Securing the Future: Navigating the Nexus of Climate and Defense

Panelists discuss the intersection of climate change and national security, the emerging challenges for defense, and how the U.S. military is adapting to address these evolving threats.

KUMAR: Good evening. Nice to be with all of you. My name is Raj Kumar. I’m the president and editor-in-chief at Devex. And I’m thrilled to be back at the Council. You know, I’ve been with the Council maybe twenty-something years. We were just talking about that. We have a newish member on our panel today. 

And I look around the room and realize I don’t recognize a lot of people in this room, and maybe that’s a sign of the issues we’re talking about. At Devex we cover global development issues. And you might wonder, well, why would we be talking about an issue like defense? It reminds me of attending a meeting some years ago at the White House where I thought I was on time, I showed up, and I realized the room was hushed and there was only one seat available. And they kind of ushered me in and sat me down, I realized right next to the speaker. And it took me a couple of minutes to realize I was in the wrong meeting. (Laughter.) And I shouldn’t have been there. So my meeting was across the hall, and it dealt with development issues. 

Well, increasingly I think there’s a convergence among issues. And you’re in the right room if you’re here because you care about or think about climate or care about or think about defense, because we’re here to talk about that nexus. And I think you’ll see it is a rich area. There’s a lot to talk about. And it may be one of the underreported stories of our time. You know, we at Devex, we’re covering the Munich Security Conference, as an example. And increasingly you find this connection, this convergence between people who come from the defense space and people who come from the climate and the development space. I think it’s really apropos that we’re all here. 

Let me just mention, before I tell you who is on the panel with me, that this is an on the record session, and that we will, of course, as a Council event, make a lot of time for conversation and questions. So please be ready with those.

I am joined by really the perfect panel to have this conversation.

Next to me is Meredith Berger, who is the assistant secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations, and Environment, and the first chief sustainability officer of the Navy.

Down at the very end of the panel is Varun Sivaram, who is here with the Council. He leads the Climate Initiative. He’s a senior fellow for energy and climate. And he was in the White House as the managing director for clean energy in the Biden administration and was a senior advisor to John Kerry. And has a lot of experience in the renewable energy space, which we are going to absolutely tap into in the discussion today. 

But I want to start with our last panelist, who is here on stage, and her books are in the back of the room, which is—which is a thrilling thing to see. Sherri Goodman is with us. I always hear people using the phrase, “threat multiplier.” I think from now on, they’re going to have to cite Sherri because it is the title of her new book. She’s a senior fellow at the Wilson Center. She was the first deputy undersecretary for the Department of Defense for environmental security. And she’s really written the book about the topic we’re here to talk about today. So I want to begin with you, if I could.

It’s not a new topic, in the sense climate as an issue has been around a long time. You can trace back U.S. government policy on it, including from when you were in the Department of Defense. But it does feel like we’re in a new moment on the topic. So what’s sort of the current state of play? When you talk to people in the national security establishment, what do they think and know about the role of climate in terms of affecting America’s national security?

GOODMAN: Well, thank you very much, Raj. And thank you to the Council on Foreign Relations for having this conversation, and to my panelists, all who are experts. And so many of you, actually, in the room are as well. So it’s a pleasure to be with all of you. 

You know, I think after now a number of decades where I’ve seen—watched the, let’s say, in the Department of Defense go from being seen as an environmental lagger to an environmental and clean energy and now climate leader, I think it is now mainstreamed into defense policy, planning, and strategy programming, with a variety of efforts across all of the services. And it’s great to have the Navy well represented here tonight, two services. (Laughter.) But all the services today, you know, have climate literacy efforts, are doing climate war games, have—are understanding how—the security impacts of climate on operating all around the world, from the Arctic to the Indo-Pacific. 

And I say this is true across—in our diplomacy today, I see Kate Guy back there, who was just—with the deputy secretary of state—who just gave a speech today on climate as a national security issue. And certainly, Secretary Blinken, Secretary Austin, and from the president and the vice president have been—made this front and center from day one. So I’d say this administration has been very forward in its efforts. 

KUMAR: I think it was one of the first executive orders of the Biden administration, right, was on this topic.

GOODMAN: It was. One of the very first executive orders. And I think it’s built on a body of work that has been developing now for almost twenty years, since the first, you know, military advisory board on climate and security back in 2007, where I coined the phrase “threat multiplier”. And that has been—you know, had made incremental, and now sort of sometimes you get a bow wave of progress. And I’d say, you know, that ship is really cutting through. And hopefully it will continue to advance, because, still, you know, the pace of climate change exceeds our—you know, our ability to adapt and become resilient and manage the energy transition.

KUMAR: Meredith, the way I look at this is there’s kind of two aspects to the topic we want to get into today. There’s the way that climate affects the external environment, right? It leads to political instability, food prices spike, you may have conflict between countries over food, over water, over other resources, migration, which creates its own kind of instability and affects the political dynamic all over the world. So that external environment that the Department of Defense, someone in your chair, has to think a lot about. But then there’s also what happens inside the Department of Defense, inside America’s agencies, and how do they adapt to the reality that our installations, our bases, might be at risk, or maybe access to fuel out in a forward operating theater might be in question. So is that how you think about this too, these two sides of that coin? And how can you help us frame up the issue of climate and defense, that nexus?

BERGER: Sure. So Sherri told us that climate change is a threat multiplier. And so it taught me that climate readiness is mission readiness. And so when we talk about the Navy and the Marine Corps, whether inside or outside of the department—and this applies to both parts of your question—you need to have a ready force. And so that ready force means that when the nation, allied partners, call upon the Navy and the Marine Corps to be able to respond, to be able to support, to be able to take action, that they have what they need to be able to do what we’re asking of them, when they need to do it. Taking away all of those complicating factors, those threat multipliers, so that we are a ready force.

