Misinformation About the Military and Climate Change

A recent opinion piece in Politico from a former Department of Defense (DoD) official in the Obama Administration claimed that the U.S. military’s response to climate change confirms that the topic is a top national security consideration.  CNN echoed the conclusion a day later.

First off, conflating every extreme weather event with climate change is imprecise, incomplete, and incorrect. The most glaring example is the author’s emphasis on North Atlantic hurricanes, citing the extensive damage at Tyndall Air Force Base from Hurricane Michael in 2018, as well as disaster preparedness efforts by the National Guard in advance of Hurricanes Helene, Beryl, and Milton this year. While various climate model projections point to the potential for some climate change scenarios to see more frequent and intense tropical cyclones, satellite data over the past 50 years show no upward or downward trend in these types of storms.

The author also refers to a recent increase in National Guard deployments to combat wildfires as evidence that climate change is impacting military missions. In fact, wildfire frequency in the U.S. is decreasing, and whatever the case, they are an ineffective metric because factors other than climate, such as forest management, are important in determining their occurrence.

For many types of extreme events, the IPCC has been unable to conclusively detect changes in their frequency or intensity. For example, the IPCC has reported increases in heat waves and in heavy precipitation, but not tropical cyclones, floods, tornadoes or drought.

More problematic is the implication in the article that the initiatives by the DoD to reduce greenhouse gas emissions signify that “the military” is taking climate change seriously. To be clear, current DoD emission reduction efforts are entirely driven by political appointees implementing the Biden Administration’s delusional DoD climate directives.

For example, the Navy’s Climate Action 2030 directs the Department of the Navy to reduce emissions and energy demand while increasing “carbon pollution-free” electricity at Navy installations and bases. Are the uniformed career professionals in the Navy gung ho about such misguided climate action? If recent strategic documents released by the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) are a sign, apparently not.  Neither the CNO Navigation Plan 2024 nor America’s Warfighting Navy make any mention of renewable energy, emissions reductions, or climate change.

It appears that the energy references in the article are aligned with the prevailing “climate crisis” narrative seeking to discredit and impose penalties on the fossil fuel industry in the U.S. Efforts aimed at undermining the primary providers of America’s energy independence are divorced from larger global security realities. First, even if the entire U.S. were to cease emissions, the rest of the world, led by China, will not. Second, the economic and national security benefits of affordable and abundant energy are both enormous and undeniable. We must not forget that those benefits are what drove Japan to enter World War II and attack the U.S. at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

I do not mean to totally dismiss climate change as a national security consideration. The author rightly points to the rapidly warming Arctic, where warming induced sea ice loss is opening new shipping lanes and access to natural resources, enticing both China and Russia to become more assertive in the region.

However, it is difficult to justify the author’s summary that says, “the military has identified climate change as a dangerous enemy.” Such a statement is a stretch at best.  If anything, America’s armed forces have long held that severe weather can be a serious adversary, not climate change. General George Washington acknowledged this during the brutal winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge, as did Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower prior to a break in the weather that allowed the Allied invasion at Normandy on June 6, 1944.

Unfortunately, the DoD has not done very well in combatting hazardous environmental conditions over the past few years. 2022 was particularly concerning, with a period of entirely preventable mishaps involving the Navy, Army, and Marine Corps. More recently, a severe storm damaged several Army helicopters, weather was a factor in the fatal crash of a Marine Corps helicopter and the total loss of an Air Force fighter jet, and failure to adequately consider sea state constantly plagued the Gaza pier operation. Preventing mission kills like these should be the DoD’s top climate concern, as I’ve detailed here, here, and here.

At a moment when America’s national security situation is worse than any time in recent years, putting climate change on par with real threats - China, Russia, Iran and North Korea - is not only a dangerous distraction, it amounts to misinformation that disregards sound science and strategy.

Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet (USN, ret.) is the former acting Administrator and Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), acting Under Secretary and Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, and Oceanographer of the U.S. Navy. Among the variety of positions which he held over his 32-year career in the Navy, Gallaudet served as the Director of the Navy’s Task Force Climate Change.