Yves here. Due to a particularly intense news period, with the furor of final days of the US elections and the convincing Trump win crowding out many important stories, the fact of an underwhelming COP29 received little attention. In fact, the US election, the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and economic weakness and government wobbling in Europe alone have gotten vastly more coverage than climate-related news, despite sustained record hot temperatures in many parts of the world over the summer, and well as flood-generating rainfalls. Even worse, with this backdrop, tech touts titans have taken to arguing that since the climate is toast anyhow, they should be free to ramp up even-more-environment-destructive AI.
So in a wee effort to correct the imbalance, we are featuring this article on how US and our allies’ armed forces are outsized contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. While this is a kinda-sorta acknowledged looming problem, it tends to be admitted in passing. The tacit assumption is that the American military is a sacred cow. The time is long past due for climate activist to take on that belief frontally.
By Nadia Ahmad, a law professor at Barry University School of Law. Originally published at Common Dreams
As world leaders are finalizing another round of climate negotiations, they continue to sidestep the single largest institutional source of greenhouse gas emissions: the U.S. military. While frontline communities face devastation from climate disasters, the Pentagon pumps out more emissions than 140 countries combined.
Despite last year’s commitment to move away from fossil fuels, current negotiations are hindered by disagreements among nations with some oil-producing countries resisting the reaffirmation of this pledge. The failure to uphold the COP28 agreement could undermine the credibility of international climate efforts and impede progress toward global emission reduction targets.
This year, COP29 met in Azerbaijan under the leadership of Mukhtar Babayev, the country’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources. Criticisms of Azerbaijan’s ties to the oil industry quickly surfaced with some Western voices highlighting the influence of the fossil fuel sector on the summit. While this concern is valid, these same critics conveniently ignore their own deep complicity in the climate crisis, most glaringly, the United States’ military emissions.
The U.S. Department of Defense remains the world’s largest institutional consumer of oil, yet its emissions are systematically excluded from climate negotiations. The omission is by design. Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, military emissions have been given a free pass, thanks to pressure from U.S. negotiators. The numbers are staggering. The U.S. military consumes more than 100 million barrels of oil annually, producing emissions equivalent to the entire nation of Sweden. Its 800 overseas bases require constant fuel resupply, while Navy carriers, Air Force jets, and Army vehicles guzzle fossil fuels at an astounding rate. During the Iraq War alone, the Pentagon’s daily consumption reached 1.2 million barrels—more than 94% of countries globally.
Yet, instead of tackling this massive source of emissions, Congress continues to expand the military budget, approving $886 billion for FY2024, while climate funding remains a fraction of that amount. The cruel irony is that the communities most vulnerable to climate impacts, poor, Black, and brown communities both domestically and globally, bear the heaviest burden of both military operations and climate devastation. The Pentagon itself acknowledges climate change as a “threat multiplier” that will intensify conflicts and migration. Yet, its massive carbon footprint accelerates the very crises it claims to be preparing for. Military climate emissions create a deadly feedback loop that sacrifices the most vulnerable communities for the sake of military dominance.
Some progressive voices are finally breaking through. Representative Barbara Lee introduced legislation in 2001 requiring the Pentagon to track and reduce its emissions. Organizations like Veterans for Peace have demanded that military emissions be included in climate agreements. But far more pressure is needed from civil society and frontline communities who cannot afford to wait decades for gradual carbon reductions while the Pentagon’s emissions continue unabated.
It’s easy for world leaders to point fingers at Azerbaijan for its oil-dependent economy while failing to acknowledge the massive carbon bootprint of their own militaries. True climate leadership requires confronting all major sources of emissions, even those wrapped in national security rhetoric. Excluding military emissions from climate agreements is a moral failure that undermines any serious effort at emissions reduction. The climate crisis demands we finally confront the true cost of endless war and military expansion. Until we do, climate summits will remain elaborate theater while the Pentagon’s carbon bootprint stamps out hope for a livable future. The communities on the frontlines of climate chaos from the Louisiana coast to the Pacific Islands deserve better than empty promises while military emissions remain off the books.
True climate leadership means having the courage to tackle all major emission sources, even those within their own borders. The time has come to end the military’s exemption from climate accountability.
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Emissions from Israel’s war in Gaza have ‘immense’ effect on climate catastrophe the Guardian, 9 Jan 2024.
Not to pick on this one terrible conflict, but this research is just now getting pixels.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3700275/jewish/What-Is-Tikkun-Olam.htm
Tikkun Olam: “In Jewish teachings, any activity that improves the world, bringing it closer to the harmonious state for which it was created.
Tikkun olam implies that while the world is innately good, its Creator purposely left room for us to improve upon His work.…..”
