UN expert urges criminalizing fossil fuel disinformation, banning lobbying
Rapporteur calls for defossilization of economies and urgent reparations to avert ‘catastrophic’ rights and climate harms.
Nina Lakhani Climate justice reporter, Mon 30 Jun 2025 , https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/30/un-expert-urges-criminalizing-fossil-fuel-disinformation-banning-lobbying
A leading UN expert is calling for criminal penalties against those peddling disinformation about the climate crisis and a total ban on fossil fuel industry lobbying and advertising, as part of a radical shake-up to safeguard human rights and curtail planetary catastrophe.
Elisa Morgera, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change who presents her damning new report to the general assembly in Geneva on Monday, argues that the US, UK, Canada, Australia and other wealthy fossil fuel nations are legally obliged under international law to fully phase out oil, gas and coal by 2030 – and compensate communities for harms caused.
Fracking, oil sands and gas flaring should be banned, as should fossil fuel exploration, subsidies, investments and false tech solutions that will lock in future generations to polluting and increasingly costly oil, gas and coal.
“Despite overwhelming evidence of the interlinked, intergenerational, severe and widespread human rights impacts of the fossil fuel life cycle … these countries have and are still accruing enormous profits from fossil fuels, and are still not taking decisive action,” said Morgera, professor of global environmental law at the University of Strathclyde.
“These countries are responsible for not having prevented the widespread human rights harm arising from climate change and other planetary crises we are facing – biodiversity loss, plastic pollution and economic inequalities – caused by fossil fuels extraction, use and waste.”
Island nations, Indigenous and other vulnerable communities – who have benefited least from fossil fuels – now face the worst and compounding harms caused by the climate crisis and other environmental harms linked to their extraction, transport and use for energy, fuel, plastics and synthetic fertilizers.
The report points to a mountain of evidence on the severe, far-reaching and cumulative damage caused by the fossil fuel industry – oil, gas, coal, fertilizers and plastics – on almost every human right including the rights to life, self-determination, health, food, water, housing, education, information and livelihoods.
Morgera makes the case for the “defossilization” of our entire economies – in other words the eradication of fossil fuels from all sectors including politics, finance, food, media, tech and knowledge. The transition to clean energy is not enough to tackle the widespread and mounting harms caused by the fossil fuels, she argues.
In order to comply with existing international human rights law, states are obliged to inform their citizens about the widespread harms caused by fossil fuels and that phasing out oil, gas and coal is the most effective way to fight the climate crisis.
People also have the right to know how the industry – and its allies – has for 60 years systematically obstructed access to this knowledge and meaningful climate action by peddling disinformation and misinformation, attacks on climate scientists and activists, and by capturing democratic decision-making spaces including the annual UN climate negotiations.
“The fossil fuel playbook has undermined the protection of all human rights that are negatively impacted by climate change for over six decades,” said Morgera in the imperative of defossilizing our economies report.
States must ban fossil fuel ads and lobbying, criminalize greenwashing (misinformation and misrepresentation) by the fossil fuel industry, media and advertising firms, and enforce harsh penalties for attacks on climate advocates who are facing a rise in malicious lawsuits, online harassment and physical violence.
Communities across the world are facing growing threats from sea level rise, desertification, drought, melting glaciers, extreme heat, floods, and other climate-related impacts. This is on top of the deadly air pollution, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and forced displacement of Indigenous and rural peoples associated with every stage of the fossil fuel lifecycle.
Meanwhile, fossil fuel and petrochemical companies have benefited from huge profits, taxpayer subsidies, tax avoidance schemes and undue protection under international investment law – without ever reducing energy poverty and economic inequalities. In 2023, oil and gas companies globally earned $2.4tn, while coal companies pocketed $2.5tn, according to the report.
Removing fossil fuel subsidies, estimated to have topped $1.4tn for OECD members and 48 other countries in 2023, would alone reduce emissions by up to 10% by 2030.
