The U.S. Army published a report this week with over two dozen goals to address climate change, including plans to attain a fully electric tactical fleet by 2050 and the charging capability to make that happen.
The Army plans to take action across all of its operations, including installations, acquisition and logistics and training to prepare its branch for the effects of climate change. “The Army must adapt across our entire enterprise and purposefully pursue greenhouse gas mitigation strategies to reduce climate risks,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth wrote in the report.
The Army hopes to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 50% compared to 2005 levels by 2032, and eventually achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The Army also aims to install microgrids — local energy systems running on a variety of power sources — on all of its 130 installations by 2035. At the moment, 25 microgrids are “scoped and planned” through 2024.
The report also plans for the Army’s non-tactical vehicle fleet to be electric by 2035. The timeline for tactical vehicles to go electric is longer: The Army plans for these vehicles to go hybrid by 2035 and all-electric by 2050.
The Army also hopes to incorporate education on climate change in its training, including publishing lessons and best practices on climate change every two years beginning in 2024.
The Department of Defense is the single largest producer of greenhouse gases on earth, a point crypto advocates like to make when discussions about the environmental costs of bitcoin versus fiat currency come up.
The Paris Agreement, the world's main climate pact inked in 2015, left out any requirement for developed countries to report or reduce their military emissions, but that loophole was eventually closed.
Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.Image: Climate TRACE