Kerry: Pentagon review to cite climate change risks

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) said Wednesday that a major upcoming Pentagon report on defense strategy will list climate change as a security problem that could claim U.S. lives.

The Obama administration is slated to submit the Quadrennial Defense Review to Congress next week.

“I will tell you that the defense review of the United States Pentagon next week is going to come out and list climate change for the first time as an instability factor that affects our troops and may in fact wind up costing us lives down the road,” Kerry said at a forum hosted by labor, business, veteran and other groups backing climate legislation.

Kerry, a key architect of Senate climate plans, emphasized national security in calling for activists to fight for legislation that reduces greenhouse gas emissions. He said requiring emissions cuts and boosting alternative energy would curb spending on oil imports that makes its way into unfriendly hands.

“Some of that money goes to al-Qaeda, goes to Hezbollah, goes to Hamas,” Kerry said.

Kerry is working with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on climate and energy legislation they hope can garner 60 votes. But imposing mandatory caps on heat-trapping emissions faces large hurdles in the Senate.

Negotiations over the bill include options that differ from the sweeping, economy-wide cap-and-trade plan the House narrowly approved last year.

But Kerry today insisted that the trio is not backing away from imposing emissions limits, while reiterating that the structure of their plan remains in flux. “We have not scaled back our goals,” Kerry said.

“We are going to price carbon and we are going to set a target,” he said. “Cap is on the table, trade is on the table, all these things are on the table.”