COP26 Glasgow 1-12 Nov & G20 Pre-COP26 Meeting Rome 30-31 Oct, 2021

◀ Ice sculpture video “Global Military, Big Oil & Climate Change”
◀ Visuals
◀ Gallery
◀ The Scotsman full page ad: Open Letter to COP26 Co-Chairs UK and Italy; G20 nations
◀ Open letter to Nigel Topping, High Level Champion for Climate Change COP26
◀ COP26 Climate & Peace Day of Action: Nov 4th
◀ IPCC Report: Code Red for Humanity
◀ More reading

Ice Sculpture Video “Global Military, Big Oil & Climate Change”

1-min short version

Youtube version is available here.
Twitter version is here.
Facebook version is here.

Music: Precipice by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/

3-min full version

Youtube version is available here.
Twitter version is here.
Facebook version is here.

A message to COP26 – the global military and big oil remain indivisible. Climate chaos shows us it’s a relationship that has had its day. So, what next?

Ice Sculpture by Hamilton Ice Sculptors.

Music: Reflections – Cinematic Soundscape by NaturesEye.

Visuals

(Sources: Indefensible: The true cost of the global military to our climate and human security &
Global military spending, sustainable human safety and value for money) 

G20 account for 87% of $2 trillion global annual military spending.
GHG emissions of global militaries are at least comparable with civil aviation.

G20 nations account for 87% of $2tr annual global military spending
Nations do NOT have to compulsory report their military GHG emissions to UN
Global military emissions at least comparable with civil aviation
We need: 1. An IPCC Taskforce to investigate decarbonisation & the military 2. Leading to an IPPC Special Report on the global military’s contribution to climate change 3. Compulsory and full GHG military emissions reporting to the IPCC/UNFCCC 4. All countries must include their militaries in GHG emission reduction plans and targets
G20 account for 87% of $2 trillion global annual military spending. GHG emissions of global militaries are at least comparable with civil aviation.

Four demands that begin to address the significant (historical) GHG emissions of the global military.

The global military is fossil fuel dependent, a significant contributor to climate change, and has no practical plan for net zero.
3. Compulsory submissions to the IPCC/UNFCCC of full GHG military emissions reporting by all nations
What needs to happen? 1. An IPCC Task Force for decarbonisation of militaries and military technology industries 2. An IPCC Special Report on the role of the global militaries & military technology industries in contributing to climate change
4. Nationally determined contributions (NDCs): countries must include their militaries & military technology industries in their GHG emission reduction plans and targets
Four demands that begin to address the significant (historical) GHG emissions of the global military.

We are on course for 3°C of global heating by 2100.
So ask: what does ‘defence’ look like in a post-carbon, climate-changed world?

We are living through the sixth mass extinction.
We know everything must change if we are to survive.
We are on course for 3°C of global heating by 2100.
So ask: what does ‘defence’ look like in a post-carbon, climate changed world?
We are on course for 3°C of global heating by 2100. So ask: what does ‘defence’ look like in a post-carbon, climate-changed world?

$2 trillion lifetime cost of F-35 warplanes =20 years of International Climate Finance

What is more use to people on our burning, drowning planet?
$2 trillion lifetime cost of F-35 warplanes = 20 years of International Climate Finance
$2 trillion spent on global total lifetime cost of the F-35 fighter jet programme OR
By the way, a F-35 fighter jet consumes 6,000 litres/1585 gallons of fuel per flight hour.
$2 trillion lifetime cost of F-35 warplanes =20 years of International Climate Finance

$2 trillion annual military spend =
• 20 years of Global Biodiversity Conservation at US$100bn per annum or
• 400 years of UN Disaster Response or
• 1000 years of WHO funding at US$2bn per annum or
• 133 years of UN peacekeeping at US$15bn per annum

