A campaigner’s guide
First published 2nd November 2021 as our contribution to the debate at COP26, now in its 4th edition.
UPDATED: JUNE 2023
1. Militarism diverts crucial resources from the climate emergency
The March 2021 ‘defence’ review pledged a 14% hike in military spending,1 the largest in almost 70 years.2 It also abandoned decades of reductions in nuclear weapons with an increase of 44% in the UK nuclear stockpile.
The October 2021 Autumn Budget details all spending on national carbon reduction as laid out in the Net Zero Strategy (inc transport, energy generation, heat in buildings etc.). The ‘strategy’ has only a 50% chance of meeting the government’s own target for 2035, which many scientists already view as insufficient to prevent runaway climate chaos.
For every £1 we spend reducing UK carbon emissions, we spend £7.40 on the military
Military
£190.5bn
Reducing UK Carbon emissions
0
£25.6BN
UK Spending: ‘NET ZERO’ vs. Military
2. Military emissions are excluded from emissions reduction targets
Every sector of human activity is subject to carbon reporting and reduction targets, with one, single exception – the global military. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change does not require Governments to report military emissions, so most do not. This bizarre anomoly is a hangover from intensive US lobbying for a military exclusion during the Kyoto protocol negotiations, attempts to resolve this in the Paris Climate Agreement left it up to nation states whether or not to include military emissions. Where voluntary estimates exist they are incomplete and exclude the supply chain and operational emissions which are significant as well as conflict related emissions. While NATO publically recognised this problem in June 2021, it stopped short of setting any concrete reporting and reduction requirements. This exception now risks undermining all our other efforts to bring emissions under control.
End the military exemption!
Petition established by GCOMS alongside World Beyond War, Code Pink and others. Open to individuals & organisations.
CEOBS call for action on military emissions has the support of over 200 organisations. Will your group join them ?
3. The military Industrial complex is fuelling climate change
As a result of this lack of reporting it is impossible to quantify the full extent of Military sectors carbon bootprint but independent studies suggest it could contribute as much as six percent to global emissions3, exceeding the impact of civilian aviation.
“The US military is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world – with a carbon footprint greater than that of most countries. If the Pentagon were a country, its fuel use alone would make it the world’s 47th largest emitter“4
“Britain’s military-industrial sector annually emits more greenhouse gases than 60 individual countries. Equivalent to 6 million average uk cars annually.”5
- UK Govt. Global Britain in a competitive age, CP 403 (HM Stationary Office 2021)
- RUSI (2021). A New Direction for the Ministry of Defence’s Budget? Implications of the November Spending Review. January. https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/policy-briefs/new-direction-ministry-defences-budget-implications-november-spending-review
- Stuart Parkinson, The carbon boot-print of the military, Responsible Science Journal No.2, (SGR, January 2020)
- Neta C. Crawford, Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War (Brown University, 2019)
- “The environmental impacts of the UK military sector” May 2020, Scientists for Global Responsibility
- ‘tCO2e’ stands for tonnes of Carbon Dioxide equivalent.
- “Parkinson & Cottrell. Under the Radar: The Carbon Footprint of Europes Military Sectors (SGR, CEOBS 2021)