And so it—as we look at those external factors, when you see those external contributions—so you see disputes over resources, water, energy, food, not only between countries but sometimes between communities. And so, as we say, that those are conflict generators in the—in the purest sense of the form. You see conflict start over resource scarcity. And that is when you see, for example, the Marine Corps, your Title 10 crisis response force, that will go and engage in what’s called humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions. These are responses to crisis situations. Where we’re often seeing either natural disaster or resource scarcity as the generator of what the challenge is. 

This depends a lot on logistics. And so as you look at every step of the way, that readiness factor—making sure that a sailor or Marine, and I will speak for the whole department of defense here, airman, guardsmen, your soldiers—are going to also need to make sure that they’re able to follow that chain of what is required to get the mission done. And so we look at logistics and keeping people on task, on target, able to meet that mission objective. 

So I’ll share with you a quick anecdote about an installation that demonstrates that true value. And it is a Marine Corps Base in Albany, Georgia. And it’s a logistics space. So keep in mind the logistics connection to conflict generation and responsibilities. And this is the first net zero energy base in the Department of Defense. So this is a pride point for the Marine Corps for the Department of the Navy. But this base is actually generating more energy than it requires. And it’s a logistic base. And so when we do see that there needs to be that surge of support, energy is not a factor in that response rate. So if the lights are down everywhere, the Marines are on and able to respond. 

So it’s connecting that resource security in our installations to the logistics support that goes out to the fleet. And so it is a comprehensive consideration. And it has all of these different kind of interdisciplinary and interwoven dependencies that we have to consider as we build an installation, as we build a force, and as we look at what that means to actually maintain our global dominance. 

KUMAR: I think the dominant narrative, Varun, is often looking at climate as a negative for our defense, that it’s a national security problem. And that’s obviously true. But it sounds like, based on some of your work—even your work today, I think you’ve got a piece out talking about this, a report out—there are also potentially comparative advantage opportunities here. Specifically, in the case of your report, on battery technology. Maybe just share for us what did you find in this report and how does it relate to this issue of American national security?

SIVARAM: Totally. And I’d like to come back to what we were just talking about in a moment, but I’ll answer your question. Let me first say, Sherri, such an honor to be on the stage with you to celebrate your book. Sherri’s been a mentor, not only to me but to so many of us in this room. It’s just fantastic to support you and to see what you’ve accomplished. I also—like, I am not the climate security guy. They are—they’re not guys—they are. And, you know, Kate Guy is, you know, also an expert, as are many—(laughter)—I was going to make that joke, and then I took it back. I’m, like, I can’t make that joke right now. (Laughter.) So with all that in mind, let me just share some of the conclusions from a report that a colleague and I put out today. 

The report argues that America is lagging dangerously behind in the battery race. We typically—we, in the climate world, think of batteries as a clean energy technology, a climate-friendly technology. But batteries are the cornerstone of the modern economy and have very important security uses as well. They are—you know, not only do they power electric vehicles, they power cellphones, and they power military electronics, military drones, night vision goggles—everything that a war fighter needs that are electronic are powered by batteries. And America has entirely lost what I’ll call the first innings of the battery race. The lithium-ion battery today, 70 to 90 percent of the supply chain is produced by China. It is—this is well known. 

The kind of intellectual ground plowed by the report is, it is a mistake to try and win in today’s generation. It’s folly. It’s an expensive, endlessly subsidized folly to try and win in today’s lithium-ion batteries. And yet, of the $30 billion that America has spent in the last two years, more than 90 percent has supported existing generation technology. There is a new generation. It’s called solid state batteries. And that next generation of technology not only is far superior to today’s technology—think electric vehicles that have far more range, far more power, electronics that can last much longer, that cannot explode, they’re inherently safe, et cetera. But America has an edge.

And this is an area where I think military involvement and procurement can turbocharge America’s competitive advantage, because it’s American companies that are developing the next generation of batteries, which will have military advantages. If the military were to say—it’s not a big ask—if the military were to say: We will equip just, let’s say, a hundred or so military vehicles, or a thousand war fighters equipped with solid state batteries to support their electronics, it would be enough of a demand signal to bring to scale this technology out of the lab into pilot lines and early scale production, such that America actually beats China in this race to the next generation. 

So that’s an example of a dual use technology. It obviously has a climate component, but it’s very squarely focused on military operational supremacy and readiness that, so far, we have not—we have not done a good job, remotely, as a country to support this critical advantage. I think we can. And I think the military plays an important role.

KUMAR: Before we go any further, I think you have the person on the panel who can actually help make that decision. (Laughter.) And so I’m curious, because as the chief sustainability officer, you have a responsibility for, you know, acquisitions and procurement across the Department of the Navy. You know, how do you think about these kind of dual use opportunities where you might be driving greater resilience for the U.S. military, but also maybe creating an industry that can also change the dynamic in terms of a geopolitical competition with China? 

BERGER: Well, I will say I’m inspired by the simplification that you envision in the federal acquisition process. (Laughter.) And so, from your lips to all the policy writers’ hands and brains and everything else. (Laughter.) So there are a few more steps along the way there. But the broadest point here, that the military can be a market requirement setter and driver is certainly there. Part of that is making sure that we meet military requirements. And so making sure that we get it into the right processes in terms of research, development, testing, and evaluation. Making sure that all of the applications do make sense. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t give some credit to the battery teams in operational energy, who are working to make sure that we have a managed transition that not only accounts for the way that the military here works, but what is a critical interoperability consideration as we work with allies and partners. We work better when we do it together. Just as you’re talking about fuel access, another point of interoperability. If we have created a sole point of failure, then we are not considering our logistics pieces as much. And so it’s a managed transition, anything that we do. 

