U.S. Intelligence Community Warns Climate Change Is Already Destabilizing Communities Worldwide

The U.S. intelligence community on Wednesday released a new report finding that global warming is already acting as a destabilizing force worldwide, with more serious ramifications to come in the next two decades.

In the report, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) — a group of public and private sector experts who advise the Director of National Intelligence — found that extreme weather events have growing implications for humans, which “suggest[s] that climate-change related disruptions are well underway."

The report also states that during the next five years, which will largely fall within the timeframe of the next presidential administration, climate change will cause growing security risks for the U.S. that "will arise primarily from distinct extreme weather events and from the exacerbation of currently strained conditions, like water shortages."

According to Brian Deese, a senior advisor to President Barack Obama, this is the first intelligence assessment to find that climate change is already affecting U.S. national security. Previous reports from the CIA, the Defense Department, and other agencies had portrayed climate change as a future challenge.

The new intelligence report starkly warns of climate instability-driven migrations in the next two decades and was released the same week world leaders have been meeting in New York City to consider how to increase support for refugees streaming out of war-torn Syria, Somalia, Libya and other countries.

The report states:

Over 20 years, the net effects of climate change on the patterns of global human movement and statelessness could be dramatic, perhaps unprecedented.  If unanticipated, they could overwhelm government infrastructure and resources, and threaten the social fabric of communities

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