration, food supply, and extreme weather resilience. The reports increasingly draw the link between climate change and other global threats, such as infectious diseases and ecological degradation, but maintain a traditional, state-centric framework. According to one former intelligence official, these reports specifically remain “straightjacketed” by “threat multiplier” language coined in the original 2007 CNA retired generals report.[12]

During this period, the Intelligence Community also published a series of special reports on a range of topics including key drivers of global food security (Documents 12, 15, and 25), water security (Document 13), climate extremes (Document 18), natural resources (Document 20), and fisheries and illegal fishing. (Documents 21 and 27) The commissioning of these special reports, while not necessarily representative of IC consensus or the views of the U.S. government, demonstrates that the Intelligence Community recognizes and wants to understand the relationship between climate change and other complex security threats.

Duplication and Censorship

Despite the actions of the first Trump administration in rolling back numerous environmental regulations, withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Agreement, and reducing funding for climate-related programs, the IC during Trump’s first term continued to integrate climate change into its intelligence products and published several reports on its implications for security. While publication of the Global Trends Reports stopped altogether, the NIC published Annual Threat Assessments in 2017, 2018, and 2019, all of which included a section on “Human Security” discussing the negative effects of environmental degradation and climate change. They even explicitly mention biodiversity loss, a first for any ATA report. (Documents 30, 31, and 33) However, from 2017 to 2019, each iteration of the “Human Security” section is nearly verbatim from the 2016 ATA, released in the last year of the Obama administration, and recycles the same language. (Document 26) In 2020, no Annual Threat Assessment was released.

Apart from these three ATAs, the ODNI produced the 2019 National Intelligence Strategy, emphasizing climate change as a “pressure point” potentially leading to increased migration and urbanization of populations. (Document 32) In 2020, the NIC produced a special memorandum on the intersection of water insecurity, global economic growth, and political stability. (Document 37)

In our previous climate change intelligence installment from February 2025, the National Security Archive reported that the White House, under President Trump, regularly contradicted the findings of its own Intelligence Community and in 2019 even attempted to censor IC congressional testimony warning that human-caused climate change could be “possibly catastrophic.”[13] (Documents 34, 35, 36A, and 36B)

First Climate Estimate Ever Falls Flat

As a response to President Biden’s call for the Intelligence Community to assess the national security impacts of climate change, the NIC in 2021 published what it called its “first NIE on climate change,” a 27-page report entitled the “Climate Change and International Responses Increasing Challenges to US National Security Through 2040.” (Document 39)

According to some former intelligence officials, the 2021 NIA is a “powerful document by itself” and an important contribution to understanding the increasing challenges to national security.[14] However, some critics feel it “undersells the risk” of climate change because it once again relies too heavily on geopolitical tensions. Additionally, the estimates of the risks are “almost certainly too conservative,” according to one analysis, and the report’s judgements about the “massive” and “wrenching” impacts aren’t mentioned until the very last page.[15]

Likewise, in the four Annual Threat Assessments released during the Biden administration, one former intelligence officer, as well as the House Intelligence Committee,[16] argued that “the Intelligence Community places insufficient emphasis on…interconnected long-term national security threats, such as…climate change.”[17] (Documents 40, 41, 42, 43, and 44) Notably, the 2023 ATA is the first to ever discuss rising geopolitical tensions “over climate financing,” the first and last time this topic is mentioned in a publicly available intelligence product. (Document 43)

Climate Change: The Security Threat Missing in Action

After over two decades of integrating climate change and environmental degradation into its publicly available and unclassified reports to the policymakers and the public, the Intelligence Community under the current Trump administration has sent a clear message with its most recent Annual Threat Assessment: that it does not consider climate change to be a direct or serious threat to the United States. (Document 45)

During a March 2025 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the publication of the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, Senator Angus King (D-ME) questioned DNI Tulsi Gabbard about the omission of climate change from the report. Gabbard responded that “we’re focused on the direct threats to Americans’ safety, well-being, and security.”[18] While the report explores the economic implications of the Arctic region and melting sea ice, the assessment includes no mention of the words “climate change” or “global warming.”

It remains unclear whether the Intelligence Community under a second Trump administration will continue to censor its own evaluations and analyses of climatic impacts on U.S. national security. Only months into its second term, the administration has already wiped mentions of climate change from websites across the federal government and removed climate change and environmental datasets from the public domain.

