Pentagon press secretary says China and climate change are ‘equally important’ threats

When asked on Wednesday whether the climate or China poses a bigger threat, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said that both issues “are equally important.”

Kirby, the assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, noted that the Defense Department considers China its top pacing challenge, but also pointed out that the secretary has described the climate issue as an existential threat.

“I think we get paid to examine all the threats to our national security. And I don’t know that it does anybody good to put some sort of relative analysis assessment on that,” he said.

He noted that the secretary has spoken “about the climate as a, a, a real and existential national security threat. And it is, not just to the United States but to countries all over the world. And we consider China as the number one pacing challenge for the department. Both are equally important,” Kirby said, noting that the secretary wants senior Pentagon leaders to devote attention to both of those issues in addition to many other matters. – READ MORE