FY 2024 DoD Spending on Climate Change – $5.1 Billion
In March 2023, the DoD published “Enhancing Combat Capability – Mitigating Climate Risk.”
“Increasing temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and more frequent, intense, and extreme weather conditions are impacting military readiness and imposing significant costs on the Department while exacerbating risk and creating new challenges to U.S. interests around the world. To train, fight, and win in this increasingly complex environment, the Department must consider the effects of climate change across the enterprise and invest accordingly. The FY 2024 President’s budget request prioritizes Departmental investments that enhance operational capability, mission resilience, and readiness.
The Department is committed to solutions that are mission essential, such as increasing platform efficiencies to mitigate logistics risk in contested environments, hardening critical infrastructure, and deploying new technologies that strengthen capability. The budget request reflects that commitment and includes $5.1 billion in investments that will bolster U.S. security in the near-term and lay the groundwork for a more capable future force. Each Service and many Defense Agencies play an important role in achieving these goals, as shown in Table 1.
TABLE 1. Funding by Component FY 2024 $ (in thousands)
Department of Army 1,357,085
Department of Navy 1,476,838
Department of Air Force 942,322
Defense-Wide 1,355,366
Total 5,131,6111” (That’s $5.1 Billion)
The Pentagon highlighted the importance of climate change spending to winning World War III with China. “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.”2