Military Not Doing Enough to Prepare Bases for Climate Change, GAO Warns

"The Pentagon has been praised for starting to address global warming, but a report for Congress finds the risks aren't tracked well enough at facilities overseas."

"The auditing arm of Congress has warned that the military is failing to adequately plan for the risks that climate change poses to hundreds of overseas facilities, and that engineers at these sites rarely include foreseeable impacts in project designs.

The Government Accountability Office, Congress's nonpartisan oversight agency, wrote that while the Defense Department has identified that climate change and its effects will threaten many of its facilities, these installations are not consistently tracking costs they're already incurring because of extreme weather.

'As a result,' the report says, 'the military services lack the information they need to adapt infrastructure at overseas installations to weather effects associated with climate change and develop accurate budget estimates for infrastructure sustainment.'"

Nicholas Kusnetz reports for InsideClimate News December 14, 2017.