Climate Change: Considerations for Geographic Combatant Commands PKSOI Paper | Page 22

and means—the “how”—to support increasing a partner nation’s climate change resiliency.
Leader Engagement
Through engagement with selected partner nation
military and public and private sector leaders, GCC,
DoS and USAID development personnel have the opportunity to reinforce the importance of immediateterm disaster response planning and preparation,
shorter-term Hurricane Storm Damage Reduction
(HSDR) projects and longer-term water resources and
land use planning. Leaders can discuss the feasibility
of these various means as proactive measures that reduce risk and protect lives and property from the effects of climate change. Secretary of Defense Hagel led
the way in this dialogue as he used the venue of the
Conference of the Defense Ministers of the Americas hosted in Peru in October 2014, to not only emphasize the
shared interests between defense leaders in addressing
climate change; but, to announce the release of DoD’s
CCAR the very day of the Conference.45 Leaders accomplish these dialogues during recurring staff talks,
during disaster response exercises, and during periodic
strategic-leader visits by the SOUTHCOM Commander, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Commanding
General, etc. Leaders from SOUTHCOM’s Miamibased headquarters as well as the service component
commands (Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force)
and especially from the regionally-aligned combatant
command-supporting engineers from Army Corps of
Engineers South Atlantic Division (USACE-SAD) and
Naval Facilities Engineers-Southeast (NAVFAC-SE)
also have a role in supporting USAID’s development
expert’s efforts to convey the value and opportunity

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