Climate Change and the Military: Examining the Pentagon’s Integration of National Security Interests and Environmental Goals under Clinton

Washington, D.C., May 26, 2022 – The Pentagon’s role in U.S. environmental policy expanded during the Clinton presidency as the Pentagon became a more active player at international climate change conferences and pressed for acceptance of policies favorable to the U.S. military, according to declassified documents posted today by the nongovernmental National Security Archive.

For example, the Defense Department pushed for military exemptions to the Kyoto Protocol and gained defenders for that provision among U.S. climate change negotiators despite calls from other countries and nongovernmental environmental organizations to close what they described as a “loophole.” Partly responding to pressure from these quarters, the Pentagon also committed to adhering to practices that were more environmentally responsible.

The records in today’s posting primarily focus on perspectives of U.S. diplomats and officials who realized the importance of issues like bunker fuels, but also describe the Defense Department’s energy consumption, role in environmental policy, and interagency cooperation on climate change issues. This e-book also includes views of President Clinton’s closest advisers and shows the importance to the U.S. delegation of exemptions won in Kyoto after the third Conference of Parties in 1997.

These documents have particular relevance as a recent Munich Security Conference report concluded that climate change was a more pressing threat than war, while the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted to consider how pipelines and other projects affect climate change and greenhouse gas emissions in their future assessments.[1]

Virtually all of the documents posted here are the result of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. They appear in the latest collection from the Digital National Security Archive, The Diplomacy of Climate Change: U.S. Policy from the Montreal Protocol to the Paris Agreement, 1981-2015, edited by Dr. Robert A. Wampler, consisting of 2,440 professionally catalogued and indexed records, plus numerous finding aids, published by ProQuest and available at many major libraries.

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“Consistent with national security”: The Pentagon’s integration of military objectives and environmental security

By Burkely Hermann

In an earlier posting, the National Security Archive featured declassified documents that provided insight into Pentagon demands for military exemptions during the 1997 Kyoto climate negotiations and U.S. efforts to convince other countries to agree to exempt specific military operations from emissions requirements. Those documents also highlighted the perspectives of U.S. negotiators, officials, and legislators who wanted bigger carve-outs for military operations and were critical of the Kyoto Protocol.

The documents in this post expand on that story by focusing on the Pentagon’s role in U.S. environmental policy, including sending representatives to international climate change conferences, and feature perspectives of U.S. officials who realized the importance of such matters as bunker fuels and the military’s role in environmental policy.

Throughout the 1990s, the Clinton administration emphasized climate change policy, making it even more a part of U.S. diplomacy and military action than in previous years. In April 1996, the State Department provided recommendations on temperature adjustments, global warming potentials, marine bunkers, international aviation fuels, and accounting for imported electricity in order to prepare national communications for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. [Document 1] Although the State Department’s position paper did not directly mention national security, the paper does make it clear that bunker fuels and international aviation fuels were an important issue for U.S. climate negotiators and notes their significance as “sources of emission.”

At the same time, the U.S. Congress considered appropriating funds to the Pentagon for fuel cells and electric vehicles. The military simultaneously doubled down on domestic environmental programs and emphasized “environmental security” as part of national security policy. Unfortunately, the declassified record appears to be virtually nonexistent when it comes to documenting internal debates within the U.S. military over these issues. As such, it is hard to know whether this was an initiative of specific military officials or a result of pressure from high-ranking officers, necessitating educated guesses.

This focus was spearheaded by officials such as Sherri W. Goodman, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security who had been appointed to lead the Pentagon’s Office of Environmental Security in 1993. She called for the use of environmentally sustainable technologies and declared that 1996 was an “exciting time for DOD’s environmental professionals.” She also noted the Pentagon’s collaboration with other U.S. agencies, like the State Department, Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of Energy.[2]

Supporting this was William J. Perry, the secretary of defense at the time. He argued in a speech to the Society of American Military Engineers in November 1996, that a “strong environmental program” was important for the Pentagon. He further said that environmental protection was critical to military “quality of life” and military readiness. He then stated that the military’s environmental program was a way to engage “militaries of new democracies.”[3] Not surprisingly, there was pushback, with Laurent R. Hourcle, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, who had served as the head of the Air Force’s Environmental Law division, complaining about environmental regulations which he called onerous. Hourcle admitted that in terms of such laws, military activities pollute, adding that “they always have and they always will.” For example, he noted that due to exhaust from land and sea vehicles, these emissions are a “form of pollution” and that many of the military’s weapons were built when environmental regulations were “much less stringent.”[4]

Bunker fuels and other military concerns remained on the minds of U.S. climate negotiators.

