Climate change threatens a majority of mission-critical military bases, Pentagon report says

More than two-thirds of the military’s operationally critical installations are threatened by climate change, according to a new DoD report.

The January 2019 report, “Report on Effects of a Changing Climate to the Department of Defense,” was submitted to Congress Thursday without an official announcement of the report or a public release. Several environmental organizations made the report publicly available early Friday.

After several reporters questioned why the report was not made public by DoD, the Pentagon published it on Defense.gov mid-Friday.

The Pentagon did not assess all of its hundreds of installations, instead it selected “79 mission assurance priority installations based on their operational role,” the Pentagon said in its report.

In its assessment of those 79 installations, which included Army, Air Force and Navy installations — and notably no Marine Corps bases — the services reported that 53 of the 79 faced current threats from flooding; 43 of the 79 face current threats from drought and 36 of the 79 faced current threats from wildfires.


Read more: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/01/18/dod-majority-of-mission-critical-bases-face-climate-change-threats/



A military police officer walks near a destroyed gate at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael on Oct. 12, 2018. The storm caused extensive damage to nearly every building on the base. A new Defense Department report finds that most of the military’s operationally critical installations face a threat from climate change. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)