NASA joined more than 20 federal agencies in releasing its updated Climate Adaptation Plan Thursday, helping expand the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to make federal operations increasingly resilient to the impacts of climate change for the benefit of all.
The updated plans advance the administration’s National Climate Resilience Framework, which helps align climate resilience investments across the public and private sectors through common principles and opportunities.
“Thanks to the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration, we are strengthening climate resilience to ensure humanity is well-prepared for the effects of climate change,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA’s decades of Earth observation are key to building climate resiliency and sustainability across the country and the world.”
NASA serves as a global leader in Earth science, providing researchers with crucial data from its satellites and other assets, as well as other observations and research on the climate system. The agency also works to apply that knowledge and inform the public about climate change. NASA will continue to prioritize these efforts and maintain an open information policy that makes its science data, software, and research freely available to all.
Climate variability and change also have potential impacts on NASA’s ability to fulfill its mission, requiring proactive planning and action from the agency. To ensure coastal flooding, extreme weather events, and other climate change impacts do not stop the agency’s work, NASA is improving its climate hazard analyses and developing plans to protect key resources and facilities.
“As communities face extreme heat, natural disasters and severe weather from the impacts of climate change, President Biden is delivering record resources to build climate resilience across the country,” said Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “Through his Investing in America agenda and an all-of-government approach to tackling the climate crisis, the Biden-Harris Administration is delivering more than $50 billion to help communities increase their resilience and bolster protections for those who need it most. By updating our own adaptation strategies, the federal government is leading by example to build a more resilient future for all.”
At the beginning of his administration, President Biden tasked federal agencies with leading whole-of-government efforts to address climate change through Executive Order 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. Following the magnitude of challenges posed by the climate crisis underscored last year when the nation endured a record 28 individual billion-dollar extreme weather and climate disasters that caused more than $90 billion in aggregate damage, NASA continues to be a leader and partner in adaptation and resilience.
NASA released its initial Climate Adaptation Plan in 2021 and progress reports outlining advancements toward achieving their adaptation goals in 2022. In coordination with the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Management and Budget, agencies updated their Climate Adaptation Plans for 2024 to 2027 to better integrate climate risk across their mission, operations, and asset management, including:
- Combining historical data and projections to assess exposure of assets to climate-related hazards including extreme heat and precipitation, sea level rise, flooding, and wildfire.
- Expanding the operational focus on managing climate risk to facilities and supply chains to include federal employees and federal lands and waters.
- Broadening the mission focus to describe mainstreaming adaptation into agency policies, programs, planning, budget formulation, and external funding.
- Linking climate adaptation actions with other Biden-Harris Administration priorities, including advancing environmental justice and the President’s Justice40 Initiative, strengthening engagement with Tribal Nations, supporting the America the Beautiful initiative, scaling up nature-based solutions, and addressing the causes of climate change through climate mitigation.
- Adopting common progress indicators across agencies to assess the progress of agency climate adaptation efforts.
All plans from each of the more than 20 agencies and more information are available online.
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