Session Three: Perspectives on Finance System Change – Deborah Burton – Militarism

SCENE SETTING 

As extensions of their respective governments, the big militaries of the world have played a significant role in accelerating climate change whilst, at the same time, soaking up huge amounts of tax-payers money that could have otherwise been far better utilised – not least, by being applied instead to the REAL human safety threats inherent in climate change.

Context

  1. We are currently at $2.2.tr p/a on military spending – and it is rising. The greater the military spending, the greater the match to reinforcing economic and/or geopolitical power.
  2. Military spending positively correlates to military emissions – the more you spend on big ticket, gas-guzzling weaponry, the more the greenhouse gas emissions. Cut spending = cut emissions.
  3. The richest countries(Annex II in the UN climate talks) are spending 30 times as much on their armed forces as they spend on providing climate finance.
  4. On excessive military spending, the arms industry is the winner. You cannot put a piece of paper between government spending on the military, and the arms industry’s profits.
  5. RUNAWAY military spending is a 100% completely legitimate source to tap for climate finance. There IS NEW money and it sits inside military spending budgets – and arms industry profits.

SPECIFICS – MILITARY EMISSIONS

On patchy data the global military and its supply chain – arms industry – are estimated to be responsible for 5.5% of total global GHG emissions.

To give context to this, 1.4bn people of the 54 countries on the African continent are responsible for under 4%.

This 5.5% is also is more than civilian aviation and shipping emissions combined.

There are no tanks, warships and fighter jets in production and in operation that can be made and function without a very great deal of fossil fuel NOW OR IN OUR LIFETIME.

For example, the brand new F35 fighters jet drinks 5,800 litres jet fuel per flying hour, will be in service for 30 years plus, beyond 2050, and costs more than $100m per jet.

MILITARY SPENDING VS CLIMATE FINANCE

By 2030 we are meant to have cut emissions by 45%.  In that time, the big military spenders of the world will have allocated approx $13trillion to their utterly fossil fuel reliant militaries.

By 2030, we will also be needing more than $2.4 trillion climate finance every single year to address mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage.

THIS IS PRETTY MUCH EXACTLY WHAT THE BIG SPENDERS ARE ALLOCATING ANNUALLY TO THEIR MILITARIES. 

Between 2013 and 2021, the richest (Annex II) countries spent $9.45 trillion on the military, (56.3% of total global military spending ($16.8 trillion) – compared to an estimated $243.9 billion on additional climate finance.

Military spending has increased by 21.3% since 2013.

G20 nations account for 87% of global military spending

AND IT DOESN’T END THERE

This is before Ukraine and now Gaza.

And let us not forget that while we watching 21st century wars and conflicts – Gaza, Ukraine, Congo, Sudan, Yemen – we can go on –– the big military nations are also preparing for conflict in space.

All this as our climate collapses.

No F-35 will stop New York City, Alexandria, Shanghai, Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Bangkok, Mumbai going under water; no nuclear warhead will solve India and Pakistan’s disappearing water-table; no anti-terror AI will stop West Africa’s growing desertification.

For COP Dubai  we co-published with TNI and STOP Wapenhandel in Netherlands, a report called Climate Crossfire – looking at NATO’s 2% GDP spent on military requirement for the 31 member states – what it meant for emissions and spending.

We were very happy to have Nimmo Bassey write the foreword. In it he says:

The true environmental impact of war is impossible to quantify because it affects a staggering array of sectors and every aspect of human well being. 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.

The more dire the situation gets, the more the rich nations seem to double down, producing weapons of destruction rather than making financial resources available for climate adaptation and mitigation. Their inability to meet their financial pledges is a signal of either xenophobic nationalism or represents a colonial mentality of taking from the periphery or sacrifice zones and never giving back.

To repeat: military spending and arms industry profits are legitimate sources to tap for climate finance.

We need to be developing policy and campaigning routes that see the big spenders move towards, deep progressive and equitable reductions in military spending,  directing savings to climate needs.

In parallel, need to tackle the excess profits of arms companies, in peace and war.

And In terms of thinking about how we actually practically formulate such routes it’s something we at TPNS have given quite a bit of time to – we have developed something we call the 5% Proposal which is a 2 part formula that target govt spending, and we have an excess profits tax concept directed at the private sector – the arms industry.

To wrap up – When we tackle this issue through a climate finance lens, we are shining light on THE WIDER foreign and defence policy picture which still reflects 19th and 20th century pre and post colonial power. Since WW1, big oil, military spending and conflict have been indivisible. Still today, the British military has personnel stationed at approximately 145 overseas military installations located across 42 countries.  The USA 800 military bases in 70 countries. And the not-fit-for-purpose post-war P5 Security Council  structure also remains in place.

The horrors of the genocide in Gaza demands that we ‘escalate’ this issue of growing worldwide militarisation and with it the insane levels of funding that lie behind it. More broadly, we need the widest possible civil society alliance to make it clear: we wholeheartedly reject putting climate goals and climate finance – peace and human safety – second, to military objectives and arms industry profits.

Deborah Burton is Co-Founder of Tipping Point North South,  UK based non-profit organisation. 

She has wide ranging experience across economic justice campaigns such as trade and tax justice; children’s human rights and women’s health and environment. She leads on Tipping Point North South’s primary policy/advocacy project: Transform Defence – military emissions and spending; climate change and climate finance; UN processes and wider foreign and defence policy thinking.  TPNS was set up by a number of former senior trade, tax and climate campaigners from Christian Aid

Her work at TPNS has included executive producing on cinema documentaries including We Are Many which explored the global anti-Iraq protest movement and Open Bethlehem, a film about the impact of the Israeli separation wall on the town and citizens of Bethlehem.