Redirecting these subsidies would help wealthy fossil fuel-producing states fulfill their legal obligations to aid developing countries to phase out fossil fuels – and provide financial and other remedies for the widespread human rights violations and environmental damage they have caused – and continue to cause.
The compensation could also be funded by enforcing penalties for damages caused by fossil fuel companies, and cracking down on tax evasion and avoidance by the industry, as well as introducing wealth and windfall taxes. States could – and should – require the industry to finance climate adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage through climate superfunds or other mechanisms that are directly accessible to affected communities.
Land unjustly appropriated for fossil fuel operations should be cleaned up, remediated and returned to Indigenous communities, people of African descent and peasants, if they want it back, or they should be fairly compensated, Morgera argues.
The report lays out the human rights case for decisive and transformative political action to limit the pain and suffering from the climate crisis. The recommendations offer a glimpse at a world in which the basic rights of all people are prioritized above the profits and benefits enjoyed by a few, but will probably be dismissed by some as radical and untenable.
“Paradoxically what may seem radical or unrealistic – a transition to a renewable energy-based economy – is now cheaper and safer for our economics and a healthier option for our societies,” Morgera told the Guardian.
“The transition can also lead to significant savings of taxpayers’ money that is currently going into responding to climate change impacts, saving health costs, and also recouping lost tax revenue from fossil fuel companies. This could be the single most impactful health contribution we could ever make. The transition seems radical and unrealistic because fossil fuel companies have been so good at making it seem so.”
‘It looks more likely with each day we burn fossil fuels’: polar scientist on Antarctic tipping points
Despite working on polar science for the British Antarctic Survey for 20 years, Louise Sime finds the magnitude of potential sea-level rise hard to comprehend. Up until 2016, the sea ice
in Antarctica seemed relatively stable. Then everything started to change.
At first, the decline was mostly in line with climate models.
But suddenly, in 2023, there was an enormous drop. About 2.5 million sq km of Antarctic
sea ice went missing relative to the average before 2023. The anomaly was
of such a magnitude that it’s quite hard for scientists to know what to
make of it. It has been described as a five sigma event.
The potential for Antarctica to increase global sea levels is scarier than for Greenland.
Right now, they’re both contributing similar amounts to sea-level rise,
but in future, it could be Greenland goes up a bit and then Antarctica goes
up catastrophically. Greenland has the potential to raise sea levels by
five or six metres, but we don’t expect this will come in the form of an
absolutely catastrophic, abrupt loss. Most of the ice in Greenland is not
below sea level so we can see what is happening and we expect it will melt
in a linear fashion.
By contrast, Antarctica has 80 metres of potential
sea-level rise. We don’t expect all of that, but it is harder to know
exactly what is happening.
Guardian 27th June 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2025/jun/27/tipping-points-antarctica-arctic-sea-ice-polar-scientist
Wreckers, money woes and mutirão: 10 things we learned about Cop30 from Bonn climate talks
Key takeaways from two weeks of negotiations aimed at setting out stall
for November’s Cop30 in Brazil. Two weeks of negotiations on the climate
crisis have just concluded in Bonn in preparation for the Cop30 summit
taking place in Brazil this November.
What did we learn?
Limiting global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels is vital for a healthy planet,
but hopes of doing so are rapidly vanishing as greenhouse gas emissions
continue to rise, and temperatures soar.
The main task for Cop30 in Belém
this November is for every country to submit a national plan, required
under the 2015 Paris agreement, to cut carbon as far as necessary to hold
to the 1.5C limit. Few countries have submitted their plans, called
nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which set out a target on
emissions to 2035 and an indication of the measures that will be taken to
meet them.
They were due in February, but the US presidency of Donald
Trump, his vacillations over tariffs and the prospect of a global trade war
led many to adopt a “wait and see” approach. Military conflicts in
Ukraine, Gaza and Iran have further frightened governments and taken
attention away from the climate.
