Joe Bryan, senior climate adviser to the secretary of the Department of Defense, said climate change has implications for U.S. national security and DOD is initiating efforts to become more energy-efficient, DOD News reported Monday.
"Climate change is going to cost us in resources and readiness and the reality is that it already is," he said at a forum Monday.
As an example, he cited that military installations are advancing energy storage and distributed generation using energy from solar and landfill gas.
"We know that we're not going to get a free pass to push fuel into theater; so we can't be aggressive enough in reducing operational energy demand," he said of the need to ship fuel abroad to power aircraft, vehicles and ships.
Bryan said the Pentagon is working to lessen the demand for operational energy by reducing aircraft drag, making engine enhancements on ships and fielding hybrid-electric tactical vehicles, among other approaches.
He mentioned the current administration's move to prioritize local production of lithium-ion batteries and how that investment could help advance EV deployment.
"The commercial EV [electric vehicle] industry is actually critical to DOD capability. The scale and shift to electrical transportation is massive and fast," he noted.
If you're interested to know about the national security implications of climate change and how data analytics can inform agencies’ climate adaptation strategies, then check out the Potomac Officers Club's Bolstering Climate Resilience for National Security Forum coming up on Sept. 14th. To register for this forum and view other upcoming events, visit the POC Events page.