Gaffney testifies on Kyoto

Director of the Center for Security Policy

on

THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE KYOTO PROTOCOL
FOR U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY

before the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee

13 May 1998

Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate the opportunity to address this distinguished Committee on an issue about which we both have cause to be deeply concerned: The potentially serious, and adverse, impact on the U.S. military — and the national security more generally — of the Kyoto Protocol to the Global Climate Change Treaty (GCCT).

Let me say at the outset that I approach this subject from the perspective of a policy practitioner in defense and foreign policy matters, not as a climatologist. I leave to others the argument as to whether the available evidence of global warming — and man’s responsibility for whatever there is of such warming — justify efforts to effect substantial reductions in the emission of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases.”

For what it is worth, however, my layman’s view is that the available data remains so inconclusive, if not dispositive against the global warming hypothesis, as to argue against making such efforts at the expense of America’s economic growth and the quality of life of its citizens. At a minimum, it seems safe to say that the case for an impending man-induced climate catastrophe is wholly inadequate to justify any significant reduction in the readiness and future combat capabilities of the U.S. military.

The question that I would therefore like to address with you is whether the Kyoto Protocol will, in fact, have any such impact on the Nation’s defense posture. Regrettably, I believe that the answer is surely in the affirmative.

The Goodman Memorandum

Interestingly, until the Kyoto meeting last December, that was the position of the Clinton Defense Department, as well. As you know, Mr. Chairman, in September 1997, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Environmental Security, Sherri Goodman, circulated to the Pentagon’s senior leadership a memorandum warning that: “Any restriction on allowable carbon dioxide emissions for [tactical and strategic] systems will affect DoD military operations and readiness.”

The Goodman memo began with an indication of the reason why any mandatory reductions in CO₂ emissions would fall disproportionately upon the Defense Department:

“The United States is the world’s largest source of carbon dioxide emissions, approximately 20% of the world total, resulting primarily from burning fossil fuels. Within the U.S., the Federal government is the single largest user of energy, with the Department of Defense accounting for 73% of the Federal government’s total. Overall, DoD uses 1.4% of the energy used within the United States.”

Secretary Goodman estimated that the Pentagon’s gross energy consumption totals “about 24 million metric tons of carbon equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions.” Of this, “about 58% was used for operations and training in military tactical and strategic systems (i.e., equipment, vehicles, aircraft and vessels designed or procured for use in military operations). The remaining 42% was used at DoD installations by facilities and non-tactical vehicles.”

Specific ‘Environmental’ Impacts on America’s Military

Ms. Goodman went on to offer what were surely back-of-the-envelope estimates of illustrative effects on each of the armed services caused by a 10% cut in fuel consumption (roughly what would be required to effect a comparable reduction in CO₂ emissions). These included, for example:

• “For the Army, a 10% reduction in operations and training fuel use would cut 328,000 miles per year from tank training, impacting its ability to fully execute the National Military Strategy …. [It] would reduce the operational tempo mile-average training strategy to a level that would downgrade unit readiness and require up to six additional weeks to prepare to deploy.









“Strategic deployment schedules would be missed, placing operations at risk. Furthermore a 10% reduction in training hours for flight crews could reduce their readiness status, requiring four-to-six weeks of additional training to deploy and will jeopardize crew safety.





• “For the Navy, a 10% reduction in fuel use would cut 2,000 steaming days per year from training and operations for deployed ships. This would impact the National Security Strategy…result[ing] in some ships being deployed at a less acceptable readiness rate.









“Naval aviation (Navy and Marines) would also be adversely impacted …. The readiness of Marine Corps air-ground task forces would also be significantly affected. These integrated combined areas [form the] fundamental component of forward deployed United States forces and are vital to fostering regional stability and maintaining the overall readiness of the Navy-Marine Corps team.





• “For the Air Force, a 10% cut in fuel usage would result in the loss of over 210,000 flying hours per year. This would reduce Air Force readiness to the point it would be incapable of meeting all of the requirements of the National Military Strategy. Fighter and bomber crews would be unable to maintain full combat readiness. This means that many advanced capabilities would be lost….