Guardian 27th June 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/27/cop30-10-things-we-learned-from-bonn-climate-talks
UK schools and offices not equipped for impact of global heating, report warns
The UK’s schools, care homes and offices are not equipped for the
effects of global heating and face lengthy heatwaves even in optimistic
scenarios, according to a groundbreaking report that calls for climate
resilience to be declared a national emergency.
The report by the UK Green
Building Council also predicts that towns including Peterborough and
Fairbourne will be uninhabitable by the end of the century because of
flooding.
Produced over two years, the roadmap sets out a blueprint for
action and warns that without the adaptation of millions of buildings,
there will be increased injury, health impacts, deaths and untold economic
damage. Five key threats are examined by the roadmap: overheating,
wildfires, flooding, drought and storms. Detailed thermodynamic modelling
on school buildings reveals that schools across London and the south-east
will face 10 weeks of extreme heat a year – defined as 28C and above –
in a low-warming scenario, defined as 2C above preindustrial levels. The
world is on track for 2.7C of heating.
Guardian 26th June 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/26/uk-care-homes-schools-and-offices-not-equipped-to-deal-with-global-heating
As NATO Countries Pledge to Up Defense Spending, Will Food and Climate Security Have a Seat at the Table?
By Siena Cicarelli and Tom Ellison, https://climateandsecurity.org/2025/06/as-nato-countries-pledge-to-up-defense-spending-will-food-and-climate-security-have-a-seat-at-the-table/
This summer marks a critical juncture for European food and climate security. Before heading off on their summer holidays, leaders will attempt to navigate burgeoning crises in the Middle East, an unpredictable US government, growing defense needs, and an unstable global economy.
Several key political decision points are unfolding this summer, starting with this week’s NATO Summit, where a number of member state leaders committed to a new defense and security spending target of 5 percent of GDP by 2035, which, if implemented by the target date, could entail roughly hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending. However, given that the text of the commitment changed from “all Allies” to just “Allies,” in the final hours of negotiations, commitments will likely vary by member state. Furthermore, given the current combination of budget deficits, national politics, and a collective shift towards “competitiveness,” the European Union risks falling prey to false dichotomies and short-termism, placing climate and food security priorities essential to sustainable security on the back burner in favor of “hard” security goals. While 1.5% GDP of the new spending target can come from non-defense resilience, infrastructure, and civil preparedness spending, food and climate security were not prominent at the NATO Summit.
There are some positive signs, however, that countries are considering climate resilience as a core part of their defense and security strategies. This includes an explicit climate security pledge in the recent EU-UK defense partnership announcement and reported plans from some NATO members, like Spain and Southern Mediterranean states, to use the 1.5% resilience carveout for disaster response and climate investments.
A key indicator of how Europe will prioritize and balance food security, climate resilience, and defense needs will be the next five-year EU budget, also known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and updates to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – the initial proposals for which are expected to be released in mid-July. The CAP is a complex structure of subsidies and schemes related to farming, environmental protection, and rural development that aims to keep European farmers competitive, enhance food security, and protect biodiversity. It remains the EU’s second-largest budgetary line item at €387/$450 billion in the current MFF period (roughly 25% of the EU budget). The formation of the MFF is notoriously opaque, but initial reporting suggests a limited commitment from national governments to additional expenditures and a strong desire from the largest net contributors to allocate more to joint procurement and defense spending. This raises doubts about whether the bloc’s food security ambitions are feasible, or if policies will be fractured across EU member states in a so-called “27-speed” system.
While the topline goals of the CAP are relatively clear, implementation remains a perennial political challenge for the European Union. In 2024, farmers’ protests spread across Europe over concerns about fuel subsidy reductions, safety net cuts, and environmental regulations in the CAP. The protests at times featured misinformation, threats to political leaders, and property damage, and were exploited by right wing extremists and Russian propagandists to build influence and stoke division. This year, Commissioners have tried to reassure farmers that direct subsidies (which are €291/$338 billion, about three-quarters of the CAP budget) will likely remain protected in the next MFF, but concerns about cuts to rural development and national-level programs have already set top farming groups on edge.
