President Obama revealed at the Our Ocean Conference on Thursday that climate change is a national security issue for his administration that gets discussed in the Situation Room, according to the Weekly Standard.
Hosted by Secretary of State John Kerry, the Our Oceans conference is a two-day event in Washington focusing on issues like pollution and climate change. Kerry has made the issue of addressing climate change a central focus of his tenure at the State Department, and Obama thanked him for his dedication in that department.
"He has elevated the profile of climate change, ocean protection, to the point where we have conversations about this not just in the Oval Office but in the Situation Room," Obama said. "And that is critical in helping us mobilize all of government around the issues that all of you care so deeply about."
Obama has expressed strong concern about climate change, particularly in his second term, calling the trends "terrifying."
"What makes climate change difficult is that it is not an instantaneous catastrophic event," he said last year. "It’s a slow-moving issue that, on a day-to-day basis, people don’t experience and don’t see."