What is more use to people on our burning, drowning planet?
$2 trillion annual military spend = • 20 years of Global Biodiversity Conservation at US$100bn per annum or • 400 years of UN Disaster Response
One year’s $2 trillion global military spending budget on forever wars, nukes, space-war plans with billions lost on waste and corruption OR
$2 trillion annual military spend = • 1000 years of WHO funding at US$2bn per annum or • 133 years of UN peacekeeping at US$15bn per annum
$2 trillion annual military spend = • 20 years of Global Biodiversity Conservation at US$100bn per annum or • 400 years of UN Disaster Response or • 1000 years of WHO funding at US$2bn per annum or • 133 years of UN peacekeeping at US$15bn per annum

If the world’s militaries were combined together as a single country, they would be the 29th biggest oil consumer in the world.
Runaway global military spending enables the world’s militaries to remain the biggest institutional users of fossil fuels in the world.
Global militaries are a major driver for climate change. A carbon-neutral world demands we fully decarbonise our militaries.

If the world’s militaries were combined together as a single country, they would be the 29th biggest oil consumer in the world.
Runaway global military spending enables the world’s militaries to remain the biggest institutional users of fossil fuels in the world.
The global militaries together consume more oil a year than Belgium or South Africa, as much as half the oil consumption of the world’s 5th biggest economy, the UK.
Global militaries are a major driver for climate change. A carbon-neutral world demands we fully decarbonise our militaries.
If the world’s militaries were combined together as a single country, they would be the 29th biggest oil consumer in the world. Runaway global military spending enables the world’s militaries to remain the biggest institutional users of fossil fuels in the world. Global militaries are a major driver for climate change. A carbon-neutral world demands we fully decarbonise our militaries.
It was WW1 that ushered in the age of ‘BIG OIL.’ And through war and peace, Big Oil & the Global Military have been wedded ever since. But this relationship has had its day. As global heating is on course for 3 degrees by 2100, We must change our thinking on everything.
It was WW1 that ushered in the age of ‘BIG OIL.’ And through war and peace, Big Oil & the Global Military have been wedded ever since. But this relationship has had its day.
It was WW1 that ushered in the age of ‘BIG OIL.’ And through war and peace, Big Oil & the Global Military have been wedded ever since. But this relationship has had its day. As global heating is on course for 3 degrees by 2100, We must change our thinking on everything.
It was WW1 that ushered in the age of ‘BIG OIL.’ And through war and peace, Big Oil & the Global Military have been wedded ever since. But this relationship has had its day. As global heating is on course for 3 degrees by 2100, We must change our thinking on everything.
It was WW1 that ushered in the age of ‘BIG OIL.’ And through war and peace, Big Oil & the Global Military have been wedded ever since. But this relationship has had its day. As global heating is on course for 3 degrees by 2100, We must change our thinking on everything.
It was WW1 that ushered in the age of ‘BIG OIL.’ And through war and peace, Big Oil & the Global Military have been wedded ever since. But this relationship has had its day. As global heating is on course for 3 degrees by 2100, We must change our thinking on everything.

The Scotsman full page ad:
Open Letter to COP26 Co-Chairs UK and Italy; G20 nations

Academics, NGOs, activists and creatives support a call for G20 militaries to come clean on their carbon emissions ahead of COP 26 in Glasgow. The 33 signatories comprise an international list from science, academia, international development, environment, peace and the arts.

View the full referenced version and download this open letter here.

This Scotsman one page advert is drawn from earlier Open Letters to G7 and G20 meetings, June 2021:

Open letter for G7, 2021

Open letter for G20, 2021

Open Letter to Nigel Topping, High Level Champion for Climate Change COP26

An open letter with signatories from 60 organisations around the world calling for the CO26 High Level Champion to help ensure that military greenhouse gas emissions are on the agenda for COP27.

View the referenced version and the full list of signatories here.

COP26 Climate & Peace Day of Action: Nov 4th

In support of the call for co-ordinated COP26 climate/peace activity on 4th November, we will re-release our Transform Defence reports Indefensible and Value for Money:

Indefensible: The true cost of the global military to our climate and human security

Global military spending, sustainable human safety and value for money

   

IPCC Report: Code Red for Humanity

At last, the global military is in the frame. But what next?

