In today’s episode of New Security Broadcast, ECSP Program Director Lauren Risi follows up with Iris Ferguson, the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Arctic and Global Resilience, on their previous conversation previewing the DoD delegation to COP28.

Deputy Assistant Secretary Ferguson discusses her takeaways from COP28 and the importance of listening to stakeholders outside the Pentagon. She also outlines some of DoD’s key energy and climate security priorities in 2024.

Read selected highlights of our discussion below and listen to the entire conversation here: Relief, Recovery, and Peace: A Follow-up Interview with DAS Iris Ferguson. 

On her experience at COP28

It’s important to say that COP had some notable agreements that were reached on recognizing the needs of those most impacted by climate change and on some real important goals around renewable energy generation and energy efficiency. And by and large, it was just an incredibly rich experience across the board. I was pretty staggered, quite frankly, by the sheer size of the event, from 90 to 100,000 participants.

There is a clear demand to have security interests represented as future cops, which is telling. We were sent to COP to signal to other countries about how seriously we’re thinking about climate security from a DOD perspective, but also a signal to industry that we’re looking for partners. And that was one of my other big takeaways, was just the sheer presence of industry. It was a mammoth amount of industry at this convening. And it was really great because we were able to have so many different conversations with different types and styles of industry that would be very hard to arrange otherwise.

On how DOD was received by partner and non-partner countries at the conference

I think that there was a real receptiveness to DOD’s presence. Yeah, we’re still considered a little bit of an outlier, in a way, and I think we were met with enthusiasm, but also a little bit of curiosity. People wondered what role are you playing here? And it was really great because we were able to tell the story, about us being there for a whole of government approach. The White House has been very clear that tackling the climate crisis requires a whole of government and whole of society approach. And the Department of Defense is certainly a part of that.

We heard how from our partners, how great it was that we are recognizing not only the impacts of climate change on our operations, but that we are being responsive to the demands that we’re hearing from partner countries, who are saying that climate risk is their number one national security threat.

On the insight gained from listening to stakeholders outside the Pentagon

We are one of the world’s largest and most far-flung organizations, and as such, we’re hearing and seeing firsthand the impacts of climate change. But we’re also really, interested in hearing the perspectives of others. We appreciated the work of the Munich Security Conference, in addition to the UAE, which put on several events that brought together nontraditional partners and provided a lot of ways to talk about climate security. One of the things I think was most interesting about COP28 were some of these industry engagements, which provided the opportunity to see folks that we might not have otherwise had access to in our regular course of business.

We also were able to speak to a number of academic institutions and scientists about climate issues that have application to the work we’re doing. I participated in an event with Woodwell Climate and Google that was focused on mapping permafrost in a unique way for the Arctic region. The project tried to understand where there are vulnerabilities by taking a collective look at permafrost in the Arctic and trying to predict where there are potential challenges with melting. That has implications for the part of my office around Arctic security and understanding how our operations are affected, as well as our partners and allies across the Arctic region.

On responding to criticism of the DoD’s focus on emissions reduction

I think that it’s pretty simple. DoD’s mission is to navigate strategic risks, and therefore we need to be mindful of all of the types of strategic risks, whether it be the impacts of climate change on our operations in the future or those we’re seeing in real time. Now, take, for example, the recent videos that you may have seen of the massive waves pummeling the military facility in the Marshall Islands, where you’re kind of seeing in real time the implications of sea level rise and increased storm surge on actual military capability. Or the recognition of the challenge of liquid fuels in general—that they are heavy and expensive to transport. And they also have complicated logistics tails.

So, I think that you can do both. I think you can look at efficiencies and reductions in emissions in tandem with warfighter advantage. And that’s that sweet spot; that’s what we’re looking for within the Department of Defense.

On DOD’s priorities moving forward into 2024

There are lots of important questions that arose from conversations with our allies: how are we using NATO and the alliance with NATO I regards to climate? Is NATO making sound decisions on energy resilience for the alliance? How can we work collectively with that alliance structure? How are we looking at battery standardization alongside our allies and partners? As we are looking to leverage new commercial sector technology, are we doing so in line with our partners and allies? And are we keenly focused on interoperability? That’s one area of huge emphasis for us. We’re also really heavily focused on working with the combatant commands and thinking through their climate risk.

Some of our combatant commands are really on the frontlines of hearing from our partners and understanding that climate change and climate risks are some of the most profound national security risks for these partners. So, how can we listen to that demand signal? And to that end, we’ve been working closely with our combatant commands to roll out our program that my office runs called the Defense Operational Resilience International Cooperation program (DORIC). It’s a bipartisan pilot program for the Department of Defense, to try to help respond to some of the specific needs around climate resilience. It’s the only tool that the Department of Defense has to help build the resilience of our partners and allies around energy security and around climate security.

And then, lastly, in just a couple of months, we’re rolling out a new DoD Arctic strategy. This talks about the changing strategic environment of the Arctic Region and the different motivations driving the new strategy. I am hopeful this will also bring some real focus to what we need to operate in a changing Arctic environment, what kind of capabilities we need to see, better communication, better threat detection, and how to work really closely with our allies and partners.