The climate crisis is at a tipping point and the impact of military emissions on the environment can no longer be ignored. From the beginning of the First World War, fossil fuel became an important factor in facilitating military capabilities and a motivating force for military interventions which continue to this day. This reliance on oil has played a colossal role in fuelling climate change and destroying precious ecosystems which are crucial to regulate the climate. It has been estimated that 20% of all environmental degradation globally is due to military-related activities.[1]
War torn countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia have been some of the hardest hit and are in the UN’s list of most vulnerable countries to climate change. Ravaged by environmental degradation caused by war and the failure to secure legislation to address the impacts of climate change, these vulnerable countries are facing further economic and social insecurities which will have far reaching consequences for peace and stability in those regions. The impact of climate change is however not just restricted to these countries. Soaring temperatures, frequent and intense drought as well as floods, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and warming oceans are wreaking havoc across the globe.
The net-zero targets that are so passionately (and convincingly) spoken about at climate conferences and government briefings are totally meaningless without accounting for military emissions. The military is one of the biggest consumers of fossil fuel and their carbon footprint is on an unprecedented scale. A new report suggests that the impact of the world’s militaries on global emissions is now estimated to be 5.5%. This means that if the world’s militaries combined were a country, they would have the fourth largest national carbon footprint in the world.[2] Even though these statistics are staggering, military emissions were a topic only for a side event at COP27 last year.
In a detailed article about decarbonising the military, leading researchers including Mohammad Ali Rajaeifar, Oliver Belcher and Stuart Parkinson reiterated the urgency to include the carbon footprint of the military which is currently absent from global emissions accounting. Although the military is a huge emitter of greenhouse gases, they have been left out of international agreements to declare emissions since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol; a policy that the US lobbied for on the grounds of national security. But researchers and climate activists say that new methods are now available for calculating military emissions without compromising classified information. In addition, the methodologies used for calculating emissions are not accurate so the figures that are reported are just conservative estimates. The actual figures are probably much higher.
The ongoing war in Ukraine has once again accentuated the need to address the lack of accurate data on military emissions and their impact on the environment. Not to mention the threat of a nuclear war and the radioactive contamination of making and testing nuclear weapons. At COP26, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, “there is no way to reach net zero without also including emissions from the military”.[3] Some of the world’s largest military polluters are NATO member states. But NATO’s shallow pledges to be a leader on climate change were exposed during their summit in Madrid last year. The methodology that NATO has developed to help both it and its members count their emissions will not be made public and without that transparency, external stakeholders like policymakers, researchers or civil society will not be able to scrutinise or assess the veracity of any claimed cuts or pledges.
Dr. Duncan Depledge from Loughborough University revealed that in the UK the defence sector accounts for approximately 50% of the Government’s greenhouse gas emissions.[4] The Ministry of Defence says its total annual carbon footprint is 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), but Scientists for Global Responsibility estimates the true figure to be 11m tonnes.[5] Similarly, a report from Brown University exposed that the U.S military alone was responsible for emitting over 1200 million metric tons of greenhouse gases since the invasion of Afghanistan.[6] The carbon footprint of the military industrial complex could be much higher than presently estimated because the data published by different government bodies across the world are totally inconsistent and incomplete. The lack of transparency also makes it extremely difficult to calculate the true scale of military emissions but it’s clear they are significant.
In an article by Katrina vanden Heuvel in The Washington Post, she reveals how decisions about whether to engage in military conflicts are shaped by politicians and defence personnel who have a vested interest in perpetuating these conflicts.[7]Â They are the same people who make false pledges about their commitment to climate action while spending billions on war and militarism instead of climate security. At the launch of the IPCC report last year, UN Secretary General AntĂłnio Guterres rightly accused government leaders of lying. Furthermore, analysis by Declassified UK also discovered the striking extent to which former senior UK defence, foreign office and intelligence officials often find lucrative employment in oil, gas and mining companies after they leave office.[8] This clearly shows the lack of commitment of government officials in taking stronger action to tackle the climate crisis.
During Extinction Rebellion’s The Big One, XR Peace highlighted how the military industrial complex continues to fuel the climate crisis. Angie Zelter, an activist of XR Peace boldly stated that militarism is a central pillar of the extractive systems that are causing climate change and that not only does climate change cause war, but that war causes climate change.[9] True energy security and net zero targets can only be achieved by decarbonising the military, by developing accurate methodologies to assess military emissions and through transparent public scrutiny. But the deepening climate as well political crisis makes it perfectly clear that transitioning away from fossil fuels is just not enough.
We must completely stamp out the military industrial complex which is the biggest poison destroying our precious planet. There can be no such thing as green warfare: a decarbonised war will still be a war that will take the lives of many and destroy the environment.
[1] https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/climate/climate-publications/adaptation-and-resilience/the-impact-of-militaries-on-climate-change.aspx
[2] https://ceobs.org/new-estimate-global-military-is-responsible-for-more-emissions-than-russia/
[3] https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/99/2/667/7024982
[4] https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/news/2022/september/how-climate-change-net-zero-will-affect-war/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CSome%20estimate%20that%20the%20carbon,the%20Government’s%20greenhouse%20gas%20emissions.
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/11/worlds-militaries-avoiding-scrutiny-over-emissions
[6]https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2019/Pentagon%20Fuel%20Use,%20Climate%20Change%20and%20the%20Costs%20of%20War%20Final.pdf
[7] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/21/its-time-break-up-military-industrial-complex/
[8] https://declassifieduk.org/revealed-dozens-of-uk-former-senior-officials-profit-from-fossil-fuel-corporations-rubber-stamped-by-whitehall-committee/
[9] https://xrpeace.org/2023/02/12/wake-up-the-world-is-dying/