U. S. climate institutions and the intelligence community: Domestic and international collaboration

Abstract

Climate change presents an actorless threat. The most powerful world jurisdictions are undertaking efforts to tackle this global threat multiplier. The Biden-Harris administration, returning the U. S. back to international climate politics, claims the leadership role. The author of the article examines how the administration’s climate rhetoric is backed up organizationally. The institutional architecture that powers Biden’s climate policy is put at the center of the article’s analysis. The United States intelligence community has been entrusted with a significant role in running current U. S. institutional climate recovery efforts. The article approaches the engagement of the intelligence community in climate policy from such angles as policymakers’ expectations of the intelligence community and its role and capabilities for domestic and international collaboration. The article proceeds through three stages. The first stage presents theoretical frameworks for new-institutional analysis approaches to climate policy of the United States. The second examines how the Biden-Harris administration organizes institutions in the system of climate policy. The third approaches the role and functions of the U. S. intelligence community in climate change prevention policy. The author concludes that the U. S. intelligence community possesses a strong capacity to provide for responsible decision making in regard to the climate, however, mechanisms for domestic and international climate intelligence exchange have yet to be determined.