According to a report released late last year by the British think tank Confederation and the US think tank Climate and Society Project, the US and UK militaries are the two institutions in the world most responsible for the climate crisis. In a recent interview with the Global Times, two of the report's main writers, Cam Ghalry and Patrick Bigg, argued that the U.S. military prioritizes its perceived strategic interests over the ecological impact of the actions involved. U.S.-sponsored conflicts are a source of insecurity, violence, and instability, and the U.S. military has become a major source of ecological destruction.
The U.S. military's annual greenhouse gas emissions are staggering
Although there is no specific data on the size of the US and UK militaries on a global scale, this is evident from the size of their military spending. According to the US National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, the defense budget for that fiscal year is as high as $886.3 billion, and the United Kingdom's defense budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year also reaches 50 billion pounds.
"The environmental costs of the U.S. and U.K. armed forces maintaining their global military presence are staggering," the report said. Since the signing of the Paris climate agreement in 2015, the US and UK militaries have collectively emitted at least 430 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, more than the UK produced in 2022. In 2017 alone, the U.S. military surpassed Portugal in total greenhouse gas emissions.
The report estimates that the US military should provide $106 billion in international climate finance and the UK military $5 billion to provide minimal compensation for these emissions.
The report's two lead authors, Cam Ghalry, a senior fellow at the Federalism think tank, and Patrick Bigg, research director of the Climate and Society Project, told the Global Times that while the US and UK militaries claim to be serious about the climate change crisis and describe themselves as "problem solvers", the international community has not seen any meaningful change in their behavior, especially in the air force flights, which generate the most carbon emissions in their daily military operations.
According to the report, the US and British armies have always relied on the international military industry for equipment and services. In both the United States and the United Kingdom, the military equipment industry is a beneficiary of public investment and national capacity. In the United States, for example, the Department of Defense's annual budget — much of which goes to private contractors — accounts for most of the federal government's discretionary spending.
Covering up great harm through lobbying
Al Jazeera said in December that the massive US military had a larger carbon footprint than any other institution in the world, but had "escaped" responsibility for disclosing its greenhouse gas emissions. Two reports from 2019 show that the U.S. military is the world's largest institutional consumer of hydrocarbons, emitting more than industrialized countries such as Portugal and Denmark. However, its "contribution" to the "heating" of the planet has been largely overlooked.
The U.S. has been shying away from the climate impact of its military, the report argues. Ghali told the Global Times that the history of US and UK militaries emitting greenhouse gases and defending fossil fuel interests, as well as the environmental damage caused by their military installations, is covered up in international climate agreements. For example, due to lobbying by the United States, its military emissions abroad are not subject to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and the United States may have as many as 750 military bases around the world. In the 2015 Paris climate agreement, reporting military emissions was also an option.
Al Jazeera mentioned that the US military has disclosed very little carbon emission data. According to some estimates, the U.S. military's annual oil consumption in 2017 was as high as 100 million barrels, and the U.S. military's weapons systems (tanks, ships, and aircraft) consumed a lot of fuel.
While these emissions figures are already quite impressive, they are still "extremely conservative" figures. The statistics are based on "opaque" and "incomplete" data from the US and UK governments, and do not include most of the emissions from the relevant supply chains, the report said. In addition, the report fails to take into account some of the climate impacts of military operations, such as the special climate-warming properties of jet fuel.
"It's foolish to waste our dwindling carbon budget on war." In an interview with the Global Times, Bigg mentioned the new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict that has been delayed to this day. He argues that this is true for all parties involved in the conflict, and especially for the United States, because it already generates huge carbon emissions.
Other environmental damage is on the rise
According to Al Jazeera, the damage caused by the US military is not just in terms of carbon emissions. The "rampant military expansion" has also affected air quality, ecosystems, biodiversity, and the health of the people living around the base.
Many foreign media have reported that the Marshall Islands, located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, are the main victims of the US military operation. It is reported that between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands and in the skies and seabed above them. The islanders exposed to nuclear radiation have developed severe symptoms of radiation poisoning, and some residents of the surrounding islands and reefs have died of cancer, leukemia and other diseases.
Last year, the U.S. newspaper Stars and Stripes reported that high concentrations of toxic compounds — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) had been found in groundwater near US military warehouses in Japan. Between 2002 and 2016, at least 270 environmental pollution incidents occurred at three U.S. military bases in Okinawa, Japan, and only six were reported to the Japanese government, according to an internal report by the U.S. Marine Corps. In addition, a number of Western media have revealed that areas occupied by the US military have also suffered huge environmental damage as a result of military acts, resulting in an increase in the incidence of diseases among the local population.