More broadly, Europe cannot afford to ignore food and climate risks amid new defense spending obligations. Staple crops that underpin European food security and local agricultural economies are endangered in the coming decades, even with robust adaptation. In 2024, the European Environment Agency’s European Climate Risk Assessment rated risks from extreme weather disruptions to crop production and climate-driven food price spikes as rising from “substantial” to “critical” over the next two decades. Recent studies have showcased that agricultural vulnerability – and potential losses – are EU-wide. While the risks are severe in southern European states like Spain and Italy, they don’t stop there. The Benelux states, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, as well as southern regions of the Nordics, also face unusually hot and dry conditions. Drought alone currently drives over 50% of agricultural climate risk and is expected to contribute heavily to the EIB-estimated 42-66% increase in annual average crop losses (from EUR 17.4 billion to 24.8-28.9 billion annually) over the next 25 years. When incorporating other agricultural outputs, such as livestock or aquaculture, estimated annual losses reach EUR 40+ billion by 2050. These losses have cascading effects outside of the food and agricultural sector, straining supply chains and potentially boosting prices for consumers across the bloc.
With climate change contributing to rising food, energy, and insurance prices, demands for military disaster relief, and overseas instability risks and migration, turning a blind eye to these risks could intensify a vicious cycle of affordability crises and nativist politics that already constrain Europe’s security investments. Under-resourced or disorderly approaches to these challenges would hinder Europe’s resilience and security, with climate and economic shocks to food exacerbating divisions that could precipitate another round of protests and even political shifts in upcoming elections, undermining European unity.
The Center for Climate and Security (CCS) will be watching for how key issues play out as these challenges come into focus this summer and over the coming years, including:
How does the EU balance its commitments to the CAP and the MFF with the budgetary demands of the new NATO target?- To what extent are any reforms or substantial changes to the CAP structure done in consultations with producers, consumers and other stakeholders navigating the green transition, to insulate against green backlash or disinformation?
- What role can food and climate security investments play in the 1.5% of GDP portion of the NATO spending target that includes non-defense resilience, infrastructure, and civil preparedness?
Why do we pretend heatwaves are fun – and ignore the brutal, burning reality?
An estimated 600 people will die as a result of this one heatwave. Those
kinds of numbers from a virus would spark at least a localised lockdown,
and in a plane crash, a national day of mourning.
But it’s hard to respond to climate fatalities proportionately without confronting global
heating and taking on the underlying inequalities that make some people
more vulnerable than others. High temperatures are much more dangerous when
you’re disabled, when you’re homeless, when you’re incarcerated, when
you’re old. It would be pretty rum to be squeezing disability benefits at
the same time as worrying about whether disabled people are at greater risk
from the weather, and need more care – better to imagine this an act of
God, in which the deaths cannot possibly be prevented.
Guardian 23rd June 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/23/why-do-we-pretend-heatwaves-are-fun-and-ignore-the-brutal-burning-reality
Nuclear power plant warning as heatwave hits France.
Independent Forrest Crellin, Friday 20 June 2025
France’s electricity supply faces potential disruption as soaring river temperatures, driven by an impending heatwave, threaten to curtail nuclear power generation along the Rhone.
Nuclear operator EDF announced on Friday that high water temperatures are expected to impact electricity production from 25 June, particularly at the 3.6-gigawatt Bugey nuclear power plant in eastern France.
This marks the first such warning for high river temperatures in France for 2025.
The issue stems from environmental regulations governing the discharge of cooling water, which can be breached when river temperatures become excessively high due to heatwave conditions.
The alert comes as state forecaster Meteo France predicts a significant heatwave will sweep across the country this weekend.
Why 2024’s global temperatures were unprecedented, but not surprising.
Human-caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2024 continued to drive
global warming to record levels. This is the stark picture that emerges in
the third edition of the “Indicators of Global Climate Change” (IGCC)
report, published in Earth System Science Data. IGCC tracks changes in the
climate system between Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
science reports. In doing so, the IGCC fills the gap between the IPCC’s
sixth assessment (AR6) in 2021 and the seventh assessment, expected in
2028.
