DOD Tackling Both > U.S. Department of Defense > Defense Department News

The Defense Department doesn’t face a choice between focusing on state actors or significant transnational challenges such as climate change, Dr. Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy said Oct. 29. 

“Both are a threat to our security, and we have to be able to address both,” he said. “We don’t see any tradeoff between the investments that we need to make on the climate front and remaining laser focused on China as our pacing challenge.” 

Kahl was speaking at an event hosted by New America as part of a discussion on the DOD Climate Risk Analysis released last month. He was joined by the defense secretary’s senior advisor for climate, Joe Bryan, who noted that there “isn’t a competition between what’s good for the climate [and] what’s good for the mission.” 

Bryan said efficient platforms are good for the climate, and “absolutely critical to contested logistics.” The use of distributed generation, such as solar panels, doesn’t require logistical support or battery storage, he said, so, when they are placed on-site to support a critical mission, those missions can stay up and running, even without the public grid.

Climate change is likely to contribute to a proliferation of missions for DOD in the future, both at home and abroad, Kahl said, ranging from “disaster relief and humanitarian response overseas, interventions in an increasingly unstable landscape, or even the degree to which the department is called upon to assist civilian authorities here in the United States.” 

Extreme events worsened by climate change have done more damage in the past few years to American installations than any terrorist organization, he noted. 

To tackle the challenge of climate change, both Kahl and Bryan brought up reports recently released by the department. Kahl said DOD’s climate risk assessment is the next step to making sure that the urgency of the climate crisis is integrated into strategic thinking at the Pentagon, and that its findings will be included in the next National Defense Strategy.

The DCRA complements the DOD Climate Adaptation Plan, also released last month. The plan provides a roadmap to ensure the department maintains the ability to operate under changing climate conditions.

DOD is focused on climate change, Kahl said, as illustrated by the release of the DCRA and CAP, adding that climate will be on the table in a way that it hasn’t previously been in bilateral and multilateral defense engagements. 

“I am confident that we can build something in the next few years that is good for our security, and good for the nation,” Kahl said.