For the first time in more than a decade, climate change has been left off a list of national security threats facing the United States.
Its exclusion from the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, released this week, tracks with the Trump administration’s broader dismissal of global warming as either an issue or a risk. The report is put together by the 18 different agencies that comprise the U.S. intelligence community, and the latest version focuses on China and foreign terrorist groups, among other threats.
Previous versions of the assessment have noted the danger posed by climate change. That includes the risk of more extreme weather events, including hurricanes and wildfires, as well as global warming’s effect on geopolitics. For example, a drought in the Middle East could lead a conflict that might require intervention by U.S. troops.
The absence of climate from the latest assessment also marks a departure from President Donald Trump’s first term, which produced intelligence reports that detailed how global warming threatens U.S. security. In 2019, the assessment found that climate was likely to drive economic distress and social discontent.
