Biden’s Director of Intelligence To Make Climate a Keystone of Foreign Policy

Avril Haines, President Biden’s director of national intelligence, told world leaders that climate change was no longer on the back burner but now at the center of U.S. foreign policy.

Speaking at a virtual global climate conference, Haines displayed an attitude different from many of her predecessors, who downplayed the problem of crop failures, droughts, fires, rising sea levels, and more frequent extreme weather events.

The New York Times reports that her comments came after NATO officials announced they would likely agree on a climate action plan to reduce emissions by the military.

“Ms. Haines began by saying that the intelligence services had long recognized the importance of climate change — and praised efforts by the C.I.A. over the last three decades to identify the geopolitical impact of climate-based changes in Russia, Asia, Africa and the Arctic.”

The C.I.A. also announced it was adding a new category of the environment to its World Factbook.

The agency’s unclassified guide will now provide fresh data on climate, air quality, infectious diseases, food security, waste, and many other environmental topics.

As the Biden administration has promised to put climate change in focus, top intelligence officials all pledged to increase their respective agencies’ focus on climate.