Officials and experts warn that Pentagon plans to cut climate programs will hurt national security

(CNN) — As the Pentagon and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency set their sights on climate-related programs at the Defense Department, officials and experts are warning that slashing them could put US troops and military operations at risk, both in the near and long term.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other senior Pentagon officials have pointed to climate programs as a prime example of wasteful spending in the military. Hegseth told reporters in Germany in February that the Pentagon is “not in the business of climate change.”

Acting Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Salesses also made it clear that funding would be cut in a statement last month, saying the Pentagon will “cease unnecessary spending that set our military back under the previous administration, including through so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs.”

But some officials and experts argue such thinking is short-sighted.

“I think they’re stuck on the word ‘climate’ and not seeing the operational impacts,” one US official said, adding that the cuts will pose “readiness issues all around.”

In response to multiple questions from CNN about military readiness as it relates to climate programs and the cutting of funding to research and other efforts, Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot said the Defense Department “is working closely with DOGE to identify efficiencies and savings across the department on behalf of taxpayers while we restore the warrior ethos and refocus our military on its core mission of deterring, fighting and winning wars.”

“Climate zealotry and other woke chimeras of the Left are not part of that core mission,” Ullyot said.

Dr. Ravi Chaudhary, former assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy, installations and environment, told CNN that climate programs are not just important to giving the US military an edge on adversaries like China, but they also help keep service members and their families safe.

“Inaction at this point will put our readiness and the lives of our troops and their families at greater risk,” he said.

Indeed, officials who spoke to CNN pointed to a number of programs within the Defense Department that could technically be tagged as climate-related but have real operational impacts on the military.

Making military installations more resilient to extreme weather events, for example, could save the Pentagon billions in the long term as wildfires and hurricanes become more common and more intense. In 2019, the Air Force requested $5 billion to rebuild two major bases after hurricanes and flooding caused severe damage.

Extreme weather also impacts the ability of service members to train – one Senate aide familiar with the discussions around climate programs in the Pentagon told CNN there has been an increase of “black flag” training days, meaning troops cannot train because it’s too hot outside.

Chaudhary pointed to an array of other issues caused by changes in climate: Wildfires delaying launch cadences at Space Force bases in the US; melting permafrost in Alaska impacting US runways in the Arctic; building natural and artificial reefs around US installations to protect bases from storm surges; and energy efficiency efforts by the Air Force to reduce drag on US aircraft and save millions on fuel.

Will Rogers, the former senior climate adviser to the secretary of the Army who is now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, also warned the rhetoric coming from senior officials disparaging climate-related efforts could have a “paralyzing effect on critical modernization efforts” related to climate, the impact of which could be felt “for years.”

Opportunities for China

Outside of protecting US military installations and personnel, sources also warned that ignoring climate issues could damage the US’ national security interests abroad.

Chaudhary and the Senate aide both pointed to China’s willingness to fill any gaps left by the US, particularly with Pacific island nations that often consider climate change one of the most pressing threats facing their existence. A former senior Pentagon official told CNN that climate change is a top priority for many Pacific islands – many of which the US will depend on for facilities such as airplane runways and ports in the scenario of conflict with China. And if the US is unwilling to help those countries with climate resiliency, China will be more than happy to step in, the former senior official warned.

Rogers said that concern exists not only in the Pacific, but also in the Horn of Africa and Central and South America.

“If we say, ‘Hey, we’re not interested in climate change,’ our adversaries or near peer competitors – whatever you want to call them – are more than happy to slide into [partners’ and allies’] DMs and offer funding at our detriment,” the Senate aide said.

And it’s not just efforts being directly carried out by the Defense Department at risk; Pentagon leadership has also narrowed in on funding for academic research related to climate change and security issues abroad.

In a video posted on X last week, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell named programs that Musk’s DOGE had identified as wasteful spending within the Degense Depatment.

“How about this one: $1.6 million to the University of Florida to study social and institutional detriments of vulnerability in resilience to climate hazards in African Sahel,” Parnell said in the video. “You see folks – this stuff is not a core function of our military. This is not what we do, this is a distraction from our core mission.”

The project in question – more accurately called Social and Institutional Determinants of Vulnerability and Resilience to Climate Hazards in the African Sahel – does study climate change. But it specifically focuses on how people in the African Sahel could respond, and the risks it could pose not only to their population but also to the security of nations around them.

“Our project was attempting to understand how people are responding and with what consequences, right? I mean, if people starve, that’s really bad, obviously … but if you’re the US government and thinking in totally narrow self-interested terms, it’s also bad if people join radical groups because they are desperate, or migrate en masse to other areas and put pressure on refugee camps and borders or governments,” said Leonardo Villalón, the lead investigator of the project and founder of the University of Florida’s Sahel Research Group.

‘No communication’

“There was absolutely no question, no communication, no nothing about it ahead of time,” Villalón said. “So had someone reached out and said could you please explain to us what you’re doing and why this is worth doing, I would have happily spoken to anybody.”

Villalón added that despite Parnell’s insinuation that the Pentagon was saving $1.6 million by cutting the program, the majority of their grant had already been spent over the last few years as he and his team conducted research, traveling to the countries they were studying – which included Senegal, Niger, Chad and Mauritania – conducting interviews and surveys.

“In our case,” he said, “they saved no more than $200,000.”

The funding was provided under the Minerva Research Initiative, a Defense Department program launched in 2008 that provides academic grants to further social science research on topics “of strategic importance to the US national security policy,” its website previously said. As of Friday, the Minerva Research Initiative’s website was offline.

Villalón told CNN last week that multiple other climate-related research initiatives had their funding cut off. A Defense Department news release Friday afternoon said the Pentagon was “scrapping its social science research portfolio,” including research focused on “global migration patterns, climate change impacts, and social trends.” The release said the Defense Department expects to save “more than $30 million in the first year through the discontinuation of 91 studies.”

Ultimately, that research is meant to help the Pentagon get ahead of major events that could have serious security side effects, Villalón said.

“We live in a very interconnected world, and the US, like everybody else, has an interest in preventing areas of significant instability and suffering that have repercussions for the rest of the world. … What we’re trying to do is understand the situations in these places on the premise that a not knowing about it is going to come back and bite us, frankly,” he said.

“We have learned that elsewhere in the world – whether it’s in Central America, Afghanistan, or other places – we don’t gain by not understanding other parts of the world,” he added. “Ignorance is not a solution.”

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