By 2030 the world must cut global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 50%. ALL human activity MUST urgently decarbonise.

But one sector remains out of view: the global military.

Exempt from compulsory reporting its GHG emissions, we can’t get an accurate picture of its overall contribution to climate heating. From its massive fossil fuel consumption – domestic and overseas – to its military exercises and expeditions; from the impacts of conflict and war to GHG emissions from post-conflict reconstruction, the global military has been a significant contributor to climate change and continues its business as usual. Its emissions are estimated to be several percent of total global carbon emissions, at least comparable with the carbon emissions of civil aviation.

Modern militaries are completely dependent on fossil fuels with no sign of realistic or practical zero-carbon plans. To reach zero carbon, the global military MUST

  • decarbonise
  • COMPULSORILY report their emissions IN FULL
  • Governments must include their militaries in GHG reduction plans

AND

solar panels on military bases or electric killer drones cannot be substitutes for serious demilitarisation options in 21st century while we are in the midst of the 6th mass extinction and climate chaos is on TV nightly.

So, ask the question. What are the threats?

And what does ‘defence’ look like  in a climate-changed, post-carbon world?

As we suffer the fires, droughts or floods of runaway climate change and struggle through pandemic(s) and vaccine apartheid austerity and ever growing inequality, most nations’ military budgets are rising,  (now $2tr p/a globally) in order to buy more jets and warships, nuclear submarines & weapons – and space wars U.S. generals see as ‘all but inevitable.’

It was WW1 that ushered in the age of ‘BIG OIL.’ And through war and peace, Big Oil & the Global Military have been wedded ever since. But this relationship has had its day.

As global heating is on course for 3 degrees by 2100, we must change our thinking on everything.

This animation tells us everything we need to know: who carries the historic burden of emissions and how close we are to overshooting the 1.5 °C target.

We have a MOUNTAIN to climb in the next 10 years if we are to stay within the 1.5 °C over the pre-industrial average global temperature limit we know we must adhere to if we are to have a chance of limiting climate chaos. 

But we are almost at 1.5 °C of heating. We will certainly overshoot. Worse, we are on course for 3 °C of heating by 2100. 

Economic and environmental solutions will have to be transformational. And so must all nations’ foreign and so-called ‘defence’ policy thinking. We are one species, at the edge of a self-made cliff.  To transform defence thinking is to connect to every other aspect of the climate emergency.

To transform defence for sustainable human safety is for our leaders to ‘come of age’ and do the right thing by all their citizens in a climate changed world.

More reading

Media

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/12/pentagon-greenhouse-gas-emissions-portugal

https://theconversation.com/us-military-is-a-bigger-polluter-than-as-many-as-140-countries-shrinking-this-war-machine-is-a-must-119269

Deutsche Welle – Scorched Earth: The Climate Impact of Conflict 

The Environment Magazine The Smoking Guns: How Global Defence Spending Harms the Environment

https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2021-10/conflict-military-turns-heat

REPORTS

USA MILITARY focus

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/news/2019/pentagon-emits-more-greenhouse-gases-portugal-study-finds

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339553371_The_US_military_is_not_sustainable

UK/EU MILITARY focus

https://www.sgr.org.uk/publications/under-radar-carbon-footprint-europe-s-military-sectors

https://www.sgr.org.uk/publications/environmental-impacts-uk-military-sector

GLOBAL MILITARY focus

https://transformdefence.org/publication/indefensible/

https://transformdefence.org/publication/value-for-money/

https://transformdefence.org/publication/the-global-military-and-un/

http://www.ipb.org/books/demilitarization-for-deep-decarbonization-reducing-militarism-and-military-expenditures/

MILITARISING CLIMATE CRISIS

https://www.tni.org/en/publication/primer-on-climate-security