But certainly, part of making sure that we have that diversity of access as well, because a single source is a single point of failure. And so that’s part of the aggregate it in the way that we look at it, but certainly making sure that we meet the requirements and consider how we integrate that into our acquisition strategy and process, and build towards that way, is one of the greatest powers of the Department of Defense, in in being that market setter and market driver.

KUMAR: Well, I’m glad early—

GOODMAN: If I could say that a little bit another way.

KUMAR: Yeah, please.

GOODMAN: I think, you know, there is—the buying power of the military can make certain markets, where it aligns with the mission. So that has to be clear. You can’t just buy for the sake of it. But where it does align with the mission, you know, then the military can be an early first mover. Now, Meredith’s right, the traditional procurement process in the federal government is very cumbersome and slow. And so there have to be other workarounds, you know, through other authorities that can be used. But they can be used, and they are used regularly when there is an urgent need identified. 

Let’s say, it’s, you know, improvise explosive devices killing our troops trucking fossil fuels to the front in Iraq and Afghanistan. We quickly figured out how to use other transactional authorities and other procurement authorities to provide some counters to, you know, that IED threat, back, you know, ten, fifteen years ago. So the traditional process is slow, but where there’s an urgent need and there’s an alignment with the mission, it can happen. And, you know, so I hope that this will be one of those cases. 

It’s also true that today technology spins into the Department of Defense. You know, back in an earlier era, you know, technology was developed in the defense R&D systems—you know, think of the internet and GPS came out of military R&D. But today more often the technology, as Varun just said, is coming from the commercial sector and will spin in. It has to be adapted for military purposes, but that’s part of the importance of staying abreast of—in the forward leading edge of technology innovation today, is figuring out how in this era, where the military is not the primary R&D lead, it can still be an early buyer and adopter, and enable America to keep a competitive edge. 

KUMAR: Yeah. It’s a great example where, you know, there’s kind of an asymmetry happening in the technology space. You can think about drones, and the ability for armed groups to get access to maybe just commercial products. They don’t need specialized military products, but to retrofit them for their purposes maybe faster than we can move, right? And that’s a real challenge for our defense infrastructure. 

Sherri, maybe just—you could talk a little bit further about how do people inside America’s national security community right now see the urgency of this? Because you just talked about the example in Iraq with IEDs, and there was an urgent issue, and we moved. You know, the Arctic is opening up because of climate change. You can see the countries in the world that are becoming more—you know, more of their land masses turning to desert and not habitable. You know, to what degree do people inside the Pentagon see this as an urgent thing that we need to rapidly adapt to?

GOODMAN: Well, what I would—I’d say, is that it is—the challenge often in these areas, as Senator Wirth knows well, one of the early leaders in integrating climate/environment into diplomacy and foreign policy across many domains, is it traditionally has not been what we would say the wolf closest to the sled. It’s not sort of right in—it’s not the war fight, you know, in—it’s underlying the root cause, some might say, of the war fights in either Ukraine, in the Middle East, and elsewhere. But often not seen as exactly what we need to do today to counter the direct threat. 

I’d say it’s higher. It’s moved up higher into the pecking order of priority than it has in the past. I’d say there’s still room for improvement, let’s say, as there always is, in sort of understanding how we can really make decisions at every level that are integrating climate awareness. But I think it’s improved a lot just in the last few years. So I’d say—you know, I’d say that’s good. And in terms of understanding resilient infrastructure and impact on troops, I think that’s really moving forward quickly. 

I think the acquisition—you know, the weapon system acquisition process is traditionally slow. And, you know, it has many different gates in it. And so being able to affect the gates in early process, so that what you get at the outcome, you have, you know, a naval system that is going to be—operate in the changing ocean acoustic and other conditions that we’re going to face as the oceans continue to warm. There’s still—you know, that’s very much a work in progress, I would say.

KUMAR: Right. You don’t want to design a system that becomes obsolete because of changing environmental circumstances.

GOODMAN: Right.

BERGER: I just wanted to add one point, from inside the Pentagon perspective too. And it’s something I’ve heard from each of us so far, is that mission assurance throughput. So it is making the connection to mission assurance, rather than some of the other more traditional climate connotations that you may see. I think that a lot of the advance that we’ve been able to see is, from start to finish, making sure that we are connecting to mission requirements. So that’s the acquisition piece, and also tying it through to an end—to that mission assurance. So making sure that the energy, the water, the infrastructure, the component parts and pieces, and the people, are able to withstand and prepare to be able to execute. But without that connection, we would not have made it as far. And making sure that it’s connected to that national security threat and the actions that we use to respond.

KUMAR: Which is something that maybe the climate diplomacy world, which you used to work in, could benefit from, Varun. I know that you were a part of these processes, like the COP process. But national security, does it come up in that process?

SIVARAM: Honestly, I’m so glad you raised that. And I bet Kate has a lot to say on this front. Look, I had never heard the phrase, “wolf closest to the sled.” I think it’s awesome. The phrase I used to use is that climate—when it comes to foreign policy issues—climate’s what I consider a little kids table issue, whereas Ukraine, Russia, North Korea, Iran, the Middle East, are big kids table issues. They’re what occupy the minds of our main foreign policymakers, our security establishment. 

Now, I think what Sherri and Meredith have raised are critical ways in which the climate insidiously, like, infects these other issues. I’m putting words in your mouth. I think threat multiplier is a much better way of saying it. But there also—I also think that the climate and security community, which I respect so much and has been doing this work for so long, I think in your effort to be responsible, bipartisan, and non-alarmist, sometimes it is not obvious how actually alarmed we should be. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin comes out and says in 2021, “climate is an existential threat to this country’s security.” But we have never acted like it’s an existential threat to this country’s security. And we, COP diplomats, go off on some siloed track and negotiate things that are generally irrelevant to our country’s national security. 

