Is Global Warming a National Security Threat?

Contact:Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273

Washington, D.C., September 27, 2007—Today the House Science and Technology Committee will hear testimony on the possible national security implications of global warming.  Witnesses will consider an array of scenarios in which climate variability could create security challenges for the United States. What they are unlikely to do, however, is consider the very real security risks associated with adopting extreme global warming policies.

“Global warming raises fewer serious national security concerns than do global warming policies,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute Director of Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell. “Putting the world on an energy diet that will make people poorer, and will hit poor people in poor countries the hardest, is a recipe for causing geopolitical instability and strife.”

Any balanced assessment of security threats from future climate change must take into account the predictable side-effects of restricting carbon-based energy, included depressed economic growth, a slowed pace of technological innovation, and greater uncertainty about future energy supplies. In addition, since no program for restricting emissions can please all players, the U.S. and its allies will have to confront the obvious resentment of those nations that consider themselves unfairly disadvantaged by whatever system of global greenhouse gas regulations is eventually adopted.

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