Media release: COP28: Moving Military Spending & Military Emissions up the Agenda

Media Release   21/11/2023

COP28: MOVING MILITARY SPENDING & MILITARY EMISSIONS UP THE AGENDA

With the war in Ukraine far from over and Israel’s war with Hamas and Gaza bombardment, the topic of military emissions reporting and mitigation becomes ever more urgent.

Tipping Point North South is building on its first COP contribution last year in Egypt where its groundbreaking report Military and Conflict Related Emissions: Kyoto to Glasgow and Beyond was presented at the Ukraine government’s official side event (the first official COP side event to address the topic).

The London based non-profit is presenting at three side events inside the Blue Zone along with its latest report: Climate Crossfire.

MILITARY SPENDING AND MILITARY EMISSIONS: A POSITIVE CORRELATION

All three side events take the emissions story one step further to address the inextricable link between military spending and military emissions and the attendant cost to the planet and climate finance.

With six years left to cut 45% of GHG emissions by 2030, the big military spending nations face a dilemma. Currently, on patchy data, the global military are estimated to account for significant 5.5% of global emissions.

Yet the fighter jets, tanks, warships, bombs and missiles in operation in Ukraine and Gaza are all fossil fuel dependent and will be so for the foreseeable future. Fresh off the production line, the F-35 fighter jet consumes 5,800 litres of jet fuel per flying hour and it will be in service for next 40 years.

Added to this, governments are now further increasing military spending. It has risen 21% since 2013 with the G20 nations accounting for 87% of annual $2.2trillion military spending – budgets that in turn are locked into fossil fuel dependent hardware.

Thus, more military spending means more emissions.

NATO’S IPCC OBSERVER STATUS APPLICATION vs NATO’S 2% GDP ON MILITARY SPENDING?

NATO currently has an application for observer status at the IPCC. Whilst NATO member countries are represented on the IPCC, it would be the first time a political and military alliance would be admitted.

Its application is based on the grounds that it is climate-science knowledgeable and a humanitarian responder. However, NATO is also encouraging a future-facing policy that would certainly result in increased GHG emissions, in contrast to the IPCC’s recommendations and repeated warnings on the consequences overshooting 1.5 degrees.

As a follow up to our Climate Collateral report released in advance of COP27 last year which looked at the ways in which global military spending is accelerating the climate crisis, we decided to look into the environmental and financial consequences of NATO’s goal of 2% spending of GDP on the military across its 31 member states.

NATO members account for more than 50% of the global military spending and they are aiming to increase spending even further by requiring every member to spend at least 2% of GDP on military.  Climate Crossfire estimated that if NATO members:

• increase their spending to 2% GDP, US$2.57 trillion would be diverted away from climate spending by 2028 – enough to pay for climate adaptation costs for all low- and middle-income countries for seven years as calculated by UNEP.
• meet its 2% military spending targets, this would lead to an estimated additional 467 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

The research led to one conclusion: the target both accelerates climate breakdown with increased GHG emissions while diverting billions of dollars from climate finance.

In this era of ‘global boiling’ every single act of mitigation matters – as a significant emitter, the big militaries cannot be granted special status. To reduce emissions and move to decarbonisation, military spending will have to be reduced – and redirected to where it is needed: climate finance.

***************

Nnimmo Bassey, former president of Friends of the Earth International and director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Nigeria says in a foreword to the report:

‘Wars kill people, extinguish biodiversity, and destroy the infrastructure that could otherwise provide safeguards in the face of extreme weather events. Warfare is an act of climate denial.’

Co-authors of the report, Dr Ho-Chih Lin and Deborah Burton of Tipping Point North South:

‘The military like to portray themselves today as positive climate actors, but they have been the biggest institutional user of fossil fuels. Oil-free fighter jets or electric tanks do not exist and there is nothing realistic on the horizon that will make a meaningful dent in military carbon footprint. Not in our lifetime and certainly not by 2050. The stark reality facing politicians is that to green the military, we need to reduce military spending significantly and this will require a new approach to security, one invested in building diplomacy, peace and climate resilience rather than war.’

Contact: Deborah Burton  | +44 7779 203455/ UK | deborah@tippingpointnorthsouth.org

Co-author of the report, Nick Buxton of Transnational Institute says:

‘This report shows that the climate has tragically become the latest victim in the crossfire of war. We have a closing window of time to address the climate crisis, but the world’s political leaders are more focused on arming themselves to the teeth than prioritising climate action. NATO’s 2% minimum spending goals are adding fuel to the climate fire, diverting much needed resources and increasing greenhouse emissions. We urgently need to de-escalate tensions and find peaceful solutions to conflicts if we are to defend our planet. There is no secure nation on an unsafe planet.’

Contact: Nick Buxton  | +1 530 902 3772 /California |  nick@tni.org | @nickbuxton

Wendela de Vries, a researcher at StopWapenhandel, Dutch Campaign Against the Arms Trade says:

‘High military budgets lead to more emissions, which is not making the world safer. The big winner is the arms industry whose profits are skyrocketing. As the planet reaches a climate tipping point, it is insane that we are investing in making arms dealers even richer, rather than protecting those whose lives are being devastated by climate breakdown

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. Tipping Point North South’s Deborah Burton attended COP27 and spoke at a packed UNFCCC side event, Dealing with military and conflict related emissions under the UNFCCC. She is attending COP28 and will be speaking at side events on 4^th, 6^th and 10^th December
2. Report of 57^th Session of the IPCC – Admission of Observer Organisations and debate
   https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2023/04/FINAL_REPT_P-57.pdf
3. Total global military expenditure increased by 3.7 per cent in real terms in 2022, to reach a new high of $2240 billion
   https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2023/world-military-expenditure-reaches-new-record-high-european-spending-surges 

4. Climate Crossfire: the full report can be found at https://www.tni.org/climatecrossfire.

       The executive summary is also available in Spanish, French, Catalan and German.

5. Climate Crossfire

• • Paris Agreement commitment of climate finance for low- and middle-income countries $100 billion a year = Less than 8% of NATO military expenditure in a single year (2023).
  • Required external climate finance by 2030 for low- and middle-income countries recommended by Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance (IHLEG) $1 trillion a year by 2030 = Less than 80% of NATO military spending in a single year (2023). Extra 8-year NATO military spending to achieve the 2% target could fund this for 2 years.
  • NATO members export arms to 39 of the 40 most climate-vulnerable countries, fuelling conflict and repression at a dangerous moment of climate breakdown.
  • NATO’s spending goals have undoubtedly gained momentum as a result of Russia’s full-scale illegal invasion of Ukraine. However even before achieving the 2% target, in 2021 NATO overall spent more than 16 times as much as Russia and its allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO, which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan).
  • Russia has increased its military expenditure to a projected $102 billion in 2023, but this would still be less than a twelfth of NATO’s collective expenditure of $1.26 trillion.
  • The biggest danger of NATO’s 2% military spending goals is that it is encouraging a worldwide arms race, also fuelling more GHG emissions. Our report last year, Climate Collateral, revealed that the richest nations (known as ‘Annex 2’ countries in UN climate negotiations) are spending 30 times as much on military as on climate finance.

6. Tipping Point North South was founded by former senior Christian Aid trade, tax and climate justice campaigners. Transform Defence for Sustainable Human Safety is its primary policy/advocacy project https://tippingpointnorthsouth.org/;  https://transformdefence.org.