Carbon Brief 18th June 2025, https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-why-2024s-global-temperatures-were-unprecedented-but-not-surprising/
Three years left to limit warming to 1.5C, leading scientists warn
The Earth could be doomed to breach the symbolic 1.5C warming limit in as
little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide emissions. That’s
the stark warning from more than 60 of the world’s leading climate
scientists in the most up-to-date assessment of the state of global
warming.
Nearly 200 countries agreed to try to limit global temperature
rises to 1.5C above levels of the late 1800s in a landmark agreement in
2015, with the aim of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change.
But countries have continued to burn record amounts of coal, oil and gas
and chop down carbon-rich forests – leaving that international goal in
peril. “Things are all moving in the wrong direction,” said lead author
Prof Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at
the University of Leeds.
“We’re seeing some unprecedented changes and we’re
also seeing the heating of the Earth and sea-level rise accelerating as
well.” These changes “have been predicted for some time and we can directly
place them back to the very high level of emissions”, he added. At the
beginning of 2020, scientists estimated that humanity could only emit 500
billion more tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the most important
planet-warming gas – for a 50% chance of keeping warming to 1.5C.
But by the start of 2025 this so-called “carbon budget” had shrunk to 130 billion
tonnes, according to the new study. That reduction is largely due to
continued record emissions of CO2 and other planet-warming greenhouse gases
like methane, but also improvements in the scientific estimates. If global
CO2 emissions stay at their current highs of about 40 billion tonnes a
year, 130 billion tonnes gives the world roughly three years until that
carbon budget is exhausted.
BBC 19th June 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4l927dj5zo
Climate misinformation turning crisis into catastrophe, report says
Rampant climate misinformation is turning the crisis into a catastrophe,
according to the authors of a new report.
It found climate action was being
obstructed and delayed by false and misleading information stemming from
fossil fuel companies, rightwing politicians and some nation states. The
report, from the International Panel on the Information Environment (Ipie),
systematically reviewed 300 studies.
The researchers found climate
denialism has evolved into campaigns focused on discrediting solutions,
such as the false claims that renewable energy caused the recent massive
blackout in Spain. Online bots and trolls hugely amplify false narratives,
the researchers say, playing a key role in promoting climate lies.
The experts also report that political leaders, civil servants and regulatory
agencies are increasingly being targeted in order to delay climate action.
The misinformation ranges from industry promoting fossil gas as a
“low-carbon fuel” to bizarre conspiracy theories such as that wildfires
in southern California this year were planned by officials in order to
destroy child-trafficking tunnels.
In the European context, rightwing
populist parties are “actively contravening climate science”, the
report says, including the AfD in Germany, Vox in Spain, and the National
Rally in France. Media outlets with conservative or rightwing political
ideologies give priority to and amplify denial, scepticism and conspiracy
theories regarding climate change, the report says.
Guardian 19th June 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/19/climate-misinformation-turning-crisis-into-catastrophe-ipie-report
Could Britain face a winter ice age? How temperatures could one day plummet due to climate change
Could Britain face a winter ice age? How temperatures could one day
plummet due to climate change A small but growing stash of science warns a
crucial ocean current that warms Europe could one day collapse, bringing
winter lows of -19C to London and Cardiff and almost -30C to Edinburgh.
Sky 11th June 2025, https://news.sky.com/story/could-britain-face-a-winter-ice-age-how-temperatures-could-one-day-plummet-due-to-climate-change-13382063
How the ‘evil twin’ of the climate crisis is threatening our oceans
There’s frustration among researchers that falling pH levels in seas
around the globe are not being taken seriously enough, and that until the
buildup of CO2 is addressed, the consequences for marine life will be
devastating.
“At the end of the day, we know CO2 is going up, pH is going
down, and that’s an urgent issue that people are not talking about,”
says Turner. “It’s an overlooked consequence of carbon in our ocean
that governments can no longer afford to overlook in mainstream policy
agendas, and the time to address it is running out.”
