Getty Susan Rice: Climate change 'an advancing menace'

Climate change is “an advancing menace” and threat to both global and American security, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said in remarks at Stanford University on Monday.

Joining an Obama administration message push ahead of a major climate conference later this fall, Rice called rising global temperatures “a direct threat to the prosperity and safety of the American people.” Rice cited the drought in California and massive flooding in South Carolina as recent extreme weather events spurred by higher temperatures.


“We face no greater long-term challenge than climate change, an advancing menace that imperils so many of the other things we hope to achieve,” Rice said in the speech in Palo Alto, California.

Rice added that shifting weather is already affecting American troops and equipment. Some military training exercises in the western United States were canceled because of extreme heat, Rice said, adding that rougher seas and higher temperatures would test military hardware. Citing the role climate change has played in conflicts from Syria to Nigeria to Sudan, Rice also said global warming will produce more conflict over food and water, destabilizing states and creating humanitarian crises that could require U.S. intervention.

A 1986 graduate of Stanford, Rice assured a group of students and faculty that the climate picture is not entirely hopeless, saying that the world had reached an “inflection point,” of changing attitudes and booming green technology.

And Rice pointed to the international climate conference that begins in Paris in late November, which will feature leaders from 196 nations, and which environmentalists call a potential turning point for global climate policy.

To help focus public attention on the issue before the Paris conference, President Barack Obama visited Alaska this summer to spotlight melting northern ice. In late September, Secretary of State John Kerry called stemming climate change “an absolute top priority” for the U.S., adding that it might deserve to be “at the top” of the country’s to-do list.

Over the weekend Rice toured a local manufacturing plant for Tesla, the luxury electric car manufacturer.

“Now, that’s not yet what anyone would call affordable — but the technology they and so many other innovative companies are pioneering is helping change the way we think about clean energy, electric vehicles, and the infrastructure we need to support them,” Rice said. She added an electric car charging station was recently installed outside the window of her West Wing office.

Rice did not offer specifics about what kind of climate agreement might emerge from Paris, and she ducked an audience member's question about the prospect for a "carbon pricing" system.

Rice’s return to Stanford offered her a brief respite from the pressure cooker of Washington, where criticism is growing over Obama’s response to Russia’s intervention in Syria.

Rice is also portrayed in an unflattering manner in a new book by a former top Obama White House aide, Dennis Ross, which says her “combative” style contributed to a decline in U.S.-Israel relations.

Rice did not address either Ross’ book or the situation in Syria. She did marvel that when she was at Stanford in the 1980s, Washington paid little attention to global warming and "had one overarching concern: the Soviet Union."

The Soviet Union may be gone, but with Russian President Vladimir Putin flexing his muscles in Syria, Moscow continues to consume endless hours of the White House's time.