It’s late. I’m being a little provocative, but let me just say a couple things. First, look, I think there are a set of issues that actually do threaten the actual nation’s integrity and security. World Bank projects 200 million climate refugees by midcentury, many of which will actually be internal but nevertheless many of which could actually affect America’s own territorial integrity. By 2100, five to seven feet of sea level rise is not out of the realm of possibility, one or two meters, in our own national climate assessment. A good way, I think, to cognitively grok what is happening with natural disasters is to say it’s almost as if China burning coal plants for X number of years sent a missile in the form of Hurricane Helene to our borders. 

I don’t think that’s cognitively, like very inaccurate. As a result, I think that actually taking this threat seriously as an existential risk suggests that, in addition to all the work we do to just be ready for the climate changing in all of the military theaters, we may want to consider some actual break glass options. It’s not obvious to me why in every NDAA process we don’t seriously consider serious funding for the military to take a leading or play a role in geoengineering, a break glass option—ocean geoengineering, SRM, solar radiation management, et cetera. 

KUMAR: This is where you may spray something into the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays, for example?

SIVARAM: Yeah. We don’t treat climate the same way we do other threats. And I promise you—and I’ll pause here—I promise you that what’s happening in the Middle East is probably less consequential to American national security than what’s happening from China and India burning coal. And we don’t act that way, as an establishment. And I don’t think we talk about it that way. 

KUMAR: What do you think, Meredith? Is there something to be gained from this kind of way of thinking about the problem?

BERGER: Well, I’d offer two thoughts. One is that by calling climate the little kids table issue, I think it perpetuates the problem instead of bringing it clearly to the forefront. And just as the military should be talking about climate, everyone who’s working on climate should be talking about the military. And so I think that creates a bit of a chasm where there shouldn’t be one. And then, secondly, I’d offer that we have an opportunity, to go back to that mission driver as we think about what is the mission of any of your services, of the Department of Defense—and while all incredibly thoughtful ways of thinking about how we engage from a scientific perspective and other component parts and pieces, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on how those suggestions fit into the core mission of the Department of Defense. 

KUMAR: Right, it might be less about the mission of the department. Maybe it’s more about the way national security experts, including people in this room, see the changing threat environment. 

BERGER: Mmm hmm.

KUMAR: And, obviously, Sherri, I’d love your take on this, since this is what you write about. You know, we used the term a few times now, “threat multiplier.” How exactly is it a threat multiplier? What is the new security environment we confront?

GOODMAN: Well, if I could offer a historical analogy. So in the Cold War, we thought about the nuclear threat from the Soviet Union, a bolt out of the blue nuclear attack, as a low probability but high consequence event. But of such great significance that it was worth the investment of billions of America’s GDP to defend and deter. And, thankfully, we deterred it, so far, through the Cold War. Now we have climate change, which is a high probability and high consequence event. The challenge is that the investments required to protect and defend against this threat are less able to be conducted by one or several set of agencies, right? It’s really a massive whole-of-society problem. The military isn’t going to solve the world’s climate problem. It’s only going to get its own house in order, and also understand it as a security threat, and be able to act responsibly to try to integrate it into security strategies. 

But, as you know from somebody who works in the development space, a lot of the solutions are going to come out of the civilian development space to get after the root causes of climate change. So I think that when we talk about what kind of—what kind of ways you could counter or reduce the climate threat at—you know, Varun, you mentioned geoengineering. The Defense Science Board in its summer study last year on climate change and global security did address this—you know, address this, as, you know, there—you know, how you could—how you could have such a strategy, and what the cost would be. Again, is it—is it primarily a defense mission? No. It would have to be a national—some kind of national decision, or international decision, in a sense, because the risks are spread so far and wide. 

So I think that we are on a path to sort of raise the priority and better understand it. The question is, could we do it, you know, to meet the pace of change? And we have to sort of distribute the costs and the benefits of becoming both climate resilient, and doing so in a way that aligns missions of all of society, you know, in a new way. And that’s why I think that—the efforts that we have underway, I think, are good, just the pace is not enough. 

KUMAR: We’re going to go to questions in just a second, but just while we’re on the geoengineering topic. I interviewed Gaia Vince, who wrote the book Nomad Century. And she argues there could be hundreds of millions of people forced to move, exactly as the World Bank report states. And one of the things she mentions is that, for some countries who are very affected by climate and who see large percentages of their landmass quickly becoming uninhabitable, they may decide to unilaterally embark on geoengineering. And that could become a defense issue for the United States, if we disagree with what they’re doing. 

GOODMAN: Yes. Well, that’s why we—that’s why we look at it in that context, on the Defense Science Board, or other parts of the government, have to look at it unplanned—how do you protect yourself against unplanned geoengineering? In other words, a country who feels itself to be at risk, or an adversary. Because you have to be able to defend and deter against every kind of risk. So we have to think of this as a risk management issue.

KUMAR: Let’s bring in our members. I’ll just invite you to raise your hand. I think we have a microphone that will come to you. And just remind us—of course, senator, we know—but remind us of your name and organization, if you would. 

Q: Hi. Tim Wirth from the U.N. Foundation. 

Delighted to have this panel going here. Thank you very much. I’m an old buddy of Sherri’s. And admired her for twenty years when we labored for Sam Nunn on—at the beginning of a whole lot of these activities. Varun, I thought you started everything off just right in your discussion about batteries and battery technology, and the fact that we’re losing the battle and going in the wrong direction, and the priority for that being extremely important. I’d like to offer three other filters that it might be helpful to look at. 

One of those is the nuclear side. I think we’re fooling ourselves if we don’t think we’re going to be using a significant amount of nuclear energy in the short, medium, and long term. And how we do that, the Chinese are way ahead of us on that front as well. That’s one that is going to be extremely important, particularly as we’re trying to manage this great, growing, new load on energy. 

