Commanders spoke about operational planning and budgeting for missions and future force structure. This 90 minute event was hosted by the environmental and energy study institute. Good afternoon, everyone. I am the director of the environmental and energy study institute. I am delighted to welcome you to the briefing on the National Security implications of Climate Change. Briefingnored for this to happen and at this very timely point in time. As we look at these important issues. I want to express my gratitude and enthusiasm for the partnership that we have in terms of bringing in this briefing through the partnership with the Henry M Jackson foundation, as well as the center for climate and security. I wanted to be sure and mention that we are joined by some members from the Henry M Jackson foundation today, including the president of the Jackson Foundation board as well as laura, the foundations executive director. Thank you very, very much for your support and your long understanding and visionary approach to this important issue and in carrying out the legacy who tor Scoop Jackson for whom the foundation was set up to continue his unfinished work in the areas in which he for so long played a key leadership role. While he was in the congress and especially in the senate where he chaired the Senate NaturalResources Committee and where he took an important leadership role in regard to international affairs, education, human rights, environment and Natural Resources management and importantly, the whole role of Public Service. We are very, very grateful to the Jackson Foundation and very grateful to the center for climate and security with whom we are partnering in regard to this briefing. We are going to be hearing from a number of people who have a long history and who have given much, much thought to this important issue of climate, what does this mean for National Security, what are the angles that need to be thought about , and to start the briefing, i want to introduce colonel tom watson, the director of Government Affairs for the center for climate and security. [applause] thank you very much. The center for climate and security is delighted to coast cosponsor this event today. Thanks to our esi partners for your hard work in putting this together. I would like to thank each and every one of you for joining us today. This is a briefing to discuss the role of Climate Change as a threat multiplier in the geopolitical landscape and the implications it has for National Security. This briefing will explore the Risk Management and planning considerations facing the department of defense as it seeks to maintain force readiness and bolster infrastructure resilience. We think you will find todays panel timely and informative on this important issue. The center is a nonpartisan security and Foreign Policy institute with a distinguished Advisory Board of nationally recognized military, security, and foreignpolicy experts. Some of whom are here today as part of our panel. The center for climate and security envisions a climate resilient security landscape. To further the goal, the center facilitates policy Development Processes and dialogs like todays panel, as well as providing analysis, conducting research, and acting as a resource hub in the climate and security field. It is now my pleasure to introduce the moderator for todays event, the honorable john conger, a member of the Center Advisory for security Advisory Board and is a consultant for the independent Strategies Llc and nonresident Senior Advisor at the center for strategy and international studies. He served as the Principal Deputy under secretary of defense comptroller we provided advice to the secretary of defense on budgetary and financial matters. He has overseen energy, installation, and environmental policy throughout the dod, the assistant secretary of defense for energy, installation and environment. He served as the undersecretary of defense for installations and the environment and the assistant undersecretary for assistant deputy for the environment. He has served as a staff member a congress, including professional staff of the House International relations committee. Prior to that, he was employed in the private sector as an Aerospace Engineer and defense analyst, supporting the office of secretary of defense. He has multiple degrees from m. I. T. And a masters from George Washington university. Ladies and gentlemen, its my pleasure to introduce the moderator for today, mr. John conger. Sir, the podium is yours. [applause] how are we doing today . Good . Its a little warm. We are going to keep the door open so the airflow is ok, but we are going to get background noise. Thats the tradeoff you are all going to have. Thank you for being here for what i hope is going to be a pretty enlightening discussion. You heard the reference to how timely this was. I want to thank President Trump for making news last week on this topic. We did not plan that in advance. But nonetheless, as we go forward with the change in administration, from president obama to President Trump, the apparent changes in opinion on Climate Change, we cannot help but wonder whether this topic is still one the dod is going to care about. Whether this was politics at the beginning or whether it is a National Security issue that drives dod interest and the impacts of Climate Change. I will quote secretary mattis, he said i agreed that the increased maritime access to the arctic, rising sea levels, impacts our security situation. I will ensure the department continues to be prepared to conduct operations today and in the future and we are prepared to address a changing climate on our threat assessment resources and readiness. That is the bottom line. The dod will adapt to changes in the climate and carry out its mission. The dod knows what they are doing and they will be measured in response to this risk. There is a lot you can do to mitigate risk once you acknowledge it exists. We have experts, each of whom is a member of the board of advisors and each of whom are uniquely qualified to address these points. They will talk about why dod cares about Climate Change, how it affects the mission, and the ability to carry out the Mission Today and in the future. Im going to introduce everybody and call on them to make opening comments. Then we will do questions and answers. Im going to ask the panelists talk about any facet of the problem that they wish, but to include in their thoughts one starting question to blend in with their intro. In the absence of politics, how would dod approach this issue . Setting aside the focus by president obama and the shift of focus from President Trump, that is sort of an entrylevel thought. Im going to introduce everyone all at once and pass it to them to make comments. Immediately to my left is sherri goodman, a member of our Advisory Board and senior fellow with the wilson center. Prior to this, she was ceo and president of the Ocean Leadership consortium and counsel for the senate for center of analysis. Before that in the pentagon she was the deputy undersecretary of defense for Environmental Security and few people have done more at the nexus of climate and security, starting with the National Security and threat of Climate Change report in 2007. To her left, general ron keys is on the climate and securities Advisory Board and chairman of the board that put out the study i just referenced. He authored a report on the mission issued by the center and there should be copies on the front table. General keyes is a retired fourstar general from the air force. He retired in 2007 after completing a career of more than 40 years. He is a command pilot was more than 