“In addition, airlift capacity would be reduced 10%, impacting all supported agencies. Reduced aerial tanker capacity would further impact operations and training. Finally, training not only keeps existing units and crews ready to fight, it also prepares new crews to replace those lost through normal attrition. For example, the Air Force’s critical pilot shortage would be further exacerbated by reducing the production of new pilots through Undergraduate Pilot Training.”

Secretary Goodman concluded her memorandum by saying:

“In summary, DoD found unacceptable impacts to national security …. While the results of this analysis provide useful insight into some of the potential short-term impacts of limiting fuel usage, there are serious shortfalls in this type of ‘static’ analysis. First, the analysis does not address possible threats to national security that will emerge in the future. The impacts described above assume that the force structure in place today will be adequate throughout the greenhouse gas reduction period.





“Second, the analysis assumes DoD’s fuel needs are relatively stable and predictable. This means assuming that a major crisis requiring the use of military forces that will increase fuel use will not occur.”

Mr. Chairman, I think both of those paragraphs merit your Committee’s careful consideration. In my judgment, today’s force structure is almost certainly going to prove too small for tomorrow’s military requirements. As a result, assuming corrective action is ultimately taken, the Pentagon will be obliged to consume more fuel than currently projected — even in the absence of a crisis/conflict situation that requires surge consumption of fossil fuels.

Importantly, Secretary Goodman attached to her memorandum a proposed “national security waiver” to the Kyoto Protocol. She declared that this waiver should apply to “military tactical and strategic systems used in training to support readiness or in support of national security, humanitarian activities, peace-keeping, peace enforcement and United Nation’s actions.” Such a waiver would have gone a long way to insulate the armed forces from the effects of a mandatory greenhouse gas-reduction scheme like that agreed at Kyoto last December.

What Emerged from Kyoto

Unfortunately, as you know, Mr. Chairman, after the Clinton Administration agreed — at the insistence of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — to such a blanket waiver in the run-up to the Kyoto conference, the negotiating team was directed in Japan to abandon that stance (among other U.S. positions). I understand that direct responsibility for overriding the Pentagon’s recommendations lies with Vice President Al Gore and his National Security Advisor, Leon Fuerth. The reason reportedly was that Messrs. Gore and Fuerth needed real or anticipated reductions in the Defense Department’s emission to serve as a “bill-payer” for the rest of the United States government and as a cushion, to some extent, for the American private sector.

The result was the adoption in Kyoto of language that exempted only some military activities. Specifically, the Protocol says:

“The Conference of the Parties…decides that emissions resulting from multilateral operations pursuant to the United Nations Charter shall not be included in national totals, but reported separately. Emissions related to other operations shall be included in the national emissions totals of one or more parties involved.”

Walking the Cat Back

As international treaty language goes, the Kyoto Protocol’s exemption is relatively clear-cut and unambiguous in its meaning: Only multilateral military operations conducted pursuant to the UN Charter are exempted from national emissions limits. We will either have to accept responsibility for emissions associated with operations other than the explicitly exempted ones, or see if we can fob them off on some other party that may be involved.

In light of Secretary Goodman’s memo, such restrictions are certainly problematic for U.S. national security interests. This reality may explain why the Clinton Administration is now making representations about the Kyoto Protocol that simply do not square with the treaty’s obligations. For example, on 11 March 1998, Ms. Goodman told the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Readiness Subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Jim Inhofe:

“…Emissions for multilateral operations pursuant to the United Nations charter are exempted from emissions limits. This includes not only multilateral operations expressly authorized by the UN Security Council — such as Desert Storm, Bosnia, Somalia — but also, multilateral operations not expressly authorized, but consistent with the UN Charter, such as Grenada and Panama.“

Members of this Committee will surely recall that, at the time, a great many countries argued that the United States’ operations in Grenada and Panama were not consistent with the UN Charter and roundly condemned the Reagan and Bush Administrations, respectively, for mounting these unilateral actions.

