The Hill: Pentagon review to
address climate change for the first time
- 01/30/10 06:00 AM ET
The Pentagon is addressing climate change for
the first time in its sweeping review of military strategy.
The Pentagon is set to release the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) on Monday,
along with the 2011 budget request.
In the review, Pentagon officials conclude that climate
change will act as an “accelerant of instability and conflict,” ultimately
placing a burden on civilian institutions and militaries around the world.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), a key
architect of Senate climate plans, was the first to draw attention to the
significance of climate change in the QDR. Kerry said last week that the QDR
will list climate change as a security problem that could claim
“I will tell you that the defense review of the United States Pentagon next
week is going to come out and list climate change for the first time as an
instability factor that affects our troops and may in fact wind up costing us
lives down the road,” Kerry said at a forum hosted by labor, business, veteran
and other groups backing climate legislation.
The Department of Defense (DoD)
must complete climate change assessments at all military installations in an
effort to prevent degradation of operational readiness, according to a draft of
the QDR widely circulated in defense circles. InsideDefense.com
was the first to publish the QDR draft document. The final copy of the QDR,
obtained by Congress Daily Jan. 29, revealed no significant changes to the
climate change assessments.
Operational readiness hinges on the military’s continued access to land, air,
and sea training and test space. More than 30
The Defense Department also acknowledges in the draft QDR that climate change
will affect the military’s operating environment, roles and missions.
Climate-related changes include heavy downpours; rising temperature and sea
level; rapidly retreating glaciers; thawing permafrost; and lengthening
ice-free seasons in oceans, lakes or rivers.
Assessments conducted by the intelligence community indicate that climate
change will have significant geopolitical impacts around the world,
contributing to poverty, environmental degradation and weakening of fragile
governments, according to the draft QDR document.
The Pentagon’s review emphasizes the need for proactive engagement with
countries whose military is the only institution with the capacity to respond
to a large-scale natural disaster.
“DoD’s environmental security cooperative initiatives
with foreign militaries represent a non-threatening way of building trust,
sharing best practices on installations management and operating practices and
developing response capacity,” according to the draft document.
Congress required in the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act that the
Department of Defense consider the effects of climate change on all of its
“facilities, capabilities and missions,” and called for the Department to
incorporate such concerns into the QDR.
In order to comply with the law, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military services have all had to designate officials
to study climate change, which has effectively created a new, nascent
intellectual infrastructure of military and civilian officials who are well
informed about the security consequences of climate change, according to a
paper published in January by the Center for New American Security (CNAS).
“This intellectual infrastructure may well ensure that the study of the
implications of climate change is institutionalized, keeping climate change
fresh in the minds of DOD senior leadership,” said Christine Parthemore and Will Rogers in the CNAS paper.
In general, the Pentagon has focused more on energy security, as it presented a
more pressing concern amid two major military operations and escalating fuel
costs, according to CNAS.
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy, who leads the QDR process, is one of the founders
of CNAS.
The QDR climate change issue also drew attention in Wired's
Danger Room blog
(http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01/the-greening-of-the-pentagons-master-strategy-review/#more-22020),
which points out that Flournoy has an article on the
official QDR website that outlines a vision of the “contested commons” in sea,
air, space and cyberspace.
Military services have already invested in non-carbon power sources, such as
solar wind, geothermal, and biomass at domestic installations, as well as
alternative vehicle fuels, including hybrid, electric, hydrogen and compressed
national gas, according to the QDR draft.
Ben Geman contributed to this article