The Defense Department knows its overseas bases are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, but it does not track the estimated cost of those impacts, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Climate change could disrupt training, testing and operations at various overseas installations in areas susceptible to sea level rise and inclement weather, the report says. Those disruptions have an associated price tag, but the installations are not required to track their estimated cost.
“Without a requirement to systematically track such costs, DoD will not have the information it needs to integrate climate-related impact resource considerations into future budgets,” the report says.
While climate change remains a politically charged issue, the majority of scientists agree humans are causing the planet to warm and the military services are preparing to deal with the national security implications of sea level rise and other symptoms.
The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) acknowledges that senior DoD and military officials to include Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford recognize that climate change presents a national security threat to the United States.
“Climate change is a direct threat to the national security of the United States and is impacting stability in areas of the world both where the United States Armed Forces are operating today, and where strategic implications for future conflict exist,” the fiscal 2018 NDAA states. “There are complexities in quantifying the cost of climate change on mission resiliency, but the Department of Defense must ensure that it is prepared to conduct operations both today and in the future and that it is prepared to address the effects of a changing climate on threat assessments, resources, and readiness.”
The 2018 NDAA, signed into law by President Trump on Dec. 12, also orders a report on how a warming global climate will affect overseas bases over the next 20 years. The Defense Department has a year from passage of the law to submit a report on both vulnerabilities to military installations and combatant commander requirements over the next two decades.
“Military installations must be able to effectively prepare to mitigate climate damage in their master planning and infrastructure planning and design, so that they might best consider the weather and natural resources most pertinent to them,” the bill says.
The Defense Department already has surveyed various overseas installations for operational and budgetary vulnerabilities to climate change, but the study was not comprehensive enough, GAO says in its December report. It left out dozens of sites, including some “key” national security installations, the report says. At least 73 of the 198 sites surveyed were exempted from reporting without justification.
“DoD did not obtain information on risks posed by weather effects associated with climate change at many key overseas installations, which is critical for managing such risks at these locations,” the report says.
GAO recommends that the military services cooperate with the Pentagon to sets requirements for tracking and reporting estimated impacts of climate change to overseas installations. It also suggests that the services and DoD factor estimated climate change impacts into future negotiations with host nations on cost-sharing agreements.