What is more, Ms. Goodman went on to declare that:

“…Virtually every military operation that we have conducted in the post-Cold War period has been multilateral…because we construe that phrase very broadly to include even should we purchase fuel from a host nation …. I’m hard pressed to even think of a case of a military operation that has been conducted that would be defined in such a narrow way as to be unilateral.”

In other words, the Administration told the Senate last month that, despite the obvious limitation established by the treaty on other-than-multilateral operations, there will be no impact on the U.S. military because it no longer engages in unilateral operations overseas. Against the possibility that such a contention might be seen as implausible — or just plain inaccurate — Ms. Goodman averred: “It’s a matter of United States sovereignty as to what it conducts, what it does unilaterally, and we did not need an international treaty to tell us how to do that.” Of course, that is not the point. Rather, what is at issue is whether an international treaty — specifically the unratified Kyoto Protocol — might effectively prevent, or at least significantly compound, the costs involved in or other disincentives to unilateral action, should such action prove necessary.

Flash: ‘Even Domestic Military Operations Are Exempted’

More remarkable still was Ms. Goodman announcement before Sen. Inhofe’s subcommittee that: “The Administration has decided that it will oppose efforts to impose emissions limits or constraints on domestic military operations and training. That is new news I am announcing here for the first time. This decision means that our military readiness will be protected due to climate change policy.”

Ms. Goodman promised Sen. Inhofe and his colleagues that this extraordinary position would be affirmed by memorandum issued by the National Security Council. I would hope that any such document would also be shared with this and other appropriate committees of the Congress. As of yesterday, though, the Senate Armed Services Committee has yet to receive such a memorandum.

Perhaps what Ms. Goodman had in mind was an NSC directive issued more than two weeks after her appearance before the Inhofe subcommittee. This memo dated 27 March 1998 provides “White House guidance concerning the obligations of the Department of Defense in implementing the Kyoto agreement.” The relevant portions of this “guidance” are as follows:

“…It has been determined that measures intended to promote reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases shall not impair or adversely affect military operations and training (including tactical aircraft, ships, weapons systems, combat training and border security) or the ability to reallocate to the Defense Department emissions resulting from overseas activities and bases pursuant to the agreement at Kyoto.” (Emphasis added.)

Frankly, I am unable to discern what is meant by the last clause. But the meaning of the first is clear. What is not, is how this “guidance” squares with the equally clear, but contradictory language of the Kyoto Protocol.

Mr. Chairman, I am not a lawyer. But my twenty years of experience with the negotiation, ratification and implementation of international agreements tell me that the Clinton Administration either does not understand what it signed up to in Kyoto or is willfully misrepresenting its agreement to the Senate.

As a result, those of you in the Congress, and most especially Senators, are now on notice: If the Kyoto Protocol is ratified without formally changing its text to reflect the sort of blanket exemption for DoD now claimed by the White House — or, alternatively, if the Senate permits the treaty’s effective implementation without ratification — hard experience suggests that the Pentagon will be subjected to harmful operational and other constraints.

Specific Areas of Concern

In my professional opinion, in the absence of a clear waiver for the Department of Defense from the Kyoto Protocol, the effects of these constraints will be felt in a number of areas above and beyond those identified in Secretary Goodman’s September 1997 memorandum. These include the following:

• Readiness: Unfortunately, the U.S. military is already being “hollowed out.” After thirteen years of real reductions in defense spending, America’s armed forces are at the ragged edge of what is required to perform competently in wartime and, perhaps, even to operate safely in peacetime. If training has to be cut back further to reduce fossil fuel emissions, there will not only be still fewer flying hours, steaming days and training opportunities in tank and other gas-guzzling motorized vehicles; there will probably also be accidental and avoidable losses of the lives of servicemen and women.









The readiness of America’s military is to some extent a function of the extent to which its force structure is too small to be everywhere it is needed. This translates into longer overseas deployments and excessive wear-and-tear on both personnel and materiel. If, as Secretary Goodman has anticipated, the Nation has to obtain and operate larger military forces than those now in place (or projected), it will be unable to do so under the Kyoto Protocol ceilings. Unless the Defense Department is clearly exempted from those limits, the treaty could become an impediment to rebuilding the sort of defense capabilities the United States requires.