The Documents

Document 1

The National Intelligence Council / DCI Environmental Center, National Intelligence Estimate, “The Environmental Outlook in Russia,” January 1999, [Unclassified]

Jan 1999

Source

Central Intelligence Agency Records Search Tool (CREST) / Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

The National Intelligence Council’s “Environmental Outlook in Russia” National Intelligence Estimate is the first publicly available estimate dedicated to environmental issues. The report evaluates Russia’s environmental challenges, including water pollution, air quality, waste generation and disposal, and nuclear and chemical waste. The estimate concludes that “it will probably take decades” for Russia to “garner the will and the wherewithal” to deal with its environmental problems, “especially if neo-Communist or nationalist forces come to power and pursue decidedly xenophobic and antireformist policies.”

Document 2

The National Intelligence Council, “Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue about the Future with Nongovernment Experts,” NIC 2000-02, December 2000, [Unclassified]

Dec 2000

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

In 2000, the National Intelligence Council released Global Trends 2015, a deliberately unclassified assessment depicting “the world over the next 15 years from the perspective of the national security policymaker.” Global Trends 2015 is the first assessment in the Global Trends series to mention climate change. The report underscores the need for international collaboration to deal with rising concerns of global warming, pollution, and increased greenhouse gas emissions, but it anticipates mixed results from international efforts to mitigate environmental degradation. The report acknowledges the successes of the 1987 Montreal Protocol in restoring the ozone layer but concedes that the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change is “unlikely to come into force soon or without substantial modification.” However, “even in the absence of a formal treaty,” the assessment forecasts that “incremental progress will be made” in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Document 3

The National Intelligence Council “Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project,” NIC 2004-13, December 2004, [Unclassified]

Dec 2004

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

“Mapping the Global Future” is the third installment in the Global Trends series and the first to be published under the administration of President George W. Bush. Page 76 is dedicated specifically to climate change implications through 2020 and emphasizes the rising pressures the U.S. will face to “change its domestic environmental policies and to be a leader in global environmental efforts.” The report acknowledges that scientific consensus supports the reality of global warming but also questions the certainty about climate change’s “causation and possible remedies.” When discussing the implications of climate change, the NIC focuses on the impact of climate change concerns on U.S. geopolitics and international partnerships. For example, the possibility that growing concerns about greenhouse gases “could lead to widespread calls for the United States, as the largest producer of greenhouse gases, to take dramatic steps to reduce its consumption of fossil fuels.”

Document 4

The National Intelligence Council, “National Intelligence Assessment on the National Security Implications of Global Climate Change to 2030,” House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Statement for the Record of Dr. Thomas Fingar, 25 June 2008 [Unclassified]

Jun 25, 2008

Source

The Center for Climate & Security

In place of the 2008 National Intelligence Assessment on the National Security Implications of Global Climate Change to 2030, Dr. Thomas Fingar testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. The hearing allowed Democrats and Republicans to question Fingar and other witnesses on the newly completed, but still classified, NIA.

Domestically, Fingar warns of severe water scarcity in the Southwest, increasingly frequent wildfires, and powerful storms on the East and Gulf coasts, which could threaten nuclear power plants, oil refineries, and U.S. military installations. The testimony also discusses potential impacts on the military, which Fingar notes would find its capacity overstretched from disease outbreaks, food scarcity, and land clashes, and having to help alleviate increasingly common humanitarian emergencies around the world.

According to Fingar’s testimony, the NIC would plan to analyze three subtopics in greater detail: the security risks of climate change for individual countries; cooperation and competition among the world’s great powers, including the United States, Russia, China, and India; and the linkage between national security and possible climate change mitigation strategies.

Documents 5A – 5L

National Intelligence Council, Special Reports

2009

Following the publication of the still classified 2008 NIA on the National Security Implications of Global Climate Change to 2030, the NIC produced a series of research reports and conferences evaluating the global implications of climate change on six countries/regions: India, China, Russia, North Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Island States, and Mexico and the Caribbean.

