The article is devoted to the issues of environmental safety. The author reveals the content of threats to the environment, gives their classification. The importance of forecasting the possibility of the emergence of prospective and new threats is noted, the mechanisms of such forecasting are considered. The article proves that climate change is the most important threat to the security of the Russian Federation, and therefore their timely identification and assessment are among the priorities of climate policy. Analyzing the content of the National Security Concept of 2015 and the Environmental Security Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2025, the author concludes that the legislator does not see any special differences in the terms used for the purposes of these normative legal acts, that the problem of poor quality of terms in the field of environmental protection is not only practical and legal, but also methodological aspect, since it is due to the intersectoral nature of public relations. The consequences of poor-quality terminology, confusion of important concepts will necessarily lead to mistakes in planning and ensuring environmental safety. There is a need for a unified, inter-sectoral, interdisciplinary approach to the study of the problem, coordinated in terms of goals, tasks and functions.