14 DAY TRIAL // According to the conclusions of the first Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap, created by the US Department of Defense (DoD), climate change and global warming are already being observed at military installations the country operates around the world. In the future, these effects will likely impair the Pentagon's ability to conduct successful operations in the field, the document adds.
The CCAR was developed in 2012, but only published earlier this year. It provides a way for climate change-related issues to pass through the DoD chain of command in a timely manner, and opens the way to potential solutions for this problem in the long run.
The announcement was made to the American Forces Press Service by the acting deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and the environment, John Conger. He says that the new report provides some tips and language for future guidance documents, to direct the Pentagon over the coming years.
This Roadmap was released as part of a wider US effort to understand and prepare for the effects of global warming in a timely manner. President Barack Obama launched his Climate Action Plan earlier this year, which calls for reductions in carbon pollution levels, as well as more preparations to ensure that communities can successfully manage any climate changes they may experience.
“But the piece that I think is the crux of the report is, rather than creating a stovepipe within the DOD organizational structure to deal with climate change, we are going to integrate climate change considerations into the normal processes, the day-to-day jobs of everybody,” Conger explains.
This document also represents the first DoD effort since the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review to map the challenges that American assets around the world need to deal with as global warming advances. The 2010 report was the first ever to link national security with climate change in a meaningful way.
Conger says that American assets at home and around the world include “over 500 bases and 300,000 buildings and 2.2 billion square feet (204.4 million square meters) of space. The infrastructure has a plant replacement value on the order of $850 billion (642 billion euros).”
“There’s a lot of stuff out there that is all going to be impacted by changes in the climate,” Conger say, quoted by Science Blog.
The deputy undersecretary explains that some of the challenges awaiting American assets around the world include rising sea levels, increased storm intensities, more storm surges, drought and thawing permafrost. The latter is a very serious issues for bases in Alaska and at northern latitudes in general.
“We are working very hard and diligently to reduce our energy usage, to reduce our energy intensity and to increase the use of renewable energy, which doesn’t have emissions. And we have done each of these things not because it is good for the climate or because it reduces emissions but because they provide mission and monetary benefits,” Conger concludes.