Hegseth: Ditch climate ‘distraction’ but prepare for extreme weather

A new memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doubles down on his campaign to eliminate the Pentagon’s work on climate — calling for a review of both mission statements and military planning documents to ensure there are no “references to climate change and related subjects.”

But the missive, issued Monday, identifies several key exceptions.

It makes room for efforts to harden U.S. military installations against extreme weather. And it says the climate purge shouldn’t stop the Pentagon from “assessing weather-related impacts on operations, mitigating weather-related risks (or) conducting environmental assessments,” according to the document obtained exclusively by POLITICO’s E&E News.

Those exceptions, critics say, underscore the shortsighted nature of Hegseth’s attack on what he calls the “climate distraction.”