The climate cost of militarism

With global military spending rising to record levels, the climate costs of war and rearmament remain largely uncounted, unreported and exempt from scrutiny, writes Wayne Hawkins.

HUMANITY HAS A PROBLEM. There are actually several of them in humanity, but let’s focus on the situation where we are simultaneously spending about $3 trillion a year while preparing to destroy civilization and solemnly promising to save it.

Welcome to the military-industrial complex’s silent war on the atmosphere. It was fought without notice. Exempt from accounting. Win convincingly.

The number no one counts

Here is a figure worth dwelling on. Scientists for Global Responsibility I guess that global military sector It produces approximately 2.75 billion tonnes of CO₂ every year. This is not from active wars. This is the time of peace; Bases are buzzing, jets are training, supply chains are abuzz.

If the world’s militaries were a country, they would be the world’s fourth-largest emitter, behind only the United States, China and India. They will also be the only “country” expressly exempt from international climate reporting requirements. Suitable.

2025 has been a benchmark year for the defense industry. Global military spending reaches record $2.887 trillion – 11th consecutive year of growth. Europe increased its defense budgets by 14%. In order not to be left behind, NATO New target of 5% As a brief exception, the United States has approved over $1 trillion for 2026, with $1.5 trillion potentially on the way.

Meanwhile COP30 In Belém in November, delegates examined aviation, agriculture, steel and cement in terms of their contribution to the climate. War did not create an agenda. The irony was probably noted and filed away.

When the shooting starts, the scoreboard also starts

Once active conflict begins, the numbers cease to be alarming and begin to become geological. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine increased predictions 311 million tonnes CO₂ equivalent — Comparable to the total annual emissions of Belgium, New Zealand, Austria and Portugal. It hasn’t accumulated in decades – since February 2022.

More than 33 million tons were produced in the first 15 months of the war in Gaza. And these calculations do not fully reflect the elegant brutality of modern warfare’s climate means.

Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure resulted in the release of sulfur hexafluoride, a greenhouse gas 24,000 times more potent than CO₂, from high-voltage switchgear equipment. Civilian aircraft rerouting around the conflict zone added an estimated 20 million more tonnes of CO₂ equivalent. Planet received no votes on any of these design options.

2025 Nature Communication The study made clear the structural logic: increasing global military spending is not directly compatible with limiting warming to 1.5-2°C. Military industries emit almost twice as much CO₂ per unit of economic output as civilian sectors. Every percentage point increase in the military spending share meaningfully pushes emissions upward, expanding fossil fuel-dependent industries that then lobby against the green transition.

The military-industrial complex isn’t just burning the planet. It funds political opposition against anyone who tries to put out the fire.

Slow damage that lasts longer than combat

There’s also the legacy: the slow, generational damage that continues long after press conferences and peace agreements. UN Environment Program in Gaza (UNEP) to have documented the loss Since 2023, 97% of tree crops, 95% of shrub crops and 82% of annual crops. Food production on a large scale is not possible. The groundwater that provides most of Gaza’s water is likely contaminated due to collapsing sewer infrastructure.

Cases of acute watery diarrhea increased 36-fold. Acute jaundice syndrome increased 384 times. sixty one million tons Debris filled with remains of unexploded ordnance, asbestos and chemical munitions now covers the area.

Environmental damage caused by soil pollution, heavy metal ammunition residues, land mines and destroyed ecosystems is serious in Ukraine. It is estimated to be over $50 billion. Scientists clearly describe this as a toxic legacy that will last for generations.

Every modern war is also a chemical event, a water event, an atmospheric event; The consequences accumulated in soil and groundwater long after the last ceasefire was signed and reconstruction contracts were signed with the same companies that produced the weapons.

Black hole of responsibility

This is the part that should have ended the career but didn’t. Analysis for 2025 Conflict and Environment Observatory found that military emissions reporting was not only inadequate; is actively deteriorating. The USA, China and Russia, the three countries that spend the most in military expenditures, either do not submit data to international institutions or provide figures that are so incomplete that they are decorative. It seems that the solution to the biggest measurement gap in climate policy is to measure less.

Military emissions were expressly exempt from international climate accounting frameworks in Kyoto. Countries lobbied for this exemption. It was never fixed. When the world’s most disruptive industry begins operating outside the general ledger, the ledger ceases to be an accounting document. This is a performance.

Here we are. We spend approximately $3 trillion a year on systems that are structurally incompatible with our survival. We exempt these systems from the frameworks of responsibility we have created specifically to ensure our survival. We are doing this with the fastest increase since the Cold War.

The defense industry calls this deterrence. Climate scientists call this insurance.