The Pentagon is getting ready to cope with local weather change in a extra critical manner than ever earlier than. (File)
WASHINGTON: A brand new Pentagon technique requires the navy providers and all defense-related organizations — together with contractors — to make adjustments to mitigate potential vulnerabilities from local weather change and scale back emissions.
The 32-page report, launched Thursday, states that the Defense Department should adapt to a world the place navy operations, installations and even weapon programs can all be impacted by local weather change.
“Climate change is going to be the context of the world that we live in from now on,” Richard Kidd, the deputy assistant secretary of protection for atmosphere and vitality resilience, informed reporters throughout a roundtable on Friday. “No entity can opt out of their responsibilities or requirements to take necessary steps in either adaptation or mitigation.”
The technique lays out 5 strains of effort, outlining how the Pentagon can incorporate local weather become its future planning and operations.
Perhaps most notably for the protection trade, the division should harden its provide chains to the consequences of local weather change, the technique states. One manner it might do that's by leveraging its buying energy to put money into environmentally-friendly applied sciences like microgrids and energy storage programs that may additionally enhance the survivability of the navy.
Related: Next DoD Budget To Feature Detailed ‘Investments’ To Battle Climate Change: Hicks
“To remain agile and flexible in responding to changing conditions, actions will include energy demand reduction to reduce logistics requirements and establish metrics and measures for tracking progress,” the technique states.
The Pentagon can even search larger transparency from trade on present ranges of greenhouse gasoline emissions and corporations’ plans for discount.
“Some of our contractors are in fact leaders in this area,” Kidd stated. “They have very aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals and can account for greenhouse gases through most of the steps in the supply chain. But other contractors are not quite there yet. Our goal is to bring all the contractors up to what is best practice.”
The division plans to focus on locations within the provide chain the place it might scale back emissions, whereas additionally having a optimistic impression on operations or resiliency, Kidd stated. For instance, the Defense Department desires to see extra home manufacturing of batteries utilized in plane, on ships or by dismounted troops, which serves a twin goal of lowering the vulnerability of the US navy to produce chain interruptions within the overseas market.
“By bringing that battery manufacturing onshore to the United States, we significantly reduce the carbon impacts while improving the integrity of our supply chain. And that sort of example cascades out through hundreds of items that we buy or purchase,” he stated.
The different strains of effort embody:
- Ensuring the Department has entry to high quality knowledge on local weather and the atmosphere, and that it creates processes to incorporate that data in the decision-making course of, lowering prices and the chance to operations.
- Training troops to resist excessive climate circumstances and guaranteeing that tools may also perform in very cold and hot temperatures.
- Mitigating the chance of floods, wildfires and different pure disasters on navy installations by frequently assessing the chance to bases and different amenities.
- Enhancing cooperation with accomplice nations and different US companies that may enhance information about local weather change, contribute to resiliency, and scale back prices.
Kidd stated it might be tough to level to particular will increase in funding within the upcoming fiscal 12 months 2023 funds that had been made on account of the technique, as a result of a lot of the added cash goes to “existing investment streams” akin to navy building tasks or the acquisition of fuel-efficient tools.
However, there are a number of areas the division has recognized “that could use some significant increases in [funding],” he stated. Kidd declined to elaborate on these wants forward of the FY23 funds.
Existing efforts such because the Energy Resilience and Conservation Investment Program (ERCIP) — part of the navy building funds that funds tasks that contribute to vitality effectivity — and the Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration initiative, which helps keep away from land-use conflicts with native areas that would inhibit coaching, might additionally obtain larger consideration in future budgets, he stated.
