International Wars fuel climate crisis - data gap in the military
The global arms build-up and wars such as in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan are also fueling the climate crisis - but greenhouse gases from the military sector do not have to be reported to the United Nations as things stand. This exemption must come to an end, demanded expert Elly Kinney from the British Observatory on Conflict and the Environment at the climate conference in Brazil. There must be mandatory reporting to the UN. "We can no longer accept this blind spot in climate protection."
13.11.2025, 17:25
SDA
According to her, the military is responsible for an estimated 5.5 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions around the planet. If the world's military were a single country, it would have the fourth-largest carbon footprint of any nation.
As much as 120 million gasoline cars
Kinney referred to estimates by researchers that the emissions from the destruction, clearance and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip alone could amount to up to 31 million tons of carbon dioxide. That is more than 135 countries worldwide emit on their own. And three years of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine would be equivalent to the emissions of 120 million gasoline-powered cars blown into the atmosphere in one year. She emphasized that these figures were not being talked about in order to trivialize human suffering. The point is to show that the suffering is actually being exacerbated.
She also criticized the fact that the EU and NATO states are planning to significantly increase their military spending. This would lock in greenhouse gas emissions, for example from tanks and jets, for decades to come. An F-35 fighter jet, for example, has an average lifespan of around 40 years.
Barbara Magalhães Teixeira from the Stockholm Peace Research Institute Sipri referred to her institute's latest findings, according to which global military spending will have reached around 2.7 trillion US dollars by 2024. "This is the highest figure ever recorded." According to forecasts, it could rise to between 3.5 and 5.2 trillion US dollars by 2030.
