Military cuts to aid emissions

THE latest UN report warns that the world is on course for a catastrophic warming of 2.7°C by the end of the century, and that countries must act now and set stronger emission reduction targets. A prediction that far exceeds the 2°C targets of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

It seems an impossible target to meet, so what other areas of emission reduction are possible to achieve?

One neglected area is the reduction of the military carbon boot print. The US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries, so shrinking this war machine is a must.

Like a huge corporate supply chain, it relies upon an extensive global network of container ships, trucks and cargo planes to supply all its operations with everything from bombs and food to hydrocarbon fuels. In 2017, the US military bought about 269,230 barrels of oil a day, and emitted more than 25,000 kilotons of carbon dioxide by burning those fossil fuels.

The US Air Force purchased $4.9bn worth of fuel, the US Navy $2.8bn and the Army $947b.

These figures do not include arms manufacturing and transportation. These figures are always overlooked in climate change studies. Why?

The UK’S emissions also need to be considered as when emissions by the UK military industrial sector in the financial year of 2017-18 produced 6.5 million tonnes of CO2, which was greater than the emissions from around 60 nations.

Both the US and UK military emissions do not include related CO2 impacts of weapon use on the battlefield such as weapons sold and used in Saudi Arabia.

It is now time for military emissions to be considered if we want to prevent unstoppable climate change. David Wood Landore, Swansea

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