A second filter that I think is very important relates to the human management of all of this. You all have touched on this a little bit, the sense of urgency within the institutions, which is not very great. I’ve been in a lot of these institutions for a long time. You know, at the State Department, where I spent a lot of years, real men don’t do climate change. You know, we do—(laughs)—we do hard foreign policy. You know, we don’t do climate change. We don’t do population. We don’t do—and that’s a real problem.

And that relates to the promotion strategies within these large institutions. If the talent growing up in the Defense Department, and in the State Department, and elsewhere doesn’t think they’re going to get rewarded by becoming an expert, or working on, or spending time on, or being respected by those in these nontraditional fields, they’re not going to happen within those institutions. No matter how much we may talk about it, there’s a psychology to this. 

And the Council is very important in this as well. If the Council doesn’t have sessions on climate change, let me—I challenge you to go back for the last three years with Council programs. It’s very hard to find Council programs that touch on climate. And if the Council isn’t doing that, how do we expect these large, complicated institutions of government to do it? So I would put those two filters on. The third, which we haven’t talked about, very complicated, could be a whole evening, is AI. And what’s the role of AI going to be in terms of managing load, in terms of understanding the coming problems, and so on? 

But, anyway, thank you very much for having such a great panel. And I leave you with a lot of questions. But, Varun, thank you very much. That was a really good beginning. And, Sherri, good to see you again. Thank you. 

KUMAR: I mean, I think we can answer one of those quickly. Varun, there’s going to be more climate programming at the Council, right?

SIVARAM: Senator, I’m delighted you brought it up. Embarrassed, but we absolutely need to step up the programming. I’m pleased to say, we will now have climate not only have its own initiative, it’ll be one of the top four institutional priorities of CFR under new president Mike Froman. Also pleased to share David Hart, right here, has joined as a senior fellow, and has a report coming out—or, a piece coming out on exactly your point, how the rise of AI and the tech sector’s demand for clean energy can enable nuclear energy to both scale up and then enable America to lead, once again, in nuclear. So I think I’ve hit two of your points.

And the third one, which was the point about the institutions and the hard security issues, Meredith, just to come back to something you said, I don’t like the fact that climate is considered a little kids table issue. And I hope not to perpetuate a myth, but I think it’s true. I think that’s what other people think of us. And I agree with you, Senator. That has to change. And I really only think that changes if we are honest with ourselves about the deep and existential threat that it poses, and talk about it.

Q: It only changes if the reward structure of those institutions make it important. And currently they don’t make it important.

SIVARAM: No, you’re right. 

Q: The promotions process at State or Defense, or all most of the other agencies, is pretty limited for people who have sat at the little kids table. 

SIVARAM: (Laughs.) I agree.

GOODMAN: But I think that’s—I would say, I think some of that is changing, Senator, because I think you see from, you know, every combatant commander today in uniform, and from the secretary on to the deputy secretary, they have threaded this directly into their priorities. And they articulate it. So obviously there’s more to do to have the performance evaluation systems fully account for it, but I think it’s on the right path. I also agree with you on nuclear energy. I mean, I’m cochairing a commission now with Dan Poneman, former deputy secretary of energy, on nuclear energy and climate security. And the U.S. has to recapture American leadership on nuclear energy because, as you say, China and even Russia are—you know, have a competitive edge in a growing global nuclear market. 

KUMAR: But what do you do about that, Sherri? Because I think India and China both have Gen III, Gen IV reactors going. You know, the U.S., we have a challenge which is not everybody wants to see nuclear power in their community. That’s a different situation than what China has to deal with. So how do we actually address that? What are you thinking? 

GOODMAN: Well, you have a next generation of small modular and micro reactors coming along. Some of them will be first demonstrated and deployed at military bases. That’s not the only answer. I mean, you know, you just saw Microsoft make a deal, I think, to reopen Three Mile Island because it needs that extra power, you know, for AI. So I think the energy demand of AI is helping with a nuclear renaissance, that’s much needed in the U.S. Then there’s recapturing the nuclear fuel market. We got out of that business after we closed a lot of the nuclear weapons complex during the 1980s. But we need—you know, we need to be able to have—we need to be able to make our own nuclear fuel, uranium enriched fuel, in the United States for the next gen. And there’s a whole safer version of fuel coming along. So I think we have to do both/and, and we have to work with our allies, you know, and partners in this area, like South Korea, that are also developing that next generation. 

BERGER: And then I will add that I don’t think that you are trying to create a chasm. I wanted to make sure that was clear, but as that message perpetuates, you know, repetition is the key to good communication. And so we want to have the repetition of what we want people to know and understand. And so finding every opportunity to do that, I think, is important. 

I will offer, Senator, that as I have conversations, echoing with what Sherri noted, you can get sometimes caught in the semantics of climate change and how you talk to people about what it is. This happens a lot in the public environment as well. But inside, conversations are you have to understand the threat because it is about war fighting advantage. And it’s how you progress and how you make sure that you keep that competitive advantage. And so, following my first line of advice, repetition is the key to good communication, we probably need to communicate that better outside of the department. 

But inside, along with that mission assurance throughput, there has been a shift, because it is saving money which, despite the Defense Department being large in the appropriations process, we still are fighting for those funds everywhere. And so as we are looking at what it means to put those dollars where they stick, make a good investment, and make sure that whether we see a natural disaster or a bad actor coming at us we’ve taken those types of threats off the table. And that takes the knowledge of our operational environment, which is informed by the climate. And so it’s an internal conversation that has advanced and refreshed. And so I wanted to at least give you that assurance. 

