In the next few decades, climate change threatens to ravage vulnerable states around the world, displace massive numbers of people in Central America and elsewhere, and undermine key U.S. allies.
In a new brief based on his recent book, Climate Change and the Nation State, Quincy Institute senior fellow Anatol Lieven argues that climate change is a threat to American interests and the American people that dwarfs those presented by adversaries such as China, Russia, or Iran, and that it should be treated as a far greater priority by the U.S. foreign policy and security establishment.
Later this month, world leaders will gather in Glasgow for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26). But will the United States overcome the temptations of cold war thinking and short term economic interests and embrace collective action? Or will the great power competition framework continue to trump climate change in our approach to national security?
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