God, really, is a bit incompetent, and needs humanities’ help (send some money, please! Every dollar helps God). God has never had to deal with “climate change” before, all on his/her widdle own.
In fact, Elitely educated humans could have saved the Paleocene dinosaurs from the “Chicxulub impactor”….. using science, AI and cutting edge technology……!
Do the military ships still use bunker oil? Isn’t that close to crude right out of the ground? No ‘ethanol blends’ there!
I haven’t heard anything this COP about the US forcing increases in emission/fuel targets like has been done every time under Biden and Obama and Trump.
A main stream dem was telling me that the IRA is going to help the US export $50 billion yr in renewable energy products.
I had to ask him why would anyone buy from the most expensive companies when they can get the same or better product directly from Asia for substantially less money?
There is just no coherent strategy from
The US. I mean last year China installed a lot more solar than the US has ever installed.
I listened to an y interview about how many miles of UHV power lines that China has installed in the last few years and it’s increasing. How many miles does the US?
It will be curious to see how much change there is in the renewable and power sector under Trump.
I don’t expect any action on military emissions to happen during COP29, as they really don’t add up to much. Nina Lakhani exaggerates the effects of the CO2 emissions of the war by comparing to low-population equatorial countries that have very low carbon foot prints.
Two months of Israel-Gaza war CO2 emissions are 300 thousand tons? As much as the Central African Republic or Belize do per year? Pfft. Hydro-heavy renewable energy champ Norway emits 44 million tons of CO2 per year. Germany emits 580 millions tons per year. And the big guys? The US emits 4.7 billion tons per year. And China 13 billion tons per year. These emissions utterly dwarf that of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Put another way, two months of Israel-Gaza war put out as much CO2 as China did in the past 12 minutes. So when Nina Lakhani says that “emissions from Israel’s war in Gaza have ‘immense’ effect on climate catastrophe”, it simply isn’t true.
Now please understand… There are still many, many good reasons to want to see both Israel-Gaza and Russian-Ukraine conflicts end. [For me personally, it’s because of the horrifying levels of destruction and suffering inflicted on civilian populations.] But the effect on the climate crisis isn’t one of them.
Citing 2 months emissions as being representative of the 13 months of the Israel-Gaza war is somewhat disingenuous.
The July 2024 estimate was up to 650,000 tonnes of emissions, and they haven’t really slowed down since then.
The carbon emissions costs of rebuilding what has been destroyed was estimated at 60m tonnes some six months ago, before the Israelis even started on Lebanon, Syria etc. and the renewed demolition of Northern Gaza.
Underestimating the contribution military activity has on emissions globally, let alone the consequential costs of replacing ordnance and rebuilding after destruction, does no-one any favours.
However, I’d agree that COP29 is failing utterly to deal with the core issues of mitigation and adaptation, let alone the problems of reducing total energy demand and per capital emissions, especially in the global north, and that, yes, military impacts are secondary, but are not to be underestimated.
That the USA may well lose its military bases in the Marshall islands, and Diego Garcia (at barely 4ft above current sea level), in the next few decades, provides scant amusement, given US neglect of global climate change impacts.
My apologies. No disingenious-ness (is that a word?) was intended. I accidentally focused on the Guardian article linked above (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/09/emissions-gaza-israel-hamas-war-climate-change), which was written back in January, instead of the main article.
But even the estimate you provided of 60 million tons for rebuilding only amounts to 40 hours of Chinese emissions. Or 0.17% of annual global emissions (which clocked in at 36 billion tons in 2023). And even if the likely emissions associated with rebuilding end up doubling or tripling by the end of the conflict, it’ll still be a small fraction of total global emissions.
And the US, with its terribly oil-thirsty military, no longer dominates CO2 global emissions. China passed us back in 2005 and now emits significantly more than the US and Europe combined. For perspective on recent emission trends, please see this chart: https://images.theconversation.com/files/631318/original/file-20241112-15-af0j5u.png. It’s rather depressing.
I once read that US military machine consumed as much energy as Nigeria (oilprice.com 8 Jun 2011) and DoD emits 4% US CO2 emissions
DoD consumes 93% US Govt energy consumption and is largest single energy consumer in USA with each Serviceman consuming 35% more per capita than American civilians
Only 35 countries invested use more oil than DoD which is largest single oil consumer on the planet. 80% US DoD energy consumption is oil and USAF is biggest component of usage
The point is surely that if the US military was being used for any productive human purpose then all those greenhouse gases might have a point, like all the greenhouse gases which are used in making renewable power sources in China.
As matters stand, the US is helping to destroy the planet to provide energy for a force which makes life worst for just about everybody except the weapons industry and political warhawks.