• Presence: The Protocol could have another impact on U.S. overseas deployments if, as seems predictable, the cutbacks translate into reduced operations abroad — whether because it is deemed necessary to do so in order to meet lower levels of emissions or to hoard emission chits against future warfare requirements. A related question that the White House “guidance” addresses incomprehensibly involves the treatment of American forces on foreign soil: Will their emissions count against our national allowances — or against those of the host governments? If the latter, it seems predictable that this will serve to increase the pressure from host governments (e.g., Japan) to reduce U.S. forward deployments.









• Will to Fight: The American people are always reluctant to go to war, often even when national security requires such a step. Under the Kyoto regime, that reluctance may translate into an absolute refusal to do so — notwithstanding the fact that vital interests and alliance commitments may be at stake — if the practical effect will be to cripple the U.S. economy by diverting emissions from fossil fuel consumption in the private sector to the military.









• Procurement: A particularly insidious effect of the GCCT could be its impact on the qualitative technological edge the U.S. military relies upon to deter war and to prevail if it occurs. Will we allow the determinant of weapon systems no longer to be standards like mission effectiveness and survivability but emissions considerations?









Think about it: smaller, lighter tanks — with less armor and less powerful guns and engines; planes that may be obliged to avoid supersonic operations to reduce fuel consumption; liquid-fueled rockets chosen instead of more reliable ones that use solid propellants, because the latter produce large quantities of greenhouse gas-emissions. These trade-offs may result in costs that will be very high in terms of the lives of service personnel and outcomes on the battlefield.





At the very least, the costs will be high in terms of dollars. Even if, as Secretary Goodman has claimed, new technologies will make the next generation of combat jets more fuel efficient and “greener” in terms of their emissions, and even if the U.S. military can afford to buy such next-generation equipment in quantity, no one has identified the substantial sums required to retrofit these engines into existing fighter, bomber or transport aircraft. Is the alternative to retire such assets prematurely in the interest of reducing fuel emissions? If so, what will that mean for preparedness and warfighting capabilities?





• Sovereignty: Finally, it must be asked: What will “emissions trading” arrangements governing greenhouse gasses mean for the Nation’s ability to go to war? Might we in the future be unable to do so without getting emission chits from prospective enemies or their non-aligned friends? Absurd as this scenario might seem, the new one-world mega-bureaucracy that would be required to facilitate, monitor and regulate such a regime could prove an enormous impediment to American national security, as well as a grievous infringement on U.S. sovereignty.









In this connection and given the International Relations Committee’s responsibilities, it bears noting that the Russians stand, by some estimates, to garner a $40 billion windfall from this emissions trading scheme. The wildest dreams of medieval alchemists could not imagine such a magical transformation; the most fatuous ideological ruminations of Marx and Engels, such a vast redistribution of wealth. And, given past experience, it must be expected that a substantial proportion — if not the lion’s share — of the proceeds from sales of Russia’s emission credits to Western polluting nations will go to resuscitate the old Soviet military-industrial complex.

Conclusion

Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, permit me to say that perhaps the greatest danger posed to U.S. national security by the Kyoto Protocol is that the cumulative effect of these various impacts will create an impression in the minds of prospective adversaries that the United States is unable or unwilling to protect its interests around the world. History suggests that such a perception is an invitation to aggression, making war more likely and adding further, albeit utterly unquantifiable costs to the potential bill associated with the Clinton Administration’s greenhouse gas emission control regime.

In short, there will be real, possibly very great, down-side risks if the United States permits the Kyoto Protocol to impinge upon the American military, and the security interests it serves. I would recommend against lightly accepting such risks under any circumstances — which, I fear would be the effect if the Congress allows the Clinton Administration to implement this treaty without the Senate’s formal advice and consent. It is folly even to consider imposing these costs on either the U.S. military or the Nation as a whole, however, in the absence of a very clear-cut case for the science of global warming and equally clear proof that the proposed remedy will actually mitigate that claimed phenomenon.

— End of Submitted Testimony —