The 16 April 2007 report "National Security and the Threat of Climate Change" was written by a military advisory board of 11 retired admirals and generals. It focuses on how climate change may affect US national security and military operations over the next 30 to 40 years.
The gloomy report also makes the connection between global-warming disasters and the further rise of terrorism. "The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism," the report states.
Climate-change policy should become an integral part of national security and defense strategies and the US should commit to a "stronger national and international role to help stabilize climate change levels," states the report in its recommendations.
It further underlines the growing awareness of political leaders that climate change is more than an environmental issue. On 17 April, the United Nations Security Council will deal with the same security dimension of global warming in its first debate on climate change. The UK government has written a special Energy, security and climate concept paper for the meeting.
