{"id":2016466,"date":"2023-08-30T08:27:02","date_gmt":"2023-08-30T12:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pentagon-officials-worked-to-finalize-climate-plan-during-botched-afghanistan-withdrawal-emails-show\/"},"modified":"2023-08-30T08:29:03","modified_gmt":"2023-08-30T12:29:03","slug":"pentagon-officials-worked-to-finalize-climate-plan-during-botched-afghanistan-withdrawal-emails-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pentagon-officials-worked-to-finalize-climate-plan-during-botched-afghanistan-withdrawal-emails-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon officials focused on climate plan amid Afghanistan withdrawal chaos, emails reveal."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fpentagon-officials-worked-to-finalize-climate-plan-during-botched-afghanistan-withdrawal-emails-show%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2016466&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>In the Midst of \u200cChaos: \u200bPentagon Officials Push Climate Change Initiative During Afghanistan Withdrawal<\/h2>\n<p>In the midst of the Biden administration\u2019s\u200c disastrous military \u200cwithdrawal from Afghanistan, top Pentagon officials were working to\u2062 get\u2063 the Secretary of Defense to \u2062sign \u2063a\u2063 major climate change initiative, \u200daccording\u2062 to \u200demails obtained by The Daily Wire.<\/p>\n<p>In \u200bthe two weeks between the fall of\u200c Kabul to the Taliban on August 15,\u200c 2021, and the final U.S. military flight out of Afghanistan on August 30, Pentagon officials were scrambling\u200d with the White House to finalize the\u2063 Department \u200dof Defense Climate Adaptation Plan, a \u2062document that\u200c <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/faith-leaders-try-to-shake-down-wealthy-nations-over-climate-change\/\" title=\"Faith Leaders Try to Shake Down Wealthy Nations over Climate Change\">declares climate change<\/a> a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-house-republicans-demand-answers-from-tsa-over-illegal-immigrants-flying-without-id\/\" title=\"EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans Demand Answers From TSA Over Illegal Immigrants Flying Without ID\">major national security risk<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The emails indicate frustration\u2064 from climate change-focused Pentagon officials at the difficulty of\u200c getting the \u2062plan signed \u2014 but that ultimately their determination to\u2063 focus on climate change even \u2062during the Afghanistan withdrawal paid off.\u200b Secretary of Defense Lloyd\u200c Austin signed the climate initiative \u2062on September 1, just six days after 13 Americans \u2063were killed by a Taliban suicide bomber.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>A Battle on Two Fronts<\/h3>\n<p>James\u200d Fitzpatrick, \u2064a\u2063 member\u2062 of\u200d the U.S. Army Reserve who\u2064 obtained the emails\u200d through his \u2063organization, the Center to \u200dAdvance Security in America, says the emails show military leadership\u200b was being\u2062 \u201chounded\u201d\u200d by climate activists within the government as it was trying to navigate \u200dwithdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile the \u200dBiden Administration was in the middle \u2063of a disastrous and deadly Afghanistan \u200cwithdrawal, our top military leaders were being hounded by\u2063 DoD climate activists to fast track a plan to transform the\u2064 Department by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pentagon-officials-worked-to-finalize-climate-plan-during-botched-afghanistan-withdrawal-emails-show\/\" title=\"Pentagon officials focused on climate plan amid Afghanistan withdrawal chaos, emails reveal.\">forcing politically charged climate change discussions<\/a>\u200c into \u200devery decision the DoD makes,\u201d Fitzpatrick \u2062said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>At the center of \u2063the push were two senior \u200cPentagon officials: Joe\u200b Bryan, the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Climate, and\u2063 Richard Kidd, the Deputy\u200d Assistant\u200c Secretary of \u200bDefense for Environment &#038; Energy \u200cResilience. The pair traded emails throughout the Afghanistan crisis on the Climate\u200d Adaptation \u200dPlan, strategizing \u2062on how\u2064 to get it signed\u2063 by Austin.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>A Frustrating Wait<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s a tough lift to get\u2063 [Secretary of Defense] \u2063to\u200c sign \u2062the CAP \u200dthis \u2063week. He\u2019s \u2062not\u200c looking at\u2062 much that\u2064 isn\u2019t Afghanistan-related,\u201d wrote Bryan \u200bon August 17, a day \u200dafter\u2064 President\u2063 Joe Biden addressed the nation about \u200bthe\u2063 ongoing crisis in \u200bKabul. Bryan \u2064suggested escalating the issue to\u200c a White House official \u2063named Andrew Mayock, who was\u200b appointed Biden\u2019s Chief Sustainability Officer.<\/p>\n<p>Kidd responded the next morning that this was \u2064a \u201cgood \u200bidea,\u201d because Mayock \u201cgets \u2062it\u201d and could give\u200d a \u201cmust\u2064 have\u201d deadline from the\u200c White House.