Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made it clear on Sunday that as long as he is in charge, the Department of Defense would not be devoting energy and resources to combatting climate change.
Hegseth was responding to a post from CNN National Security reporter Haley Britzky, who had published a piece earlier that day decrying the Trump administration’s plans to abandon climate-related programs within the Defense Department.
“NEW: The DOD and DOGE have said they plan to cut climate programs in the Pentagon,” Britzky posted via X, adding, “But officials & experts are warning that climate efforts at DOD are directly linked to military readiness, and say cuts could put troops and military operations at risk.”
NEW: The DOD and DOGE have said they plan to cut climate programs in the Pentagon — but officials & experts are warning that climate efforts at DOD are directly linked to military readiness, and say cuts could put troops and military operations at risk. https://t.co/UntIvOeUNf
— Haley Britzky (@halbritz) March 9, 2025
From Britzky’s article:
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other senior Pentagon officials have pointed to climate programs as a prime example of wasteful spending in the military. Hegseth told reporters in Germany in February that the Pentagon is “not in the business of climate change.”Acting Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Salesses also made it clear that funding would be cut in a statement last month, saying the Pentagon will “cease unnecessary spending that set our military back under the previous administration, including through so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs.”
Britzky went on to quote Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot as saying that the DOD planned to work closely with DOGE in order to determine which programs were not mission critical, adding, “Climate zealotry and other woke chimeras of the Left are not part of that core mission.”
Hegseth responded to Britzky’s post, saying, “John is, of course, correct. The @DeptOfDefense does not do climate change crap. We do training and warfighting.”
DOD spokesperson and Army Ranger veteran Sean Parnell shared a video a week earlier about the Pentagon’s plans to work with DOGE to identify wasteful spending, and he specifically mentioned at least one climate-related initiative.
“How about this one: $1.6 million to the University of Florida to study social and institutional detriments of vulnerability in resilience to climate hazards in African Sahel. You see folks – this stuff is not a core function of our military. This is not what we do, this is a distraction from our core mission,” he said.
