Mr. President, let me commend Senator Whitehouse for his consistent efforts to illuminate and discuss the problem of climate change, which affects not just the United States but the entire world. It is a pleasure to join him and once again call attention to this urgent threat. We know that climate change impacts our health, our communities, our economy, and our infrastructure, but today I would like to focus on how climate change is affecting our national security--some of the points Senator Whitehouse also made. Beginning with the 2008 National Defense Strategy, the administration of President George W. Bush stated that ``changes with existing and future resource, environmental, and climate pressures may generate new security challenges . . . These risks will require managing the divergent needs of massively increasing energy demand to maintain economic development and the need to tackle climate change.'' With increasing frequency in recent years, climate change has been commonly referred to as a threat multiplier. Simply put, climate change can and will exacerbate conditions in regions with already tenuous stability. Numerous intelligence assessments have reached the same conclusion. Climate change will have broad impacts for U.S. national security interests over the next 30 years and beyond.…
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