In January 1997, Jonathan C. Pershing, the U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change, wrote to Jan Corfee-Morlot, an official of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Pollution Prevention and Control Division. In a position paper attached to his letter, he described the U.S. support for changes to a tax on marine bunker fuels, implying opposition to these taxes, and noted that such taxes would affect global shipping. [Document 2] Although neither national security nor the military is mentioned in the paper, such taxes would have undoubtedly affected U.S. military operations due to global U.S. naval activities.

Climate negotiators also gladly invited the Pentagon to be a part of the U.S. climate negotiations, promoting their involvement in order to buttress arguments in favor of U.S. objectives. In July 1997, the State Department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Office of Global Change submitted a non-classified climate action report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat. In the report, the Pentagon is noted as the largest energy consumer within the federal government, accounting for “over 80 percent of total energy use” and 93% of equipment and vehicle energy use. The report also pointed to cooperation between the Pentagon and Department of Energy on energy efficiency, the military’s collaboration with other agencies on climate change issues, and involvement in developing biomass energy. [Document 3]

By 1997, the Pentagon recognized the military’s role in environmental pollution and greenhouse gases. There were calls to make the U.S. military’s environmental programs more effective, while using “innovative technologies” to cut costs and improve mission readiness.[5] In an article in the summer of 1997, Goodman called for a further emphasis on “environmental considerations,” describing it as critical to military activities, “quality of life,” and an important element of U.S. national security policy. She pointed to the Department’s collaboration with other federal agencies, countries, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on environmental matters. She went on to declare that the U.S. military is “lean, mean and green.”[6]

Goodman’s statements were further buttressed by her role in climate negotiations, as a delegate at the Kyoto conference in 1997 as well as a key Pentagon contributor to high-level interagency discussions about climate, including helping to develop the U.S. position on greenhouse gas commitments for developing countries in the soon-to-be-formed Kyoto agreement. [Document 4]

The Pentagon directly advocated for its interests during the Kyoto negotiations. This is evident in a September 1997 letter from Deputy Secretary of Defense John J. Hamre to Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. In the letter, he notes the Pentagon’s approval of President Clinton’s efforts on climate change, while calling on the State Department to “protect national security” with provisions within the Kyoto Protocol that allow military operations, “military tactical and strategic systems,” including those in space, and military readiness, to be exempt from emissions reductions. He ends the letter by touting the Pentagon’s reduction in energy use, describes the military as a “leader in energy conservation and efficiency,” and argues that reducing energy usage can be beneficial. He also states that the Pentagon would support energy reductions “to the extent consistent with national security.” [Document 5]

President Clinton’s advisers communicated the military’s concerns on climate change policy to him. On October 18, Eugene B. Sperling, Katie McGinty, Daniel Tarullo, Jim Steinberg, and Todd Stern told him that the Pentagon wanted exemptions to emission requirements because of the military’s concern that “fuel reduction requirements could hamper military operations.” However, these advisers stated that while they agreed with the military’s objective, they did not agree with having wide exemptions, and stated that they were working with the Pentagon to clarify their objectives and resolve differences. [Document 6]

Additional documents in 1997 and 1998 indicate the military’s involvement in environmental policy, integrating it as part of national security policy. In October 1997, the White House Office of Environmental Initiatives pointed out that the Pentagon was working with other federal agencies and industry groups on efforts to “develop, demonstrate and deploy housing technologies and practices” in order to build more sustainable, disaster-resistant, and safer homes. [Document 7] It would include homes for the military’s civilian personnel. In May 1998, it was noted that the U.S. military was involved in the interagency U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program, otherwise known as USGCRP. [Document 8]

While Goodman professed the need of the Pentagon to help create an “environmentally and economically sustainable future,” Rear Admiral Andrew A. Granuzzo voiced his approval for legislative efforts to exempt military training and readiness from emission reduction requirements. He also supported the qualified military exemptions within the Kyoto Protocol, describing them as necessary to “maintain military readiness.” Others, like environmental consultants Michael A. Katz and Jerry R. Hudson, called for the Pentagon to meet emission reduction goals without “affecting national security goals” while acknowledging that the U.S. military was the biggest single energy user in the U.S.[7]