National Intelligence Council, Special Report, “India: Impact of Climate Change to 2030 – A Commissioned Research Report,” NIC-2009-03D, April 2009, [Unclassified]
National Intelligence Council, Special Report, “China: Impact of Climate Change to 2030 – A Commissioned Research Report,” NIC-2009-02D, April 2009, [Unclassified]
National Intelligence Council, Special Report, “Russia: Impact of Climate Change to 2030 – A Commissioned Research Report,” NIC-2009-04D, April 2009, [Unclassified]
National Intelligence Council, Special Report, “North Africa: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030 (Selected Countries) – A Commissioned Research Report,” NIC-2009-07D, August 2009, [Unclassified]
National Intelligence Council, Special Report, “Southeast Asia and Pacific Islands: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030 – A Commissioned Research Report,” NIC-2009-06D, August 2009, [Unclassified]
National Intelligence Council, Special Report, “Mexico, The Caribbean, and Central America: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030 – A Commissioned Research Report,” NIC-2009-11D, December 2009, [Unclassified]
National Intelligence Council, Conference Report, “India: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030 – Geopolitical Tensions,” CR 2009-07, May 2009, [Unclassified]
National Intelligence Council, Conference Report, “China: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030 – Geopolitical Tensions,” CR 2009-09, June 2009, [Unclassified]
National Intelligence Council, Conference Report, “Russia: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030 – Geopolitical Tensions,” CR 2009-16, September 2009, [Unclassified]
National Intelligence Council, Conference Report, “North Africa: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030 – Geopolitical Tensions,” CR 2009-21, December 2009, [Unclassified]
National Intelligence Council, Conference Report, “Southeast Asia: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030 – Geopolitical Tensions,” CR 2010-02, January 2010, [Unclassified]
National Intelligence Council, Conference Report, “Mexico, The Caribbean, and Central America: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030 – Geopolitical Tensions,” CR 2010-03, January 2010, [Unclassified]

Document 6

The National Intelligence Council, Report, “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World,” NIC 2008-003, November 2008, [Unclassified]

Nov 2008

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

The fourth iteration of the Global Trends series identifies key drivers and developments “likely to shape world events a decade or more.” Chapter 4, “Scarcity in the Midst of Plenty?” explores a potential energy transition away from oil and gas and states that the international system will be challenged by climate change. (p. 41) The report questions if “worries about climate change effects may be more significant than any physical changes linked to climate change.” (p. 54) It concludes with the fictionalized scenario “October Surprise” (p. 57) wherein global inattention to climate change leads to “major unexpected impacts” from extreme weather events.

Document 7

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community for the Senate Armed Services Committee, Statement for the Record of Director of National Intelligence Denis C. Blair, 10 March 2009, [Unclassified]

Mar 10, 2009

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

The 2009 Annual Threat Assessment is the first ATA to explicitly mention climate change as a U.S. national security concern under a new “Environmental Security” report section, representing the IC’s increased focus on the issue “as a result of unprecedented developments in the last year.” (p. 41) The statement only goes as far as to state that climate change will have “indirect” impacts to the homeland, such as increased migration levels and a worsening of “existing problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions.” (p. 43) According to Blair, mitigation and adaptation efforts—such as plans to reduce emissions— “may affect US national security interests even more than the physical impacts of climate change itself.” (p. 43)

Document 8

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “The National Intelligence Strategy of the United States of America,” August 2009, [Unclassified]

Aug 2009

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

The National Intelligence Strategy (NIS) is produced by the ODNI and describes the mission of the IC over the next four years. The 2009 NIS is the first report of its kind to mention climate change, if only briefly. Included under the “Transnational Forces and Trends” section, climate change is not classified as its threat on its own but rather is classified as a factor that “may produce second-order effect[s] for national security as states anticipate the effects of global warming.” (p. 4)

Document 9

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Statement for the Record of Director of National Intelligence Denis C. Blair, 2 February 2010, [Unclassified]

Feb 2, 2010

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

Blair’s second Statement for the Record on the Annual Threat Assessment of the IC focuses specifically on the “Regional Impacts of Climate Change” to the year 2030, paralleling the NIC’s regionally focused research efforts on climate change impacts in India, China, Russia, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, and North Africa. He briefly mentions his classified statement, which discusses the “recent UN-sponsored climate change conference in Copenhagen.” (p. 39) The National Security Archive has since filed a FOIA request for the classified statement.