And then just a quick point on nuclear. The Department of the Navy actually just put out our request for information for nuclear technology in support of our shore energy enterprise. And so purposefully broad, not just small modular, not just micro reactors, but nuclear technology in all of its forms and functions. And then combining it with other types of energy to maximize our resilience, to meet both our climate objectives but also that mission assurance piece. So we’re excited. 

We’ve got—Navy has a strong tradition, of course, of stewardship and safety when it comes to nuclear. We need to keep the distinction from our nuclear propulsion mission technology and manning. And so it’s a careful communication that will draw on a great knowledge base, but also anticipate the environment that we need to be in to make sure that we’re taking true advantage of that energy resilience and climate contribution.

KUMAR: Thank you. Let’s try to get a few more questions in, if we can. Again, there’s a microphone that’ll come around to you. Who’d like to contribute? There’s one there.

Q: Hi. Good evening, everyone. Alison Thompson, recently retired Marine Corps. Good see you, ma’am. 

Just wanted to offer one perspective, and then a question. One is, on the climate and security, I think that in so many ways, as we talk basically politicization of climate and whatnot, national security and the threat to it, from climate, is a way to kind of bridge that. And I get frustrated that, you know, people who are concerned about climate are fairly conversant, because they click on the climate things in the feed—you know, the whole echo chamber. But it seems like national security is a good way to bridge that. And could not agree more. Certainly, it’s, for many years now, been in a top—you know, at a national level priority. But filtering down, you know, just as a knucklehead Marine, real war fighters talk China. real war fighters talk the pacing threat, which is China. 

And I have long contended that if you man, train, and equipped for the pacing threat of China, that is woefully either insufficient or just not the right thing, you know, avocados versus apples, when you try to deal with climate issues—whether that is humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, or even thinking about where and when those conflicts will arise that we need to respond to. You know, whether damning of waterways, loss of arable land, climate migration, weaponizing humans in migration with misinformation. We’ve already seen that. We seem to not be thinking about those things. And the type of systems and training that we need for high-end China is very different than dealing with those sorts of things. So that’s just perspective. And I do think national security aspect of climate change is a way to kind of bridge and cross over the politicization of it. 

And then, for a little bit more specific question, Arctic. You know, certainly that is a very key area, kind of becoming the cutting-edge arena. Arctic Council just met. And then you see China coming in, just as they have in the South China Sea and, you know, ASEAN, trying to create their own forums where they can be bigger players, using Russia as necessary and needed to get the foot in the door. So going specifically Navy and Nome, I know there was the cancelation of the deep water solicitation to expand the port there at Nome, which would give us critical deep water basing—our only deep water port there in the Arctic. And this goes back to the money and not putting enough into it to allow for the high cost to operate in that harsh environment. So, you know, any and all thoughts on kind of how we crack that nut, and where that will go in the future. Specifically with the Arctic and Nome. Thank you. 

KUMAR: Really thoughtful comments. We can react to it. I just underline one thing you said. I earlier referred to kind of the asymmetry of technology now. You know, commercial drones being accessible. And you give a great example there, which is weaponizing of migration and the opportunity for geopolitical, you know, competitors or enemies to essentially say, well, we know that the West is vulnerable. And we can use simple social media tools very inexpensively to drive movement of millions of people. We’ve seen that. That’s another great example that you’ve underlined. 

I do wonder, to her first point, Alison’s first point about using the national security language to bridge some of the political divide on the climate issue, I know in the development space you hear people thinking, well, if the political winds blow in a different direction we don’t talk as much about climate. We might talk about energy or water. Really, we’re talking about climate, but we don’t use that terminology. Is there a similar trend in the national security space? Or have we kind of reached a point where it’s beyond politics and you can just talk about climate change, as it is?

GOODMAN: Well, in this administration, I think you can. In the last administration, you couldn’t. You had to use words like “disruptive weather and water events,” as opposed to climate. (Laughter.) Even though the reality—you know, even though the reality is, you know, that a lot of it’s climate driven. I do think, Alison, to your—you know, your point about the pacing challenge shaping the force structure. You know, China as the pacing challenge shaping our force structure. I always say, and I’ve written about it in the book and elsewhere, that that may be true, but the shaping—the shaping context is the climate threat, right? And the Chinese get that. You know, they’re trying to pace against us and understand where our vulnerabilities are. And they have their own vulnerabilities, certainly; there are at-risk areas for sea level rise and storms and drought and other areas. 

And so, you know, we have to be thinking like them in certain cases. And then we have to be countering them, and understanding how also there’s compounding risks, like cyber. You know, when are they going to take advantage of us in a threat—you know, in the South China Sea? Is there going to be some typhoon combination with, you know, cyberattacks? So climate and cyber? You know, Admiral Stavridis is writing his next novel after his—(laughter)—how many novels? He already put out three novels since I wrote my first book. You know. (Laughs.) You know, and he’s got a climate scenario in there. So I think people really are starting to think about this at—hopefully they’re starting to think about it at the highest level. And hopefully it’s threaded all the way down to the—eventually, to the entry level. 

KUMAR: Let’s keep going on this, and we can come back to the Arctic. But you wanted to, I think, jump in on it, Meredith.

BERGER: I was just going to offer, on the—on the political bridge, that kind of—kind of like the chasm on our—and I think is the point in your question too of, how do we bring people together. When we’re spending energy to set clearly our requirements and get resources, I don’t want to engage in a word game. And I want to make sure that we’re not doing a little dance of semantics, and instead getting to solution sets. And so, like so many things in life, you have to speak a language and make sure that you’re communicating clearly with the people who are receiving the information so that you can set the conditions for an outcome or a result. And so it is challenging, often, to see what language people speak, but people do know—theme of—theme of the conversation here. People know a threat when they see one.

