Washington, D.C., December 12, 2025 - Ten years ago today, 195 countries adopted the historic Paris Agreement and committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. A decade later, the documentary record of that groundbreaking accord is beginning to emerge, offering a window into the complex process of how exactly the U.S. agreed to such an “ambitious” climate deal.
Washington, D.C., September 30, 2025 - Eight months into President Donald Trump’s second term, the administration has fundamentally distorted the federal information landscape as it continues to rewrite and erase resources about climate change, environmental justice, and climate diplomacy.
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.
Washington, D.C., February 28, 2025 - For 17 years, the U.S. Intelligence Community has refused to declassify one of its first investigations into climate change as a national security threat.
Washington, D.C., November 26, 2024 - U.S. officials had an “unusual” degree of concern about the “potential ecological and social impacts” of the Camisea natural gas pipeline in Peru, according to declassified documents published today by the National Security Archive. The new Electronic Briefing Book consists of records on the initial stages of U.S. government financing for the massive and controversial international development project that first began production 20 years ago in 2004.
Washington, D.C., August 1, 2024 – The most successful multilateral environmental treaty of all time drew Ronald Reagan’s support despite opposition from his more conservative advisers, because the costs of doing nothing—as analyzed by Reagan’s own economic team—far outweighed the costs to industry of banning the key chemical damaging the ozone layer.
Washington, D.C., April 26, 2024 - High-level officials inside the Nixon administration debated climate change and the impacts of sea-level rise, extreme temperatures, and fossil-fuel consumption as early as 1969, according to declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive’s Climate Change Transparency Project.
Washington, D.C., July 6, 2023 – As the world’s wealthiest countries continue to avoid making serious financial commitments to developing states on the front lines of the climate crisis, declassified records published today by the National Security Archive document more than 50 years of U.S. resistance to environmental compensation measures. Among the highlights is a Nixon-era intelligence report noting “increasing African militancy on development matters” and predicting that “views linking environment and development will be with us in the years to come.”
This posting was UPDATED on October 30, 2024. Read the updated posting
Washington, D.C., June 2, 2022 – The apocalyptic threats emanating from Moscow over the Ukraine war raise the terrible prospect of nuclear weapons use. The probabilities may be low, but if a major nuclear war occurred, the catastrophic impact of a so-called nuclear winter could be felt on a global scale.