Donald Trump to Reverse Obama's Inclusion of Climate Change as Threat to National Security

Donald Trump is set to drop climate change as a national security threat, as part of a new National Security Strategy that will be released on Monday.

In a speech that is expected to prioritize the president's "America first" security blueprint, the threat of climate change will be downplayed in a sharp change of tack from the Obama administration—which emphasized it as one of the biggest threats facing the U.S.

Reporting Trump's plans to reverse the Obama-era policy that included climate change as a national security threat, The Federalist quoted the document as saying: "US leadership is indispensable to countering an anti-growth energy agenda that is detrimental to US economic and energy security interests."

"Given future global energy demand, much of the developing world will require fossil fuels, as well as other forms of energy, to power their economies and lift their people out of poverty," it added.

An early draft of the strategy, seen by the Associated Press, complained the U.S. had disadvantaged itself by being involved in multinational agreements such as those working toward combating climate change.

The move comes as part of a skeptical approach to climate change from Trump's administration, with the U.S. already facing criticism from other nations over its decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

Announcing his decision on the pact, which made the U.S. the only country not signed up to the agreement that aims to prevent global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, in an effort to prevent the worst effects of climate change, Trump suggested he made the decision to protect the U.S. economy.

"The Paris accord will undermine our economy," and it "puts us at a permanent disadvantage," Trump said during his announcement in June at the White House Rose Garden.

"We're on the right side of history," he added.