U.S. climate negotiators accommodated the Pentagon’s desire to reduce emissions, sometimes only implicitly, rather than directly. For instance, in November 1998, Mark G. Hambley, the U.S. Special Negotiator on Climate Change, forwarded notes from Holly Kaufman, a Special Advisor in the Pentagon’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Environmental Security) and representative at the fourth Conference of Parties in Buenos Aires to other U.S. climate negotiators. In her notes, Kaufman describes discussions among delegates on environmental efficiency, flexible mechanisms within the Kyoto treaty, U.S. consideration of climate models, and other topics. Although she does not directly mention national security, her report does reveal the Pentagon’s interest in these topics which fits with the military’s focus on environmental security during this time period. [Document 9]

Such efforts were part of the Clinton administration push to emphasize climate change as central to national policy. This inevitably involved the military. Thus, Kaufman was not the only Pentagon representative in Buenos Aires. The Pentagon’s Associate General Counsel, Dan Benton, and the Defense Representative on the White House Climate Change Task Force, John Gibson, were also present.[8] Gibson was senior counsel on the White House Climate Change Task Force, coordinating policy development and strategic communications planning for an “interagency task force to address global warming.” Kaufman, on the other hand, managed a national security and climate change portfolio at the Pentagon.[9]

A series of State Department documents in November 1998 describe the involvement of Pentagon representatives as part of the U.S. climate change negotiating team in Buenos Aires. These documents indicate the Pentagon’s interest in technology development, technology transfer, climate observation and research. This also manifested itself in U.S. pushback to suggestions by Austria, on behalf of European Union countries, that bunker fuels be included in national totals. Such an action, if it was implemented, would have reverted the exemptions won by the Pentagon in Kyoto. [Documents 10 and 11]

Continued emphasis by U.S. negotiators on national security goals remained paramount. On November 12, 1998, Stuart E. Eizenstat, the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs, spoke to the fourth Conference of Parties to U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, calling for environmental cooperation to combat climate change, and pointed to the flexible mechanisms within the Kyoto agreement. After stating that the U.S. would sign the Kyoto Protocol, he stated that the U.S. is “guided by the firm belief that the signing will serve our environmental, economic, and national security goals.” [Document 12] Such a statement not only refers to the Pentagon winning military exemptions in Kyoto the previous year but retention of those exemptions during the conference in 1998.

The Pentagon continued to be focused on the same issues addressed by the exemptions gained in Kyoto. In June 1999, Kevin Green of the Department of Transportation[10] recalled discussions with Jose Romero, a Swiss climate representative, and others, on “international bunker fuels.” [Document 13] Continued importance of this issue makes clear that military goals were still on the minds of U.S. delegates during climate change negotiations. Such a focus was not a surprise since Kaufman and Benton were again Pentagon representatives at the fifth Conference of Parties in Bonn, Germany. They were joined by Bruce DeGreta, the Pentagon’s Deputy Assistant Secretary, and the Pentagon’s Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Environmental Quality, Bruce DeGrazia. Kaufman and DeGrazia would represent the Pentagon during the climate conference in The Hague the following year, along with David “Dave” T. Peters, director of the Pentagon’s Worldwide Pollution Prevention Programs.[11]

A memorandum from Hambley in June 1999 noted that the proposed decision on bunker fuels was a controversial issue for non-governmental organizations. He further stated that Department of Transportation and Pentagon reports provided the “ins-and-outs” of the discussion. [Document 14] In July 1999, Duncan Marsh, foreign affairs officer for the State Department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Office of Global Change,[12] indicated that U.S. negotiators saw this issue as important. In a message to David Sandalow, then at the Council on Environmental Quality on the National Security Council staff, he called for possible redrafting of responses to environmental non-governmental organizations on carbon sinks, bunker fuels, and other issues, asking him for a quick response. Sandalow would later become the Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs on October 28, 1999.[13]

Marsh included a summary, by Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Frank E. Loy and White House Climate Change Task Force chair Roger Ballantine, of the national security exemptions secured by the Pentagon in Kyoto, and reporting of those emissions. Loy and Ballantine claimed that the exemptions resolved “unique challenges” from international aviation and maritime activities but called for international action to reduce these emissions that did not dislodge the exemptions. This document was also sent to Benton, one of the Pentagon representatives at the conference, showing that he was in the loop of climate change policymakers.

Another challenge advocates for military exemptions faced came from environmental activists. One of the documents Marsh forwarded to Sandalow is a letter from representatives of groups such as US Climate Action Network, Environmental Defense Fund, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and Sierra Club.[14]Their letter criticizes the U.S. climate change negotiating strategy. This is expanded in an appended report which, in part, calls for the closure of the “international bunker fuel loophole.” [Document 15] Such an approach, however, did not recognize that the U.S. was committed to retaining such exemptions, a position supported by climate negotiators, politicians, and officials alike.