And so call it—call it threat, and call a solution set. And I think that’s how we work to actually achieve meaningful advances, achieve the objectives that we set. Probably knock them down and have to keep going to achieve the next level. But if we spend too much time playing word games, our pacing threat is not figuring out what to call the problem. That is not a conversation happening in China. They are figuring out how to create advantage, how to create solutions, and how we actually make sure that when we get out there if we’re fighting, we’re winning. And so I think, when we start to pick the right noun, we’re going down the wrong path.

SIVARAM: I actually—Alison, I really like the way you framed this in terms of the avocado and the apple. You know, I really think a taxonomy is needed when we talk about climate and security, for those of us outside of the core field. You might say the avocado is our approach to winning the war with China over, let’s say, Taiwan, right? We want to make sure we could win that war, or at least, you know, achieve the goal we want. Now I’ll introduce an apple and an orange. The orange is, in a world where climate change is happening, let’s make sure our military can maximize its operational readiness. And Sherri and Meredith have shared many ways that we can do that. 

The apple is if the military actually believes this is an existential threat, as the secretary says, that our nation may not exist in a hundred years, that this is on the same level as nuclear warfare, and that we agree that in the mission of protecting the homeland this, in fact, falls squarely there. And I think we may, as a panel, disagree on whether this falls squarely there. And I defer to my colleagues who actually have military experience. But nevertheless, the apple would probably look completely different. The apple is, where does the military actually make progress on breaking glass and solving this problem? 

It may be, as we discussed, some geoengineering options. It may be developing these dual-use technologies, innovative technologies that help us reduce emissions. It may even be wielding our hard and soft power coercively to get the countries that pose the largest threat to us—the emissions of China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil—to get them to stop polluting. And that may not feel comfortable, but I feel like that’s an apple. And I actually do think it’s worth the strategic discussion about whether we want to contemplate the apple, we certainly want to do the orange, and we’re already doing the avocado.

KUMAR: I love the fruit basket that you’ve introduced into this panel. (Laughter.) It is a provocative idea. So I want—I want Meredith and Sherri to just respond. Because you’ve mostly said, or at least kind of come to the point, that, you know, the military can take care of its own readiness and respond, but it’s not going to solve—I think, as you put it, Sherri—a societal level issue, a whole of society issue like climate. But Varun is envisioning maybe a bigger role for the military. Maybe not solving the problem of climate change, but a much more forward-facing role on addressing the climate crisis. Do you think that is sensible? Is there a break the glass moment that’s required?

BERGER: I guess, in terms of being forward and present, I’m not—I’m not sure where this moment is—that we’re look for in terms of break the glass moment. Because we’re the first responders to the threat. And so we are present. I mean, glass broken, shattered, things are spilling everywhere. It’s not a comfortable place to be. We’re seeing impacts to our operational environment, our operations, and our ability to succeed. And so we’re there at every point along the way. But it is not an inside-outside the fence line, the Department of Defense type of instance at this point. 

It is integrated and constant, and a place that we are finding every opportunity that we can to engage, to respond. But it is—it is not alone. It is—it is global and down to the individual. So it is everything from the ethos, the recognition. The point on how do we integrate this thinking as a natural part of the way that we operate in advance. So where do we know the limits? Because we can’t solve the entirety of the problem. And so, I think that we’ve got this continuum where we’re operating in different places at different levels, but this isn’t something that we can do alone. It’s just a constant.

GOODMAN: Maybe I could make the lens a little wider here, and also respond to Alison’s question about the Arctic. Because I think the Arctic is a region where we have historically been what, we would call, sort of under-resourced in in that region. Because we saw it throughout the Cold War and the post-Cold War period as an era area of low tension. And high north, low tension was always the frame. And we have great, you know, allies and partners in the region, with the—with the exception of Russia. But we now—we also have China and other countries eyeing access to the region. 

And I think it’s not just about the military. I mean, the presence is important, but it’s not just military presence. It’s diplomatic presence. It’s showing up and doing science diplomacy and environmental diplomacy. It’s having presence with their allies, the partners, and other stakeholders in the region. Because Russia and China are off building their own new BRICS collaboration and creating new their own new—their own new geometries of diplomacy that affect every region. And so we have to understand—it has to be an integrated strategy. 

It has to affect trade, economics, infrastructure, in all of the regions of which—and it has to be integrated. It’s a sort of broader concept, in some ways, of integrated deterrence. Thinking about, you know, what are the climate dimensions of a broader integrated deterrence strategy, if you’re going to put it into a security context where you would understand all the levers you need to have. And I think that’s—we are getting closer to that than I think we’ve been in the past. I think that, you know, the risks—but the risks are mounting as well. 

KIMAR: You want to say a word about the Arctic, since it’s obviously very relevant for your department?

BERGER: Sure. And I’ll pick up a point that Sherri is making on integrated deterrence, and kind of that diplomacy to deterrence to defense piece too. And so we have an—we have an exercise that takes place every other year called ICEX. And it is integrated in every sense of the word. We set the example by making it zero footprint, involving national labs, scientific partners across the region and the globe, to make sure that we’re inclusive of how to consider how to operate there, at the end of the day. And so it really hits along all of the continuum that you just described in how we engage.

To your point on deep water ports and infrastructure, in news that won’t be surprising to you it is a complicated environment. Everything from resourcing and what you describe as a traditional challenge when it comes to infrastructure, that it is—it is not always the thing that’s making it above the cut line. And that mission assurance piece is not always fully analyzed in terms of what the execution looks like. But we also have a complex environmental and geostrategic considerations, as we think through what exactly that looks like and how do we complement, not only with our sister services, but also with others who are present in the environment from a regional perspective, to really make sure that we do that correctly? And so your question hit on a couple of things, from how we exercise together to how we make sure that the right requirements are clear, and the resourcing is there to match, along with the environmental considerations as we consider how to operate, and how to deter and protect. 

KUMAR: Thank you. I think we’re going to take one last question here. Just there. Thanks. 