Guardian 9th June 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/09/the-scientists-warning-the-world-about-ocean-acidification-evil-twin-of-the-climate-crisis
The World Isn’t Ready for the Mental Health Toll of Extreme Heat
The coming summer is forecast to be a scorcher across the U.S. And climate
scientists predict that at least one of the next five years will beat 2024
as the hottest year ever recorded globally. As heat waves are getting more
intense and prolonged, their effect on the mind and body are also becoming
more dire. Children and older people, as well as those who work outdoors,
are most at risk. So are those with mental health disorders. Heat waves are
the single highest cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S., where an
estimated 1,300 fatalities from heat stroke and other temperature-related
complications occur every year. Even those who survive a period of extreme
heat may suffer serious neurological or other mental-health-related
disorders. A new study published in Current Environmental Health Reports
finds that the world is startlingly unprepared to deal with the mental
health consequences of climate change. Of 83 action plans for heat-related
health problems that were reviewed for the study, fewer than a third
acknowledged the mental health effects of extreme or prolonged high
temperatures. And only a fifth of these plans outlined specific actions to
deal with contingencies such as increased hospitalizations for mental
health disorders.
Scientific American 2nd June 2025, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-world-isnt-ready-for-the-mental-health-toll-of-extreme-heat/
Almost 40% of world’s glaciers already doomed due to climate crisis – study
Almost 40% of glaciers in existence today are already doomed to melt due
to climate-heating emissions from fossil fuels, a study has found. The loss
will soar to 75% if global heating reaches the 2.7C rise for which the
world is currently on track. The massive loss of glaciers would push up sea
levels, endangering millions of people and driving mass migration,
profoundly affecting the billions reliant on glaciers to regulate the water
used to grow food, the researchers said. However, slashing carbon emissions
and limiting heating to the internationally agreed 1.5C target would save
half of glacier ice. That goal is looking increasingly out of reach as
emissions continue to rise, but the scientists said that every
tenth-of-a-degree rise that was avoided would save 2.7tn tonnes of ice.
Guardian 29th May 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/29/almost-40-of-worlds-glaciers-already-doomed-due-to-climate-crisis-study
Revealed: Nato rearmament could increase emissions by 200m tonnes a year
Exclusive: researchers say defence spending boosts across world will worsen climate crisis which in turn will cause more conflict
Damien Gayle 29 May 25, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/29/nato-military-spending-could-increase-emissions-study-finds
A global military buildup poses an existential threat to climate goals, according to researchers who say the rearmament planned by Nato alone could increase greenhouse gas emissions by almost 200m tonnes a year.
With the world embroiled in the highest number of armed conflicts since the second world war, countries have embarked on military spending sprees, collectively totalling a record $2.46tn in 2023.
For every dollar invested in new hardware, there is not only a corresponding carbon cost but also an opportunity cost to potential climate action, critics say. This is on top of the huge death toll resulting from armed conflicts.
“There is a real concern around the way that we are prioritising short-term security and sacrificing long-term security,” said Ellie Kinney, a researcher with the Conflict and Environment Observatory and a co-author of the study, shared exclusively with the Guardian.
“Because of this kind of lack-of-informed approach that we’re taking, you’re investing in hard military security now, increasing global emissions for that reason, and worsening the climate crisis further down the line.”
That in turn is only likely to lead to further violence, with climate change itself now increasingly seen as a driver of conflict, albeit indirectly. In Sudan’s Darfur region, conflict was linked to competition over scarce resources after prolonged droughts and desertification. In the Arctic, receding sea ice is leading to tensions over who should control newly accessible oil, gas and critical mineral resources.
Few militaries are transparent about the scale of their fossil fuel use, but researchers have estimated that collectively they are already responsible for 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
That figure is expected to rise as tensions escalate in a number of regions and as the US, for decades the world’s biggest military spender, indicates that it expects its Nato allies to devote significantly more resources to their armed forces.
