2 hours ago
7
A planned expansion of military spending by Nato countries could generate an additional 1,320m tonnes of planet-heating pollution over the next decade – on a par with the annual greenhouse gas emissions generated by Brazil, the fifth largest emitter in the world, according to a new report.
Military activity is fossil-fuel intensive, yet official country data on military emissions is patchy or non-existent.
Now a review of 11 recent academic studies by Scientists for Global Responsibility has found that each additional $100bn of military spending leads to an estimated 32m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) being dumped into the atmosphere.
The emissions come from direct sources such as fuel-guzzling combat planes, warships and armored vehicles, as well as indirect emissions from transporting equipment, complex global supply-chains, and the effects of war fighting itself.
Nato, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a political and military alliance between 32 European and North American countries. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and mounting threats by Donald Trump to abandon historic allies – Nato announced plans to increase military spending to 3.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), as part of a broader security spending target of 5% GDP for each member country.
Meeting the 3.5% target will add 132m tCO2e into the atmosphere, which is about the same amount of carbon pollution generated annually by 345 gas-fired power plants – or the entire oil producing country of Oman, according to the report. The planned rise comes on top of the $200bn funding boost between 2019 and 2024, which already increased Nato’s military carbon footprint by an estimated 64m tCO2.
“It is extremely difficult to see how the current and planned military spending increases can be reconciled with the transformative action necessary to prevent dangerous climate change,” according to SGR, a UK-based membership organisation which promotes responsible science and technology.
Military emissions are vast but difficult to track, in large part due to a lack of transparency and mandatory accounting, and predicting how budget increases will be spent is fraught with uncertainty.
Still, the total military carbon footprint was estimated at about 5.5% of global emissions in 2019 – excluding greenhouse gases from war fighting and post-conflict reconstruction. This is more than the combined contribution of civilian aviation (2%) and shipping (3%).
Since then, global military expenditure has surged, hitting $2.72tn in 2024 - the highest since the end of the cold war, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Israel’s military budget jumped to $46.5bn in 2024 – the largest increase in the world as it continued to bomb Gaza, Syria, Iran, Yemen and Lebanon, while the Pentagon’s 2026 budget is set to surge to $1tn thanks to Trump’s tax and spend bill, a 17% rise on last year.
The SGR report is the most comprehensive assessment so far of the impact of increasing military spending on greenhouse gas emissions, as the planet hurtles towards climate catastrophe and governments fail to take meaningful action.
The findings, which draw on the methodologies used by the 11 studies analyzed, suggest that military expansion will play a significant role in breaching the Paris climate target of curtailing planetary warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
“There is an urgent need for rapid decarbonisation to prevent the most dangerous effects of climate change. But recent and planned rearmament programmes and wars are pushing the world in the opposite direction,” said Dr Stuart Parkinson, author of the report and a leading researcher in the field.
The report recommends that nations with military spending above 0.5% GDP should be mandated to report robust data to the UN, assist with estimates of conflict-related emissions and put in place plans to transition off fossil fuels through both technological and non-technological measures including peace building agreements, arms control, and disarmament initiatives.