In August 1999, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and Fisheries R. Tucker Scully told Loy about claims raised by environmental non-governmental organizations. He worried that attempts to resolve the issue around bunker fuels could “raise questions about the exemption for military operations.” He further defended the approach by U.S. diplomats, saying they had worked to refute claims that the Kyoto agreement damages national security, and hoped that such organizations could be satisfied by pointing to future action by U.N. organs on bunker fuels. [Document 16] By September 2000, however, bunker fuels were still a topic of discussion during climate negotiations, as an unclassified memorandum from Hambley shows. In an attachment to the memorandum, one of the Pentagon representatives, Dave Peters, reports on responses from Swiss and French delegations on the topic of bunker fuels during the conference negotiations in The Hague. [Document 17] The Swiss demanded international action by the ICAO and IMO on emissions, while the French, representing the European Union, emphasized the importance of greenhouse gases emitted from “international transportation” to the Kyoto Protocol. They also urged further international cooperation on climate change.

Pentagon concern over greenhouse gas emissions remained. Congressional appropriations instructed the military to study large temperature changes in the Arctic Ocean and their possible “impact on global climate change” and comply with Annex V of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution by Ships (MARPOL).[15] At the same time, Roy Salomon, a Pentagon representative in Kyoto in 1997, raised concerns in a summer 1999 article in the Federal Facilities Environmental Journal. He pointed to growing U.S. emissions between 1990 and 1997 and detailed Pentagon energy usage, while noting a challenge during the negotiations was to ensure that emissions reductions did not negatively impact “competitiveness” and military readiness. He touched on other points relating to Defense Department concerns, including the need to ensure that military operations and training were not affected by new reductions (which the Clinton administration recognized) and the Pentagon’s efforts to “improve energy efficiency.” Finally, he stated that the Kyoto agreement represented a “step toward” meeting U.S. objectives “for environmental security and regional stability.”[16]

In the years that followed, military leaders continued to cast themselves as environmentally responsible and committed to environmental security. This included an assertion that the U.S. Navy would have “environmentally sound” ships, a commitment to researching a reduction in chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) use, and calls for more efficient fuel use and alternative fuels. It is probable that these actions transpired, considering that the U.S. Navy declared that its aircraft carriers were “CFC-free” in April 2009, even though discharges by the U.S. Navy of substances that deplete the ozone has been reported.[17] Some sources even asserted that environmental stewardship was integrated into military operations in Balkan War. Military leaders like Rear Admiral Larry C. Baucom professed environmental security and environmental protection to be compatible with Pentagon objectives.[18]

However, the U.S. military retained an arsenal of over 500,000 tons of munitions and consumed millions of gallons of gasoline, with over 2 million gallons consumed by the Army Test and Evaluation Command alone in fiscal year 1999. Because of this, there continued to be calls for military vehicles to conserve fuel and military leaders arguing for a balance between “environmental responsibilities” and the demands of military readiness, necessitating partnerships with various organizations.[19]

All the while, the Pentagon continued to believe that the climate change negotiations were an important way to achieve military objectives. Senior military officers communicated this point regularly, for instance through Bruce Harding at the Pentagon’s Office of the Deputy Under Secretary for Defense, Installations and Environment, who served as a U.S. military representative at climate change conferences in 2001 and 2002.[20]

Since then, the Pentagon has continued efforts to be more “green” and “sustainable” while still pressing for recognition of military requirements. During much of the Bush-43 Presidency, although the White House belittled climate change concerns, there were efforts elsewhere in the Administration, including at DOD, to address the crisis. For example, the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment commissioned a controversial 23-page report in 2003 which stated that climate change should be a “U.S. national security concern.”[21] In the Obama administration, attention to the environment grew substantially, including the enactment of policies such as expanding investment in renewable energy on military bases. Despite full-blown climate change denialism effectively becoming national policy in the next administration, specific initiatives taken under Obama remained in effect. The Biden administration has continued to implement a return to treating climate change as a genuine threat and recognizing a role for the military in addressing it. Most recently, the U.S. Army’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Installations, Energy and Environment issued a 20-page climate strategy, while the Army’s Futures and Concepts Center, other military organs, and top military brass, asserted that they want the military to be more “green”.[22]

Even so, this has been countered by recent incidents like a military fuel tank leakage in Hawaii which polluted drinking water, forcing thousands to leave their homes and sickening thousands more. In addition, some have criticized the military’s current climate plan as a form of greenwashing.[23] In any case, the Pentagon will continue to integrate environmental policy and national security policy into one, as they have done in the past.