*[Enwl-eng] The missing military carbon emissions
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No images? Click here  The war in Gaza is estimated to have killed more than 25,000 people and forcibly displaced thousands more. The human suffering is incalculable, but the damage to Earth's life support systems is not. According to one analysis (peer review pending), Israel's aerial bombardment and ground assault in Gaza in the first two months of the conflict generated the equivalent of 281,000 tonnes of CO₂ – the same as burning 150,000 tonnes of coal. Militaries may be responsible for 5.5% of the annual greenhouse gas emissions fuelling climate change – more than all the civil aviation flights and shipping voyages combined. I say "may" because no one can really be certain. Jets, tanks and aircraft carriers are conspicuous carbon emitters, yet a veil of impunity obscures their environmental impact. You're reading the Imagine newsletter – a weekly synthesis of academic insight on solutions to climate change, brought to you by The Conversation. I'm Jack Marley, energy and environment editor. This week we're discussing war's carbon boot print. So, how big is it? A study published in 2019 estimated the climate impact of the US armed forces (far and away the largest military in world history) by measuring how much fossil fuel it devours. Carbon behemoths The US military is the single largest institutional consumer of hydrocarbons (coal, oil and gas), say Benjamin Neimark (Queen Mary University of London), Oliver Belcher (Durham University) and Patrick Bigger (Lancaster University), who led the research. "If the US military were a country, its fuel usage alone would make it the 47th largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, sitting between Peru and Portugal," they add. That's more than 150 other countries. But burning jet fuel in planes and diesel in tanks and ships isn't the only way militaries heat the climate. Neimark breaks the myriad emission sources that militaries are responsible for into categories mirroring those imposed on businesses. Scope 1 or "tailpipe" emissions are those produced in the engines of military vehicles. Scope 2 emissions are produced by heating and powering barracks and other military installations. Scope 3 emissions make up the "long tail" of carbon embedded in military supply chains, encompassing everything from IT to weapons manufacturing and other logistics. Neimark invented a fourth category to capture the carbon cost of wartime damage and post-war reconstruction. Concrete is a major contributor to this. "For example, the emissions involved in rebuilding Gaza or Mariupol in Ukraine will be enormous," Neimark says. Nothing to see here... Neimark analysed the US military's use of concrete in Iraq, building walls to shield checkpoints and guarded routes, from 2003 to 2011. He found that enough walls were built in Baghdad to stretch from London to Paris. Making all that concrete would have added 200,000 tonnes of CO₂ to the atmosphere – as much all the cars in the UK emit in one year. You may have noticed how old some of this data is. Neimark explains: "It’s very difficult to get consistent data from the Pentagon and across US government departments. In fact, the United States insisted on an exemption for reporting military emissions in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol." Forming the only industry with no obligation to report emissions to the UN, militaries continue to flout international negotiations like COP28. Neimark and his colleagues stress that the picture they have managed to paint is incomplete. There is no consensus on what emission sources should be accounted for, and so underreporting is rife. Canada, as an example, tucks its military flight emissions data into general transport accounting. There is no prospect of counting the carnage caused by bombs and tanks in forests and other carbon-rich ecosystems. "Our study shows that action on climate change demands shuttering vast sections of the military machine," Neimark, Belcher and Bigger say. "There are few activities on Earth as environmentally catastrophic as waging war." Will a greener world be more peaceful? Billowing smoke in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere tarnishes the more optimistic assessments of humanity's efforts to decarbonise. "A recent analysis revealed that most pathways to net zero emissions do not consider what influence international relations will play," says Michael Bradshaw, a professor of global energy at the University of Warwick. "Those that do, see it as a malign influence that reduces cooperation and increases the costs of technology." Could it be that rosy appraisals of global heating, which highlight the falling cost of renewable energy among other trends, are missing something obvious? Namely, that an increasingly fractious world at the mercy of unaccountable militaries will forsake the cooperation necessary to solve the climate crisis? Take the rollout of electric vehicles (EVs), trumpeted as one of very few climate solutions that is remotely on track to help us reach net zero by 2050. Supply chains expert Tom Stacey at Anglia Ruskin University highlights the seizure of cargo ships by Yemeni Houthis, carried out in solidarity with Palestinians under siege and in defiance of US and UK missile strikes which have failed to deter them. "These factors have made it harder (and more expensive) to move parts across the globe to support EV production in Europe," he says. There is hope for a more peaceful world on the other side of the fossil fuel age Bradshaw says. For one, the minority of exporter states with an outsize influence on global energy supplies will be less able to coerce and manipulate countries that can generate solar and wind power at home: "A world powered by renewable energy may not be as prone to international competition as ours. But the challenge is getting there from our fossil fuelled system, riven with insecurity and a tinderbox of geopolitical conflict." Even so, new rivalries will flare over access to the minerals needed to make all that green technology, Bradshaw says. For now, the former warzones and demilitarised areas that have been reclaimed by nature give testimony to the futility of war – and the common good that can grow from peace, pity and pardon. - Jack Marley, Environment commissioning editor Was this email forwarded to you? Join the 30,000 people who get one email every week about the most important issue of our time. Subscribe to Imagine.  If the US military were a country, its carbon emissions would rank between that of Peru and Portugal.  How to assess the carbon footprint of a war Researchers must track everything from bomb making or jet fuel burning to the carbon cost of post-conflict rebuilding.  How the world’s militaries hide their huge carbon emissions Military emissions reporting is only voluntary. And what we cannot see, they will not cut.  A net-zero world will be more peaceful, it’s assumed – but first we have to get there Modellers of the energy transition have tended to neglect fractious international relations in their calculations.  What the Red Sea crisis could mean for the electric vehicle industry and the planet EV manufacturers pause production in Europe as the Red Sea shipping crisis deepens.  Rewilding war zones can help heal the wounds of conflict Human conflict can bring isolation to environments, which helps the local ecology thrive. After the war has ended, the return of nature is a poignant memorial and symbol of peace. Latest from The Conversation on climate change
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Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2024 10:26 PM
Subject: The missing military carbon emissions |
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