Head of US Pacific command: Climate change biggest threat

The head of the Navy’s Pacific fleet called climate change the most significant threat to long-term security in that region.

Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III made the comments Friday in an interview with The Boston Globe.

He said that turmoil from climate change “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’’

From the Globe:

“People are surprised sometimes,” he added, describing the reaction to his assessment. “You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.”

That’s not to say Locklear isn’t also concerned about North Korea’s nuclear weapons testing, the rift between China and Japan regarding a set of small islands and computer hacking associated with China.

But Locklear’s worries about climate change align with many other warnings from the armed forces and Defense Department.

The Defense Department outlined climate change as a national security threat in the Quadrennial Defense Review it released in 2010.

Military branches also have shifted to adopt more clean-energy technology in an attempt to reduce the armed services’ emissions.