4000 hours in Fighter Aircraft and 300 hours of combat time. He has seen climate challenges around the world and confronting challenges at joint base langley here at home. The next guess is a professor of engineering at maryland focusing on Water Resources and Disaster Management and is a fellow at the texas a m Hagler Institute for advanced studies working on urban flooding in the United States. He joined the faculty of you university of maryland after he retired as regular general and served in the federal government. He is a former dean of the faculty and academic programs at the Industrial College of the armed forces and former dean of the Academic Board at the u. S. Military academy at west point where he was a professor of jockey and the first head of the department of geography. She is a member of the center and previously a 31 year career in the u. S. Navy. She commanded destroyer squadron 28 and expeditionary striker of two and was a member of the navy Climate Change and energy task forces. After retirement, she chaired a group for a Sea Level Rise preparedness and resilience in a Planning Project for the government. Thank you for being here and i will turn it over to you for opening comments. Thank you. It is great to be here with all of you today. Thank you to the Jackson Foundation, the rockefeller and eesi for organizing this. Many of you look around for carol and can or when we could hardly fill a room on this subject, let alone standing room only. 30 years ago, i was the youngest and only female staff member on the Senate Armed Services committee. At a time when senator jackson still served in the senate, i worked for senator nunn who had just become chairman in the Armed Services committee. Senator john warner of virginia was the ranking republican. There were many days and many times when there was absolutely no difference between democrats and republicans on the issues we worked. I come to speak to you about this subject from a long, bipartisan tradition that has been the hallmark of National Security policymaking and practice in this country. That has been around for decades and which i think is incredibly important to the subject and many others in National Security that we face today because we are living in a time that is highly polarized. 30 years ago, what was more common was the Armed Services committee, they could barely spell the word environment. That was not my portfolio at all. As most of my colleagues here who are old enough like me, i was more like the age of many of you in the audience at that time and we were working on things like Nuclear Weapons and arms control. Military readiness, all of these issues are still very important. In the early post cold war time, we began to understand the practices of the Industrial Age that had led to environmental challenges. And so the Armed Services committees, both sides of the aisle, republicans and democrats , created in the Defense Department something that still endures today, called the Strategic Environmental Research and develop program. Which took research and a science capability this is very important. A sort of underlying factor here that science, research, Technology Development is a core component of everything we do. Everything that happens in National Security undergirds our understanding of National Security. In National Security, you start with what are your threats . In the nuclear age, we understood the nuclear threat. We spent millions of dollars of americas gdp to defend and the terror what we considered deter what we considered to be highest consequences but low probability threat of an out of the blue strike from the soviet union. Now with the climate age, we in Climate Change, arguably, an equally high consequence and higher probability threat, we think of it in terms of risk. What are the risks . We plan and program and budget accordingly to reduce those risks to our forces in operating around the world. Now, when we look around the world today, we see there are many threats. Of course, terrorism right on our doorstep almost every day. Russia, rising china, and among those threats is Climate Change. The environmental consideration within defense has always been a bipartisan consideration, dating back 30 years ago from what i mentioned starting with considerations of how to address environmental problems during the cold war and early post cold war period. There were a number of programs which generals and admirals here were responsible for administrating during their time in dod, to clean up military devices or comply with environmental law. As new challenges emerge, we approach each one in its own right. In the last two decades, it has become very clear that Climate Change is one of those significant threats to americas National Security. That is why, 10 years ago this year, when i was at cna, we formed the military Advisory Board that general keyes now chairs and general galway serves on an admiral phillips is associated with, that many other leading generals and admirals me in the Armed Services have been associated with. To understand what are the National Security objectives we have characterized this as a threat multiplier for instability in fragile regions of the world. We see it. We see how the geostrategic posture is affected by Climate Change. Just take the arctic. We have a whole new ocean that has been created and opened up within the last decade as a result of the melting, rapid melting of sea ice in the arctic. Now we have to have more capability to operate in the arctic in ways we did not need to do a quartercentury ago. We see a potential rush for resources as there is more access to them and opportunities for additional fishing, navigation, transport, tourism that bring opportunities but also risk. Thats an important way Climate Change is changing our world and changing how we have to position our armed forces. To address that, as well as other capabilities. Important, extreme weather events. We have seen weather events of various types around the world. We now have to position our forces to be able to respond to increased typhoons, increased extreme weather events, storms, that are creating new risks, particularly in the asiapacific, which some might call disaster alley of that region. Where there are extreme risks and combined with the urbanization we see with the largest cities in the world and People Living at very low lying areas come everywhere from anglo to the philippines bangladesh to the philippines that are increasing risk when there is an extreme storm or sealevel rise. Thirdly, and i want to leave some time here for my fellow panelists. We see that it is affecting our military posture at home, our installations are at risk along the Atlantic Coast due to a combination of sea rise in storm surge and coastal erosion. That is not a partisan issue. That is affecting us wherever our coastal military installations are located. If we want to continue to operate, we need to address the infrastructure. Today is the day the administration is talking about infrastructure. We have a lot of infrastructure at military bases that need to be hardened and secured against rising seas and extreme weather events. Much of this connects with the communities. Wherever our military bases are, they are part of the community and that brings us into building more resilient communities to addressing these risks because bases are part of the community. In norfolk, where people cannot get to the base because of nuisance flooding that occurs on a regular basis, that is a risk for our military and the community. We see these extreme weather events, storm surge, increased drought. We know underlying drought was a source of conflict