Document 10

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, The National Intelligence Council, European Union institute for Security Studies (EUISS), “Global Governance 2025: at a Critical Juncture,” NIC 2010-08, September 2010 [Unclassified]

Sep 2010

Source

Inter-American Dialogue Database of Reports

For the first time, the United States Intelligence Community joined forces with a non-US body to develop and produce the unclassified “Global Governance 2025” report. Climate change is a central focus of the report, not just as an environmental concern, but as a political, economic, and security issue requiring multilateral cooperation. In a departure from previous publicly available intel products, this assessment addresses the broader impacts of climate change, stating that it “has trespassed the boundaries of environmental politics to become the subject of the global political, economic, and security debate.” It also highlights how climate change worsens water and food scarcity, agricultural productivity, and accelerates the need for cleaner energy transitions.

Document 11

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community for the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Statement for the Record of Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, 10 March 2011, [Unclassified]

Mar 10, 2011

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

James Clapper’s World Threat Assessment statement only briefly mentions climate change and focuses generally on “Resource Issues,” such as global energy security challenges and water scarcity issues. (pp. 30-31)

Document 12

The National Intelligence Council, Report, “Global Food Security: Key Drivers—A Conference Report,” NICR 2012-05, February 2012 [Unclassified]

Feb 2012

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Throughout the Obama administration, the intelligence community produced a series of special research, conference, and IC-commissioned reports. This 2012 NIC-published conference report is the “first of four external efforts” by the NIC to explore the long-term threats to food security, with a particular focus on climate change, population growth, and political instability. According to the report, climate change will negatively affect agricultural productivity, with water scarcity becoming a severe constraint in regions like North Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. The report concludes that food insecurity acts as a significant stressor that can amplify existing social, economic, and political tensions, potentially leading to conflict and migration pressures.

Document 13

The National Intelligence Council, Intelligence Community Assessment, “Global Water Security,” ICA 2012-08, 2 February 2012, [Unclassified]

Feb 2, 2012

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

This report, prepared under the auspices of the Director of the Strategic Futures Group and drafted by the Defense Intelligence Agency, was requested by the Department of State to evaluate how “water problems (shortages, poor water quality, or floods) [will] impact US national security interests over the next 30 years.” The IC assesses that fresh water availability will “not keep up with demand” and that North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia will “face major challenges coping with water problems.” (p. iii)

Document 14

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Unclassified Statement for the Record of Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, 16 February 2012, [Unclassified]

Feb 16, 2012

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

Notably, Clapper’s second statement for the record on the IC’s worldwide threat assessment does not mention climate change at all but classifies energy security, water security, and health threats and natural disasters as “Significant State and Nonstate Intelligence Threats.” (pp. 26-30)

Document 15

The National Intelligence Council, Report, “Global Food Security: Market Forces and Selected Case Studies, NICR 2012-23, 10 May 2012, [Unclassified]

May 10, 2012

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

Following the publication of the NIC’s 2008 NIA, the council asked the Eurasia Group to “explore…market forces that will affect food security to 2040,” which formed the basis for this report. In it, the NIC identifies several states “that may be particularly susceptible to food security issues” and concludes that increasingly variable weather conditions caused by climate change, including droughts, flooding, heat waves, and severe storms, will undermine global food security. (p. ii)

Document 16

Harvard University, Center for the Environment, “Climate Extremes: Recent Trends with Implications for National Security,” October 2012, [Unclassified]

Oct 2012

Source

Harvard University, Center for the Environment

Harvard University’s Center for the Environment study was conducted with funds provided by the Central Intelligence Agency. The extensive report draws from a series of workshops and explores the kinds of climatic events that will occur over the next decade, concluding with recommendations to the IC to improve forecasting of weather and climate extremes and their impacts. (p. 107) The authors warn that “we can no longer assume the extremes of tomorrow will resemble the extremes of yesterday.” (p. 113)

Document 17

The National Intelligence Council, Report, “Global Trends 2030:

Dec 2012

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

Global Trends 2030 is the fifth installment of the NIC’s series “aimed at providing a framework for thinking about the future.” In the report, rapid climate change is classified as a potential “Black Swan”—a discrete event that would cause large-scale disruption. (pp. iii, xi) In a “worst-case outcome,” UN-sponsored climate negotiations will collapse, with greenhouse gas emissions unchecked. In a “best-case outcome,” the so-called “two degree” target is unlikely to be met even with “cheaper and more plentiful natural gas” options.

