On June 30, 2025, the National Security Archive published a revealing new briefing book titled “Spying on Climate: Inside Intelligence.” The release includes more than two dozen once-secret documents showing that the U.S. Intelligence Community has been closely tracking climate change as a national security threat for decades. Far from being a niche environmental concern, climate disruption has been consistently framed in these internal assessments as a driver of conflict, instability, resource scarcity, and mass migration—issues of direct importance to U.S. national security.
The collection includes detailed analyses from agencies including the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. These assessments underscore how environmental shifts—from flooding and sea level rise to desertification and extreme heat—are already affecting geopolitical dynamics. In regions from Sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia, climate stress has been shown to amplify risks of war, terrorism, authoritarianism, and mass displacement. The Arctic thaw has raised the stakes for U.S.-Russia competition. Drought and crop failure are destabilizing fragile governments. And millions of people are being forced to move, often toward borders that are increasingly militarized.
One especially significant report, produced by the National Intelligence Council in 2021, warned that climate change would “exacerbate cross-border flashpoints, particularly over water and migration.” The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment from the Director of National Intelligence also emphasized that climate-related hazards are expected to intensify, directly affecting U.S. military infrastructure and increasing demands for humanitarian and disaster relief operations.
Although many of these findings have appeared in unclassified summary form in recent years, this newly released archive reveals the long-standing nature of the intelligence community’s attention to the issue. One report, commissioned in the early 2000s, was kept classified for over 17 years and only made public in February 2025. It detailed early efforts to model climate instability and its implications for military readiness and international order. Other documents show how climate security assessments informed Pentagon and diplomatic planning as early as the late 1990s.
These disclosures are not part of a political campaign or advocacy push. They come from some of the most secretive and security-focused institutions in the U.S. government—agencies that prioritize global surveillance, satellite data, and geopolitical modeling over ideology. Their purpose is to identify and mitigate threats, not to build consensus or win elections.
The implications are clear. Climate change is not a distant or debatable threat; it is a persistent, multi-decade risk documented in some of the most secure channels of government communication. For those who still dismiss or downplay climate science, these documents challenge that complacency. If the CIA and Pentagon have treated climate change as a strategic risk for years, it raises the question: why would any rational civilian ignore it?
At a time when disinformation about climate change is rampant, and when powerful interests continue to sow doubt for financial or political gain, the release of these documents is a stark reminder that the highest levels of U.S. intelligence have already moved far past debate. They have been planning for climate disruption not as possibility but as certainty.
To pretend otherwise is to ignore a body of evidence that has now been dragged into the light. The intelligence community isn’t in the business of making policy recommendations, but it does flag risks. It is now up to civil society, higher education, and the public to respond with the urgency that the moment demands.
Sources:
National Security Archive, “Spying on Climate: Inside Intelligence,” June 30, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/climate-change-transparency-project/2025-06-30/spying-climate-inside-intelligence
National Security Archive, “The Climate Intelligence Consensus,” February 28, 2025. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/climate-change-transparency-project-intelligence/2025-02-28/climate-intelligence
Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Annual Threat Assessment,” February 2024. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2024-Unclassified-Report.pdf
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