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Pentagon Not Using Leading Practices to Assess Water Scarcity at Installations
By Marc Kodack
The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) latest audit of DoD installations focused on “the extent to which DoD has assurance that it is using reliable information to identify installations at risk of water scarcity.” GAO found that DOD does not have “assurance that [it] is using accurate and reliable information regarding which installations are at risk for water scarcity.” GAO examined multiple DoD and military service assessments that focused on or included water scarcity. Some of these assessments included the effects of climate change on water availability. GAO collected installation information on water scarcity from field visits or through questionnaires from a total of 17 installations. The installations selected were previously identified by DoD or the Services as having water vulnerabilities or scarcity. (more…)
Christine Parthemore Chosen as New CEO of the Council on Strategic Risks
The Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) – the parent institution of the Center for Climate and Security (CCS) – is pleased to announce Christine Parthemore as its new Chief Executive Officer.
Christine has deep experience addressing issues ranging from the security implications of climate change to countering weapons of mass destruction, including in the U.S. Department of Defense, security think tanks, and academia. She is also Director of CSR’s Janne E. Nolan Center on Strategic Weapons and Manager of CSR’s Climate-Nuclear-Security Project, and was a founding Board Member of CSR.
National Academy of Sciences Studies Community Resilience
By Marc Kodack
Dozens of systems, indicators, indices, measures, or frameworks, exist to assess community resilience, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s community resilience indicator. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, released a report late last year in which it evaluated many of these existing efforts to understand how resilience was being measured. The goal was to use this research to help communities evaluate their resilience efforts and how progress can be determined. Four recommendations are made to assist communities in their resilience efforts including (1) engage all community members and organizations in resilience goals, priorities, leadership, and measurement; (2) Measure resilience across multiple dimensions, e.g., usefulness to decision making, natural/built environment; (3) Track progress using the community selected measures; and (4) convince participants to support resilience because investments they decide to make have multiple, community benefits. The Gulf of Mexico region is used as a specific example with its own recommended actions that should be implemented. (more…)
GAO: Climate Resilience Is Not Being Addressed by the Federal Government
By Marc Kodack
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified climate change as a high risk to federal agencies beginning in 2013, and has continued that assessment with its most current list of high risks released in late 2019. The list is updated every other year at the start of a new Congress. According to the GAO, the “High Risk List has served to identify and help resolve serious weaknesses in areas that involve substantial resources and provide critical services to the public.” The reason that climate change was included, is that the GAO has determined that it represents a significant fiscal risk to the federal government. This is due to the projection that if climate resilience is not increased today, significantly higher costs will be incurred in the future to address damage and destruction caused by climate change. Of the 62 recommendations that GAO has made concerning climate risk since 2013, 25 remain open as of December 2018. Thus, the GAO concludes, “…the federal government has not made measurable progress to reduce its fiscal exposure to climate change.” The lack of progress has informed two, 2019 GAO audits related to climate resilience – one for the federal government released in October, and another for the Department of Defense (DoD) released in June. (more…)