Document 18

National Research Council, “Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis,” The National Academies Press, 2013, [Unclassified]

2013

Source

The National Academies Press

This study is included in this repository because it was prepared at the request of the U.S. intelligence community. (p. ix) The central purpose of the study is to evaluate evidence on possible connections between climate change and U.S. national security and to identify ways “to increase the ability of the intelligence community to take climate change into account in assessing political and social stresses with implications for US national security.” (p. 1)

Document 19

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Statement for the Record of Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, 12 March 2013, [Unclassified]

Mar 12, 2013

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

Under a section titled, “Natural Resources: Insecurity Competition” (p. 9), one paragraph of this Worldwide Threat Assessment is dedicated to climate change, specifically to its impact on food security due to “weather conditions outside the historical norms, including more frequent and extreme floods, droughts, wildfires, tornadoes, coastal high water, and heat waves.” (p. 12) Clapper’s statement focuses on regions most vulnerable to temperature anomalies and droughts.

Document 20

National Intelligence Council, Report, “Natural Resources in 2020, 2030, and 2040: Implications for the United States,” NIC 2013-005, 25 July 2013, [Unclassified]

Jul 25, 2013

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

This report was prepared by Chatham House under the auspices of the Director of the Strategic Futures Group. It was requested by the NIC in July 2011 due to the “general contention that the world is entering an intensified period of resource stress” and was reviewed by the NIC and other members of the IC, although not formally coordinated. This report falls under the NIC’s larger efforts to evaluate the national security impacts of global food, water, and energy security, and the emerging influences of climate change.

Document 21

The National Intelligence Council, Report, “The Future of Indian Ocean and South China Sea Fisheries: Implications for the United States,” NICR 2013-38, July 2013 [Unclassified]

Jul 2013

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

This 2013 NIC report is part of a larger, external effort to explore global food security and explores how climate change, overexploitation, and pollution threaten marine ecosystems that support billions of people. It highlights the risks of declining fish stocks due to population pressures and environmental degradation, with implications for states like Vietnam and the Philippines and for broader U.S. strategic interests. Climate change is identified as a critical stressor, expected to severely impact fish populations and disrupt traditional livelihoods through rising sea levels, stronger storms, and ocean acidification.

Document 22

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “The National Intelligence Strategy of the United States of America,” 2014, [Unclassified]

2014

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

The 2014 NIS mentions climate change once as an external effect that will challenge governments “to meet even the basic needs of their people.” (p. 5) Instead of emphasizing climate change as a security threat specifically, the NIS focuses on competition for natural resources, such as food, water, or energy, which will ultimately increase tensions between nations. (p. 5)

Document 23

Jan 29, 2014

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

Clapper’s 2014 statements to the Senate on the ATA uses recycled phrases on climate change implications from previous assessments. This statement contains no dedicated section to climate change but rather focuses on Natural Resources (p. 9), specifically through the lenses of food, water, energy, and extreme weather events. (p. 11) Unlike previous reports, however, the extreme weather subsection makes explicit mention of the Arctic as a strategic issue as polar ice recedes. (p. 11)

Document 24

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the Senate Armed Services Committee, Statement for the Record of Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, 26 February 2015, [Unclassified]

Feb 26, 2015

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

In his 2015 statement on the IC’s Worldwide Threat Assessment, Clapper discusses “Extreme Weather Exacerbating Risks to Global Food and Water Security” and states that trends of extreme weather and climate change will continue. (p. 11) He concludes this section by stating that countries with more resilient infrastructure “will be better able to avoid significant economic and human losses from extreme weather” but that, in general, developing countries “are almost certainly capable of addressing water problems without risk of state failure.” (p. 11)

Document 25

The National Intelligence Council, Intelligence Community Assessment, “Global Food Security,” ICA 2015-04, 22 September 2015, [Unclassified]

Sep 22, 2015

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

This IC-coordinated assessment was prepared under the auspices of the Director of the Strategic Futures Group and drafted by the CIA. (p. viii) To produce this assessment, the NIC and CIA relied on unclassified research and six external unclassified efforts to explore global food security. (pp. viii, 21) The authors judge that “overall risk of food insecurity in many countries of strategic importance to the United States will increase during the next 10 years.” (p. i)

Document 26

Feb 9, 2016

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

Clapper’s final statement for the record on the IC’s Worldwide Threat Assessment is perhaps his most detailed about climate change. Under the “Human Security” section of the report, he discusses the 2015 Paris Agreement as a key milestone in mitigating the environmental risks of climate change. However, he states that, according to the Executive Secretary of the UN’s climate forum, “states’ current plans to address climate change will only limit temperature to 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100.” (p. 14) He also cites a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report which states that human activities have contributed to extreme weather.

