Deborah Burton Contribution

Win-win for climate, gender and peace: cuts to military spending and emissions

COP28 -SIDE EVENT – DECEMBER 4 2023

WILPF – DREXEL – TIPPING POINT NORTH SOUTH

 

Military Spending: A major threat to climate justice

Thank you Michelle – it feels as if we are making headway with every COP in our collective efforts to raise the issue of military emissions and military spending.

The global military’s emissions – in peace and war- is now in the spotlight. At 5.5 % of global emissions, the next, toughest, step is transparency, accountability and urgent action for those heavily reliant fossil fuel militaries to do as all sectors must: decarbonise.

And yet – as we move ever more into global boiling, as we continue apace to accelerate mass extinction across biodiversity – war continues apace.

Military emissions in conflict finally hit home as the world watched the Russian invasion of Ukraine unfold. Today we are here, the world watching again: this time the suffering of 2 million Palestinians in Gaza under non-stop bombardment. Bombardment that devastates infrastructure, environment and, as in Ukraine, just keeps adding to the GHG emissions burden also.

So why is military spending a major threat to climate justice?

FIRSTLY because the emissions story is wrapped up in another – runaway military spending

Currently it sits at $2.2tr p/a and rising – as a result of Ukraine and Gaza

There is a positive correlation between military spending and emissions –
The more spent on big-ticket military equipment, the more military emissions.  And – as far as we know– the global military and their supply chain – the arms industry – are responsible for at least 5.5% of global emissions.

That is more than the 52 countries of the African continent combined – 3.8%.

It is more than civilian aviation and shipping combined

It also DOES NOT include conflict emissions.

SECONDLY  

It’s poor Value for Money and it diverts funding from climate finance.

Over the next 6 years – to the point we are meant to hit 45% cuts to annual GHG emissions – the global military will have received $13trillion from our governments.

$13trillion. The G20 nations will account for approx 87% of that.

Think what we could do with just 10% of that, let alone 20% or 30% – or more

This ever rising military spending is diverting funds from climate finance.  Funds that rich countries are legally bound to deliver and failing to do.

For COP last year we co-published a report with Transnational Institute and Stop Wappenhandel in the Netherlands entitled

CLIMATE COLLATERAL: HOW MILITARY SPENDING ACCELERATES CLIMATE BREAKDOWN

In it we found that 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 for the world’s most vulnerable countries

AND FOR COP THIS YEAR WE HAVE PUBLISHED A FOLLOW UP REPORT – CLIMATE CROSSFIRE – looking at the impact of 2% of GDP target that NATO expects its 31 members to spend on their militaries. Bearing in mind we now have 6 years to go before we have to meet the 45% cuts to GHG emissions, NATO countries are moving in the exact opposite direction with this 2% target.

This current year, NATO’s spending at $1.26 trillion would pay for 12 years of promised climate finance of $100 billion a year.

And if all NATO members were to meet its 2% military spending targets, between the 8 year period 2021 and 2028 it would NEED TO FIND AN ADDITIONAL  US$2.57 trillion

All this as NATO applies for IPCC Observer Status

AND LASTLY – as we watch on TV those fossil fuel hungry fighter jets, tanks, bombs and missiles rain down on civilians , we need to be reminded that much of that military spending – our taxes – are going into the profit margins of the weapons industry. Wars in Ukraine and Gaza are boosting profits and shareholder dividends while Palestine – as Iraq and Afghanistan before it – faces the terrible collision of human and environmental devastation of war while all the time on the frontline of the climate emergency.

TO CONCLUDE

As we head toward the almost certain conclusion that we will breach 2 degrees in the coming decades are we left to conclude that climate goals being put second to military objectives?

And if military spending broadly correlates to military emissions, then surely these ever rising levels of military spending – in a climate emergency – are utterly incompatible with climate targets.

Is Military Spending a major threat to climate justice?

Ask it the other way – Is it helping reach net zero targets? Is it diverting BIG money from the climate finance we are obligated to pay?

Is it getting humanity to a better place?

Or has the time come for us all to expect a PROGRESSIVE transformation of foreign and defence policy through the lens of climate emergency, one FIT FOR 21st century and the generations to come?