Q: Hi. I’m Jennifer Hillman from both the Council on Foreign Relations and Georgetown Law School. 

So I’m in the trade realm. And I teach a class, and have for years, on using trade tools to fight climate change. And clearly, in the trade realm, you see a very kind of different picture. If you sort of step back and look at it, you see, obviously, the price for solar and wind and geothermal coming way, way down in terms of cost. Why? Because of China. China being the number one supplier of high-quality solar, wind, geothermal, et cetera, to the rest of the world. And yet we in the United States, and we are pushing all of our allies in Europe, Canada, elsewhere, to put countervailing duties and other trade barriers on all of that, because China built it all on the backs of subsidies and/or stolen technology. 

And on the other hand, we see kind of a growing trade war between us and the European Union over the fact that the EU is choosing to fight climate change largely by putting a price on carbon, and then putting that price on the border in the form of a carbon border adjustment. And we are not choosing to go down that road. We’re going down the road of subsidies and regulation. And so here we are, getting ready to have kind of a trade clash with, you know, again, one of our largest, best trading partners, in the European Union. And at the same time, we’re asking everybody else to have a trade war with China over what they’re doing in producing, you know, again, much needed in the world, renewable energy. 

And I’m just wondering—so, two things related to national security. One is, many in the trade realm are sort of wanting there to be this kind of universal declaration that climate change is a threat to national security. Not a threat multiplier, an actual threat. Because it, in theory, unleashes this Article 21 of the GATT. It lets you do anything that you want, break all of your trade rules, because you’re doing it in the name of national security. But there’s no guardrails there. And then, secondly, is the issue of whether these kind of partnerships, this way of looking at it in a more strategic way, whether the military and the national security piece is a way to solve what is right now a pretty insurmountable trade problem in the climate space.

KUMAR: Fascinating question. We are really fast running out of time, so this is going to be our last thought. And I’ll start with you, Varun. You could write a Ph.D. thesis on this topic. You were, until recently, an executive at Ørsted. So you know this issue very well. So let’s start with you on it and, again, use this as a less than a minute response to help us wrap up our conversation. 

SIVARAM: Yeah, look, for the clean energy industry, trade barriers are a disaster—except if you’re one of the protected folks in this country who have the protection to then, you know, thanks to subsidies or trade barriers, to build your product here. From the standpoint of climate action—and, Jennifer, I’m a huge fan. I’m really glad we’re meeting under these circumstances. From the standpoint of climate action, we want as few trade barriers as humanly possible, to keep clean energy cheap. I think at CFR, we are standing up multiple initiatives and all of them are going to examine tradeoffs. We have a RealEcon Initiative that examines economic tradeoffs. And there Matt Goodman, my counterpart who runs that, would probably say, you know, we’ve got multiple policy objectives here. 

We really want to beat China over the head in X, Y, and Z ways. And, oh yes, it would be nice to solve climate. And, as a result, you know, the way to square the circle is probably you let solar panels in, because there’s no real security threat from depending on China for solar panels. You have some trade barriers on other products because it’s a security threat. You can’t be too dependent, et cetera. And that may be the way forward. But, Jennifer, to your point, like I am petrified about the coming trade war on clean energy products. It will endanger climate progress. And the fewer trade barriers the better, from the standpoint of someone who is in the industry and desperately wants a global supply chain.

KUMAR: Meredith, again, your final thought. But maybe you can address this idea of saying this is not just a threat multiplier, it’s an actual threat. And kind of unlocking what that can mean.

BERGER: So one of the first executive orders that came from the president actually identifies this is a national security threat. So you’ve got—you’ve got something to go on. And as I was listening to your thoughts and your question, it made me also think of CFIUS, and some of the more advanced constructs of how we look at business arrangements, and where we can see security threats coming in some unanticipated ways. And so there’s a layering here that I think that we need to consider, not only in the straight-shot analysis of, yes, this is a national security threat as we look at climate, but all of the different ways that we can see players come in and affect everything, from the market to the makeup of the market, and how we layer that in for the full consideration. 

And so, certainly a primary to go on. But as we look at some of the places that we see some of our greatest energy focuses—we’re about 95 percent externally facing in terms of our energy dependency, for example. And so by design we need to make sure that we’re considering it there in terms of climate and security, because it goes back to that mission assurance piece. It’s that throughput. That’s how we connect with all of our energy partners there. And so I think that we have established that through practice, policy, and other places. And I think we need to start to consider it in the—in the play out in terms of the proximity of some of the people who are entering into this space.

KUMAR: Sherri.

GOODMAN: Well, thank you. Jennifer, thank you for the work you do. And noting that, you know, Mike Froman, the new president of CFR, comes out of the trade space and has elevated climate as one of his important issues. And he and I have been friends a long time, so I think that’s, you know, recognizing that. I think the national—you know, there’s some very careful tradeoffs that have to be made here between protecting, you know, our own domestic workers and our economy and, at the same time, not losing our critical allies and partners that are key to American leadership and our overall global security, which is broader than just the military force. The national security lens on this has to be preserved, but it can’t be overused because otherwise it becomes meaningless. And so it has to be for those things that have dedicated sort of national security consequences. And—anyway, it’s going to be a tough needle to thread. But I’m confident that smart people like you and others are going to help us think through how to do that. (Laughs.)

KUMAR; And, Sherri, just as we wrap up, that does seem like maybe a theme out of this panel, is that there is a reason for silos. There are things that are traditional national security issues and should remain as such. There are climate issues and should remain as such. There are development issues. But it’s the place where they meet where there’s real opportunity, and where I think this Council, and these members, and this fantastic panel are helping to drive that discussion. 

So please join me in thanking this fantastic panel. (Applause.) And thank you to all of you for being a part of it.

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.