Document 27

National Intelligence Council, Intelligence Memorandum, “Global Implications of Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing,” NIC WP 2016-02, 19 September 2016, [Unclassified]

Sep 19, 2016

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

This intelligence memorandum, prepared by the NIC, evaluates threats to global fisheries from surging worldwide demand, declining ocean health, and continued illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Climate change is mentioned explicitly as a factor that will add additional stress to global fisheries. (p. 20)

Document 28

The National Intelligence Council, Intelligence Memorandum, “Implications for US National Security of Anticipated Climate Change,” NIC WP 2016-01, 21 September 2016, [Unclassified]

Sep 21, 2016

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

Like the previous document, this intelligence memorandum was prepared by the NIC and was coordinated with the U.S. intelligence community. It outlines high-level implications for U.S. national security of anticipated climate change over the next 20 years, specifically focusing on impacts in the present, over the next five years, and over the next 20 years. Notably, this report includes the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) definition for weather, climate, climate change, and climate variability. (p. 5)

Document 29

The National Intelligence Council, Report, “Global Trends: Paradox of Progress,” NIC 2017-001, January 2017, [Unclassified]

Jan 2017

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

This edition of the Global Trends series is the last publicly available assessment released under the Obama administration that explicitly mentions climate change. At 235 pages, is perhaps the most comprehensive Global Trends report released under the NIC. In addition to its typical regional focus (p. 87), the report also makes a point to discuss global climatological stresses in depth, including biodiversity loss, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, permafrost and glacial melt, air quality degradation, changes in cloud cover, and sustained shifts in temperature and precipitation. (pp. 22, 25)

Document 30

May 23, 2017

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

This report is the first Worldwide Threat Assessment released under the first Trump administration, and its sections about or mentioning climate change are exactly copied from the 2016 Worldwide Threat Assessment. Notably, the 2017 ATA does mention threats to global biodiversity from climate change, which all previous ATA’s do not mention.

Document 31

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence, Statement for the Record of Director of National Daniel R. Coats, 13 February 2018 [Unclassified]

Feb 13, 2018

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

Once again, the 2018 ATA sections on or mentioning climate change use almost exactly the same language as the 2017 and the 2016 ATAs. However, climate change, as well as overall threats to human security, are mentioned.

Document 32

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “The National Intelligence Strategy of the United States of America,” 2019, [Unclassified]

2019

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

The 2019 NIS mentions climate change once as an external effect that will ultimately lead to increased migration and urbanization of populations, along with infectious disease outbreaks, and transnational criminal organizations. (p. 5)

Document 33

Jan 29, 2019

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

Similar to all previous ATA’s released under the first Trump administration, the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment maintains its sections dedicated to threats to human security, the environment, and climate change. (pp. 21-23) In addition to the report’s commentary on global environmental and ecological degradation, irreversible damage to ecosystems, and extreme weather events worsened by sea level rise (p. 23), the report also discusses increased competition in the Arctic due to diminishing polar sea ice.

Document 34

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Hearing on “The National Security Implications of Climate Change” for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Statement for the Record of National Intelligence Council Counselor Peter Kiemel, 5 June 2019, [Unclassified]

Jun 5, 2019

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

On June 5, 2019, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence held a hearing to discuss the national security implications of climate change. Documents 34, 35, and 36A-36B include the witness statements from this hearing. In this document, NIC Counselor Peter Kiemel was called as a witness to describe the IC’s high certainty level about climate-change-exacerbated threats over the next 20 years.

Document 35

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Hearing on “The National Security Implications of Climate Change” for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Statement for the Record of Senior Naval Intelligence Manager for Russia and Eurasia Jeff Ringhausen, 5 June 2019, [Unclassified]

Jun 5, 2019

Source

Office of Naval Intelligence

Jeff Ringhausen, Senior Naval Intelligence Manager for the Office of Naval Intelligence, was called as an additional witness to the June 5, 2019, climate change hearing before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In his statement, Ringhausen described the Russian government’s maritime-related efforts with respect to climate change in the Arctic region. Russia’s goals are two-fold, according to Ringhausen: the first is to secure economic interests in the Arctic zone, and the second is military modernization.