According to the Global Peace Index, militarisation increased in 108 countries in 2023. With 92 countries involved in armed conflict, in places ranging from Ukraine and Gaza to South Sudan and DRC, with tensions seething between China and the US over Taiwan, and with the frozen conflict between India and Pakistan flaring, governments fearful of war are investing heavily in their militaries.
In Europe, the increase has been particularly dramatic: between 2021 and 2024, EU states’ weapons spending rose by more than 30%, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
In March, the EU, disconcerted by Donald Trump’s cutting of military aid and diplomatic support for Ukraine, indicated this would go further, with proposals for a further €800bn spend across the bloc outlined in a plan called “ReArm Europe”.
In analysis for the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs, Kinney and colleagues looked at the potential impact of increased militarisation on meeting climate goals. What they found was sobering: the likely increase in emissions from Nato’s remilitarisation alone would be the equivalent of adding the cost of a country as large and populous as Pakistan to the world’s remaining carbon budget.
“Our analysis specifically looks at the impact on sustainable development goal 13, which is climate action – to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts,” Kinney said. “And what our analysis finds, looking at the various sub-targets of that … [is] that there is a real threat to global climate action caused by global increase in military spending.”
Of all functions of states, militaries are almost uniquely carbon-intensive. “First of all, with the equipment that they purchase, which is mainly a lot of steel and aluminium, which is very carbon-intensive to produce,” said Lennard de Klerk, of the Initiative on the GHG Accounting of War, another co-author of the study.
“Secondly is during operations, armies are very mobile. And in order to move around they use fossil fuels – that’s diesel for ground operations and kerosene for air operations. Or for maritime operations it’s mainly diesel as well, if they’re not nuclear-driven.”
Given the secrecy that usually surrounds militaries and their operations, it is difficult to know just how much greenhouse gases they are emitting. Only Nato countries report enough of their emissions for scientists to attempt an estimate.
“We took Nato because they are the most transparent in terms of spending. So it’s not that we particularly want to focus on Nato, but simply because they have more data available,” De Klerk said.
The researchers calculated by how much greenhouse gas emissions would increase if Nato countries excluding the US – since it already spends far more than the others – made a two percentage point increase in the share of GDP they devoted to their militaries.
Such an increase is already under way, with many countries in Europe significantly increasing military spending in response to the crisis in Ukraine. Although Nato countries have publicly committed to increasing spending to 2% of GDP, the researchers say the ReArm Europe plan could lead to an eventual rise to 3.5%, from about 1.5% in 2020. The researchers assumed a similar eventual increase in Nato members that are not members of the EU, such as the UK.
Borrowing methodology from a recent paper that argued each percentage point increase in the share of GDP devoted to military spending would lead to an increase in national emissions of between 0.9% and 2%, they estimated that a two percentage point spending shock would lead to an increase across the bloc of between 87 and 194 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) a year.
The researchers say that not only would such a huge increase in emissions supercharge climate breakdown but the increase in global temperatures would hurt the economy. Recent estimates of the social cost of carbon – a monetary indicator of the damage of CO2 emitted – put it at $1,347/tCO2e, suggesting the annual cost of Nato’s military buildup could be as much as $264bn a year.
And that is only a fraction of the true carbon cost of militarisation, Kinney points out. “The calculation in the paper, it’s 31 countries – that only represents 9% of total world emissions. If you consider … the impact of that, there’s a lot of the world that we haven’t taken into consideration of this specific calculation.”
The analysis notes that spending more money on militaries also reduces resources available for policies aimed at mitigating climate change. This already seems to be the case, with the UK, for example, funding its increase in spending by reducing its overseas aid budget – a move mirrored in Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
“This increase in military spending is impacting the kind of core trust that is necessary for multilateralism,” Kinney said. “At Cop29, global south countries like Cuba in particular pointed out the hypocrisy in the room of states being willing to spend increasing amounts on their military spending, but offering … completely, unacceptably low climate finance commitments.”
The Guardian has contacted Nato for comment.
1 This Month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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