Visit a library each year from right after they are built to 10 years or 20 years later . Is a sharp decline after the first 18 months or so at this very timely point in time as we look at this important issue. Gratitudeexpress my 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. To be sure and mentioned we are joined by some members from the Henry M Jackson foundation today, including the president of the Jackson Foundation board as well as the foundations executive director. Thank you very, very much for your support. I would like to thank you to your visionary approach to this important issue and in carrying out the legacy of senator scoop for him the foundation was set up to continue his unfinished work in the areas in which he for so long played a key leadership role. Whereally in the senate he chaired the Senate NaturalResources Committee and where he took an important leadership role in regard to international affairs, communication, environment and Natural Resources management and importantly, the whole role of public service. Grateful to very 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 colonel tomoduce 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 answer cosponsor this event today. Ks to our esi partners thanks to our esi partners for putting this together. I would like to thank each and every one of you for joining us today. The National Security information for Climate Change, it is 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 Senate Advisory for security avisory board and is consultant for the independent Strategies Llc and nonresident Senior Advisor at the center for national 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. Energy,verseen installation and environmental policy throughout the dod, the assistant secretary of defense for energy, installation and environment. He serves as the undersecretary of defense for installations and the environment and the assistant undersecretary for assistant deputy for the environment. Prior to that, he was employed in the private sector as an Aerospace Engineer and defense analyst, supporting the office of secretary of defense. 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] we doing today . 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. Nonetheless, as we go forward with the change in from president obama to President Trump, the apparent changes in opinion on Climate Change, we cannot help but wonder whether this topic is still won the dod is going to care about. Whether this was politics at the beginning or whether it is a National Security issue that and theod interest impacts of Climate Change. Im going to quote secretary matus, secretary trumps secretary of defense mr. Trumps secretary of defense. Access to thetime arctic and others impact our security situation. 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 effects 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. 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 present president obama and the shift of focus from President Trump, that is sort of an entrylevel thought. Im going to introduce everyone once. Sherritely to my left is goodman, a member of our Advisory Board and senior fellow with the wilson center. She was ceo and president of the Ocean Leadership consortium and counsel for the senate for center of analysis. At the pentagon she was the secretary undersecretary of defense at few people have done more at the nexus of climate and , starting with the National Security and threat of Climate Change report in 2007. Isher left, general ron keys on the climate and securities Advisory Board and chairman of the ecma Advisory Board, 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. A retiredyes is fourstar general from the air force. He retired in 2007 after completing a career of more than 40 years. Is a command pilot was more than 4000 hours in Fighter Aircraft and 300 hours of combat time. Hes seen climate challenges confrontingorld and challenges at joint base Langley Langley useless here at home. The next guess is a professor of engineering focus 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 marylandniversity of after he retired as regular general and served in the federal government. Professor gallo is the former dean of faculty at the Industrial College of the armed forces and former dean of the Academic Board at the Us Military Academy at west point where he was a professor of geography and the first head of the department of john murphy. And last but not least, rear admiral and phillips and phillips had a 31 year career as a Service Worker officer and 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 the sealevel rise preparedness and resilience, so thanks for being here and i will turn it over to sherry for comments. Is great to be here with all of you today. To the Jackson Foundation, the rockefeller and ees i for organizing this. Many of you look around for carol and can or when we could hardly fill a room on this subject, let i for organizing this. Alone standing room only. , i was the youngest and only female staff member on the Senate Armed Services committee. Jacksone when senator 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. 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 ,his subject from a long bipartisan tradition that has been the hallmark of National Security policymaking and practice in this country. For decadesn around incredibly think is important to the subject and many others in National Security we face today because we are living in a time that is highly incredibly polarized. 30 years ago, what was more 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 born like many of you in the audience then and at that time, we were working on things like Nuclear Weapons and arms control. Military readiness, all of these issues are still very important. Post cold war time, we began to understand the practices of the Industrial Age that had led to environmental challenges. ,he Armed Services committees both sides of the aisle, republicans and democrats created in the Defense Department something that still indoors 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 occurs in natural security in National Security undergirds our understanding of National Security. You start with what are your threats . In the nuclear age, we understood the nuclear threat. Of dollars ofons americas gdp to defend and deter will be considered to be the highest consequence but low probability threat of an out of the blue strike from the soviet union. Now with the climate age, we equally high and consequence and higher , we think ofhreat 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. When we look around the world we see there are many threats. Of course, terrorism right on our doorstep almost every day. China, and among those threats is Climate Change. 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 time. Programse a number of which generals and admirals here were responsible for administrating during their time, to clean up military aces 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 natural americas National Security. , when i ago this year was at cna, we formed the military Advisory Board general keys now chairs and general galway serves on an admiral phillips is associated with, that many other leading generals and admirals me Armed Services have been associated with. To understand what are the objectives ity we have characterized this as instability in fragile regions of the world. 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. 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. Way climateportant change is changing our world and changing how we have to position our armed forces. Second is important an extreme weather events. We have seen weather events of various types around the world. We want to position our forces to be able to respond to typhoons, increased extreme weather events, storms, risks,e creating new particularly in the asiapacific, which some might call disaster alley of that region. 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 everywhere from anglo to the philippines that are increasing is an extremee 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 at risk alongare the Atlantic Coast due to a combination of sea rise in storm surge and coastal erosion. At risk along the atlanticthat is not a parti. That is affecting us wherever our coastal military installations are located. If we want to continue to operate, we need to address the and for structure. Today is the day the administration is talking about infrastructure. 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 s becauseg these risk 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. See these extreme weather surge, increased desert of acacia and and drought. We know underlying drought was a source of conflict and a source leading to the conflicts in syria and the arab spring uprising. Byt has been well documented we need toars that better understand how prolonged drought is going to be a source of instability and conflict in the future as the world experiences more water stress and scarcity, some of it aggravated by Climate Change and water mismanagement. These are all nonpartisan, bipartisan issues that require us to harness the capabilities across a range of government agencies. We cant all be working on the Armed Services committee, so you are working on committees that span a number of budgets and jurisdictions. The Research Done across number , including the department of defense and apartment of energy, its all important as well as moving our nation forward. We have always been leaders in the next wave of energy innovation. We have that opportunity now while caring for those who have to make the transition from fossil energy into new forms of energy as we make our country and world more secure, staying at the forefront of that curve is going to be increasingly important. We have the ability to do that and we are doing it already today, particularly in the department of defense as we figure out how to power the force for the future, looking at solargrids to winged and to power our Forward Operat