Document 36A

Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, “The National Security Implications of Climate Change,” Hearing Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Statement for the Record of Dr. Rod Schoonover, 5 June 2019, [Unclassified]

Jun 5, 2019

Source

The Washington Post

On June 5, 2019, Dr. Rod Schoonover, Senior Analyst at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about the National Security Implications of Climate Change. Schoonover’s testimony warned that, “absent extensive mitigation factors or events, we see few plausible future scenarios where significant – possibly catastrophic – harm does not arise from the compounded effects of climate change.” According to Schoonover, the conclusions from this testimony are hardly new, and were drawn from peer-reviewed scientific studies and findings from government scientists.

He concludes his testimony by listing four factors that will impact national security and the scale of the disruption caused by climate change: “The degree to which known levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases drive global…temperature increases…The degree to which the multiplicity of concurrent or sequential climate-linked hazards interact…The degree to which the drivers of climate change…will be addressed by people, governments, and industries…[and] [t]he degree to which people’s exposure and vulnerability to known and anticipated climate-linked hazards are reduced.”

Document 36B

Jun 5, 2019

Source

The Washington Post

This draft version of Dr. Schoonover’s testimony contains tracked changes with comments and edits from offices within the White House that became the basis for blocking the written testimony in June 2019. The document is heavily edited by the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, which recommends eliminating five pages of science that appear under the headings “Scientific Baseline” and “Stresses to Human and Societal Systems.” These pages lay the foundation for the rest of Schoonover’s testimony which links security threats to climate change.

The National Security Council also offers comments and criticisms on almost every page of the testimony. According to a New York Times article about the edited testimony,[12] people familiar with the document said the notes were from William Happer, a physicist and White House adviser on the council who denies the established scientific consensus on global warming.

Document 37

The National Intelligence Council, Intelligence Memorandum, “Water Insecurity Threatening Global Economic Growth, Political Stability,” NICM 2020-05949, 10 July 2020, [Unclassified]

Jul 10, 2020

Source

Center for Climate and Security

This memorandum was prepared by the NIC under the auspices of the Director of the Strategic Futures Group and was drafted by the CIA to examine global water security over the next 20 to 30 years. Notably, this memorandum explicitly mentions “anthropogenic degradation of climate change” under its “Environmental Degradation” section, the first publicly available intelligence memorandum to do so. (p. 3)

Document 38

The National Intelligence Council, Report, “Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World,” NIC 2021-02339, March 2021, [Unclassified]

Mar 2021

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence Reports and Publications

Global Trends 2040 is the first released under the Biden administration, after not being released under the first Trump administration. It can be viewed as the first publicly available report produced by the intelligence community under Biden to discuss national security implications from climate change in depth.

Document 39

National Intelligence Council, “National Intelligence Estimate: Climate Change and International Responses Increasing Challenges to US National Security Through 2040,” October 21, 2021

Oct 21, 2021

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

In 2021, the National Intelligence Council released what it called its first-ever National Intelligence Estimate on Climate Change which asserts that climate change will exacerbate long-standing threats to global security. The assessment shows a deepening concern within the U.S. security apparatus that shifts unleashed by climate change could reshape U.S. strategic interests, offer new opportunities to rivals such as China, and increase instability in nuclear states such as North Korea and Pakistan.

The assessment predicts that, by 2040, climate change will have significant destabilizing effects worldwide, influencing international conflict, migration patterns, and resource availability. Key findings of the NIE emphasize that climate change will: exacerbate geopolitical tensions; drive increased migration; challenge military operations; and catalyze new security risks, such as how insurgent groups or criminal organizations might exploit climate-related vulnerabilities.

Document 40

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, 9 April 2021, [Unclassified]

Apr 9, 2021

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

The first ATA released under the Biden administration, under the auspices of DNI Avril Haines, places a strong emphasis on climate change in the report’s “Foreword.” (pp. 4-5) Under its “Transnational Issues” sections, an entire subsection is dedicated to “Climate Change and Environmental Degradation,” and it is the first report to explicitly state that the “Paris Agreement goals are at risk” due to intensifying global energy usage and related emissions.

Document 41

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, February 2022, [Unclassified]

Feb 2022

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

Like the 2021 ATA, the 2022 edition emphasizes ecological degradation and a changing climate in its “Foreword,” highlighting that great power competition and “disputes between wealthy and low-income nations will threaten progress on the collective action that will be needed to meet global goals for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.” (p. 5) In the body of the report, the IC once again emphasizes growing geopolitical tensions over meeting the 2015 Paris Agreement goals, as well as the growing role China and India will play in environmental diplomacy.