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The \u2064pair \u2064appears\u2063 to have grown frustrated in \u200dthe\u2064 days that followed. The frustration was not\u2062 that the mission \u200bin Afghanistan had devolved into a full-fledged crisis with \u2064people falling off planes as they\u2062 departed\u2064 the airport, nearly 200 murdered by terrorists as they flooded the \u200bairport in hopes of evacuation, and a botched military drone \u200cstrike that killed civilians rather than terrorist targets. It was that Austin had\u2062 failed to sign the climate \u2062plan.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>A\u2063 Last-Minute Victory<\/h3>\n<p>On August 30, the final \u200dday of the frantic withdrawal, Kidd expressed frustration after \u200bBryan informs him\u200c that the plan \u201chasn\u2019t been signed\u200d yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUhm, ok will keep standing by,\u201d Kidd wrote.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"image\"><\/div>\n<p>He had \u200cto stand by\u200c for\u200d just two more \u2063days. On September 1, Kidd was informed that the Climate Adaptation plan \u200dhad been signed and was ready to be sent \u200dto Mayock, the White \u2062House official.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>A Controversial Decision<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cSir, The SECDEF has\u200b signed \u2063the \u2062CAP,\u201d wrote a member of Kidd\u2019s staff whose name was redacted \u2064from the documents.\u200d \u201cCongratulations!!!!!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The\u200b full Climate Adaptation Plan, dated September 1, 2021, can be viewed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sustainability.gov\/pdfs\/dod-2021-cap.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>. In a foreword to \u200dthe \u2064document, Austin states that recognizing the \u201cnational\u2063 security \u200drisk \u200cposed by\u2064 climate change\u201d is an \u201cessential step \u2026 to defend the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Pentagon\u2062 confirmed to The\u200d Daily\u2064 Wire that Austin\u200b spent time during the withdrawal\u2064 effort to review the Climate Adaptation Plan, but said his priority was \u2064Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Political Priorities \u200bOver Military Operations<\/h3>\n<p>\u201cOur\u2062 book details\u200b several \u200bepisodes where the \u200dadministration\u2019s political\u200c priorities interfered with military\u200b necessities during the withdrawal, and this\u2063 incident is consistent with that \u2063theme,\u201d Hasson and Dunleavy told The Daily Wire. \u201cWhen\u200b thousands \u200dof American citizens are stranded in a\u200d war zone and the\u200d lives of American troops are hanging in \u200cthe balance, \u2064that has to be \u2062the Pentagon\u2019s sole focus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s unlikely that political appointees focused on climate change could have helped much, but \u2064they should have at least stayed out \u200dof the way,\u201d the authors added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Fitzpatrick said\u200b it\u2019s \u201cappalling\u201d to see \u201cpolitically charged climate change discussions\u201d were distracting military leaders during the Afghanistan withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo think \u2062that American military and political leadership turned \u2063their\u2062 attention to finalize a so-called \u2018Climate Action Plan\u2019 in the midst\u200b of a \u2062Taliban terrorist \u2063attack \u200cand while Americans and\u2062 our allies\u2064 were facing such\u200d clear and \u200dpresent danger,\u201d \u2063Fitzpatrick said.\u200d \u201cGod bless the Gold Star families who have to live with this reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Families\u200b of\u2064 the 13 \u2062Americans killed in the terrorist attack at the Kabul airport \u2062testified to Congress\u2063 on Tuesday to demand accountability from \u200cthe\u200c Biden administration for the failures of\u2062 the withdrawal. One\u200b Gold Star father who\u200c lost \u200bhis son in the bombing complained that Austin still \u2062has\u2064 a job.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone who\u2062 held a key \u200cposition in the military still \u2064has\u2063 that position or has been promoted,\u201d the father said. \u200d\u201cNot a single person\u200b has been held\u200c accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>the emails obtained by The Daily Wire reveal that top Pentagon officials were pushing for the Secretary of Defense to sign a significant climate change initiative amidst the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan under the Biden administration. This occurred within the two weeks following the Taliban&#8217;s takeover of Kabul on August 15, 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":207,"featured_media":2016467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2016466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2016466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2016467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2016466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2016466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2016466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}