Is the U.S. Military Ready for Climate Change?

Airmen set up a tent city at Tyndall Air Force Base, following the devastation caused by Hurricane Michael (Courtesy: U.S. Air Force, Liliana Moreno)

On Wednesday, March 13, 2019, the House Armed Services Committee met to discuss the importance of military resilience in response to climate change. The impact of climate change on military resiliency and mission readiness is ever more apparent with the increase in extreme weather and rising sea levels. Right now, the U.S. military has two options: address climate change and improve resiliency, or ignore it and prepare for worst-case scenarios.

“No soldier, sailor, airman, or marine can defeat climate change by shooting at it, blowing it up, or even phishing it with a virus,” said Sharon Burke, the Senior Advisor for the International Security Program and Resource Security Program at New America, who was a witness at the hearing. Joining her were Rear Admiral David W. Titley (U.S. Navy, Retired; Professor of Practice in Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University; Director, Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk) and Nicolas Loris (Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow in Energy and Environmental Policy, Center for Free Markets and Regulatory Reform).

In his opening statement, Representative John Garamendi (CA), Chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, emphasized that “it is in the best interests of the United States Military to be resilient, to address challenges, and to make sure they can carry out missions in these extenuating circumstances.”

As it is, the impacts of climate change are creating a litany of problems both at home and abroad. Fixed military installations are facing disruption or even destruction from extreme weather and rising sea levels. West Coast wildfires have necessitated the evacuation of military bases, hurricanes in the Southeast have leveled bases, sea level rise and land subsidence are disrupting operations in East Coast bases through nuisance flooding, and tornadoes and flooding have threatened bases in the Midwest. All of these climate impacts affect mission readiness and capability, threaten lives, and can cause billions of dollars in damages.

Bases abroad, which are also facing the impacts of climate change, have the most to gain from increased resilience. Indeed, better power storage, better water management, and renewable energy systems can reduce the need for fuel and water transport missions, which are especially vulnerable to attack.

Climate change is a "threat multiplier"—the destabilizing effects of water scarcity and rising temperatures make conflicts and humanitarian crises (following disasters or droughts) more likely. Climate change is also creating the potential for tensions to flare in new places: the melting of Arctic sea ice is opening new sea routes that other global superpowers (China, Russia) are taking advantage of. The United States has no current plans in place to address the geopolitical implications of these new routes.

To maintain mission readiness and capability, it is important to ensure domestic and overseas bases are resilient to climate change and its impacts—especially extreme weather events. But it is difficult to accurately predict and quantify the impacts of climate change on national security because of a lack of systematic studies. According to Rep. Elissa Slotkin (MI), the unwillingness of the current administration to take manmade climate change seriously and devote funding to addressing its impacts is hindering rapid military deployment of climate readiness efforts.

All panelists agreed it would be extremely beneficial for the Department of Defense to come up with a climate-change impact handbook with guidelines on readiness measures and flexible responses that can be adapted to different problems across various regions. New technologies can help bases and soldiers adapt to climate change: better battery packs and energy storage can create a wider range of mission capabilities and maintain continued operations in extreme weather events. Nicolas Loris suggested looking at public-private partnerships. Better engagement with the private sector can lead to spin-off technologies, generally with improved efficacy and reduced costs.

Now is the time to move forward on resiliency, before it is too late. “In Naval Aviation, one of the things they say is of no use to you is runway behind you,” said Rear Admiral David Titley. “We’ve put a lot of runway behind us on this issue.”

By Ashley Schnakenberg