Document 42

Defense Intelligence Agency, Worldwide Threat Assessment for the Senate Armed Services Committee, Statement for the Record of Defense Intelligence Agency Director U.S. Army Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, 2022, [Unclassified]

2022

Source

Defense Intelligence Agency

In addition to DNI Avril Haines’ opening statement for the 2022 ATA, Army Lieutenant General Scott Berrier of the DIA also provided a statement for the record about the assessment to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Although limited on climate change, Berrier does state that climate change will increasingly put U.S. national security interests at risk. Regionally, the most vulnerable countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East will “continue to request military and nonmilitary assistance from the US to help manage and mitigate those issues.” (p. 39)

Document 43

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, 6 February 2023, [Unclassified]

Feb 6, 2023

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

For the first time, the 2023 ATA includes a new source of geopolitical tensions caused by climate change: climate finance. According to the report, high and middle-income countries “still have not met their 2015 Paris Agreement pledges,” and the “growing gap” between high and middle-income countries and low-income countries “raises the likelihood of domestic protests, broader instability, extremist recruitment, and migration.” (page 22)

Document 44

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, 5 February 2024, [Unclassified]

Feb 5, 2024

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence / INTEL.gov

The 2024 ATA is the last of its kind released under the Biden administration and provides a similar assessment to the 2021, 2022, and 2023 ATAs. Environmental change will deepen climate-related disasters in low-income countries, which will inevitably cause economic challenges and raise the risk of “inter-communal conflict.” (p. 33) The IC also states that more extreme weather events will lead to an increased need for humanitarian and financial assistance by high-income countries like the United States. It also goes on to state that these impacts are not reserved “exclusively in low- and middle-income countries.” (p. 33)

Document 45

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, March 2025, [Unclassified]

Mar 2025

Source

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, under the auspices of current DNI Tulsi Gabbard, is the first ATA since 2009 to make no mention of climate change. Under the “Economics” section, the report briefly mentions “melting sea ice” and expanded opportunities and competition in the Arctic (p. 12), but climate change is not treated as a threat to U.S. national security as it was under previous administrations.

NOTES

[1] Jessica McKenzie, “'Harrowing’ intelligence report still downplays threat of climate change to national security,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 11, 2021

[2] Erin Sikorsky, “2025 Annual Threat Assessment First in Over a Decade to Omit Climate Change,” Center for Climate & Security, March 26, 2025

[3] Rachel Santarsiero, “Disappearing Data: Trump Administration Removing Climate Information from Government Websites,” The National Security Archive, February 6, 2025

[4] Lauren Harper, “Did Gabbard respond to FPF FOIA release by firing officials, scrubbing website?” Freedom of the Press Foundation, May 18, 2025

[5] Rachel Santarsiero, “The Climate Intelligence Assessment the Government Doesn’t Want You to See,” The National Security Archive, February 28, 2025

[6] Jeffrey T. Richelson, “U.S. Satellite Imagery, 1960-1999,” The National Security Archive, April 14, 1999

[7] MEDEA Program Overview

[8] Rachel Santarsiero, “Inside the CIA’s Decades-Long Climate ‘Spy’ Campaign,” 3 Quarks Daily, February 7, 2025

[9] The first Global Trends 2010 report was produced in 1997, but does not discuss environmental issues, global warming, or climate change, and was therefore not included in this document collection.

[10] “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,” The Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) Corporation, 2007

[11] Santarsiero, “The Climate Intelligence Assessment the Government Doesn’t Want You to See,” 2025

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Mckenzie, “‘Harrowing’ intelligence report still downplays threat of climate change to national security,” 2021

[15] Rod Schoonver and Erin Sikorsky, “Getting Climate Intelligence Right,” Just Security, November 3, 2021

[16] House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, “The China Deep Dive: A Report on the Intelligence Community’s Capabilities and Competencies with Respect to the People’s Republic of China,” September 2020. Archived link from the Internet Archive’s “Wayback Machine”.

[17] Erin Sikorsky, “Analyzing the Climate Security Threat: Key Actions for the U.S. Intelligence Community,” War on the Rocks, January 22, 2021

[18] “Sen. King asks Gabbard why climate change was not included in latest worldwide threats report,” PBS NewsHour, March 25, 2025