Developing countries should initiate discussions on the vicious circle of arms production, supplies, wars and climate change
A lot seems to be happening at the COP27 at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. There are various stakeholders in this conference on Climate Change with the US, EU, the UK, and finally the 'most polluting' 'BASIC' countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China). The agenda of “loss and damage” has been discussed for the first time since the talks began around 30 years ago.
Estimates indicate that the world's militaries produce between 1 to 6 per cent of all the greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. However, most international institutions have deliberately chosen to ignore the fact that wars and conflicts have their own carbon footprints. As reporting military emissions is purely voluntary, the lack of transparency results in a 'military emissions gap'. Almost all the developed countries jointly push the burden of 'guilt' towards the developing ones, especially the rising powers such as India. Numerous reports outline the environmental costs of wars and different military missions for various non-operational activities such as securing the sea lanes, carrying out regular sorties, military exercises, etc.
Further, both activities require massive energy fuels to withstand their duration and intensity. Lastly, the emissions caused during the post-war reconstructions are another largely ignored aspect. Thus, military carbon emissions or footprints are entirely outside the scope of discussions at an international level.
The Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been the most cited case studies of environmental damage on climate. For instance, a 1992 study in the journal Science reported that the oil field fires of the Second Gulf War contributed to two per cent of the global emissions that year. In its 2008 report, an international organisation, Oil Change International, published that the Iraq War was the cause of 141 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions (CO2e). Another report by Brown University assessed that since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the US military had emitted 1,212 million metric tons of greenhouse gases. In 2017 alone, CO2 emissions added up to 59 million tons. It also estimated that from 2001 to 2017 are estimated to be about 766 million metric tons of CO2e.
Interestingly, not only wars but also non-military activities have a rogue role to play in environmental damage. For example, the air force conducts sorties that also have a profound environmental impact. The report mentioned above also highlighted that, on average, a B-2 bomber of the US Air Force consumes 4.28 gallons of fuel per mile and produces 251.4 Metric tons of CO2e. In its 2021 report, Green Peace said that most of the EU military missions have interconnectivity with protecting oil and gas imports. Thus, there are potentially dangerous connections between the supply chain management of fossil fuels, military missions, and war that need to end. Well, that's how the world pays for great power geopolitics, and the developing countries are expected to remain silent.
The statistics above are just one aspect of the problem. The other side relates to the continuous arms production and the military supply chain maintained by the major weapons suppliers. The countries of the developed world rarely have norms of transparency about the percentage of weapons supplies contributing to their GDP and job creation. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in 2019 estimated that sales by the largest 25 arms-producing companies increased to $361 billion, an increase of 8.5 per cent compared to 2018.
SIPRI, in its Report, 'Environment of Peace: Security in a New Era of Risk' (2022), took the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the disruptions in the wheat supplies in the picture and expressed its fear that "energy poverty" would henceforth a standard feature for developing countries as the food prices have reached "highest level in at least 30 years". Regarding decreased land fertility, about one-third of the world's soil is currently degraded, which the Report predicted could rise to 90 per cent by 2050. Additionally, the demand for food is set to increase by a sharp 60 per cent. Even seafood would not be spared, as oceanic warming, acidification, and de-oxygenation would drastically lead to fluctuations in the supply chain. The same thoughts have been echoed in the 2022 Security Report of the Munich Security Conference.
Thus, the above-mentioned problems can give rise to new forced migrations, demographic changes and violent conflicts over the resources, obviously involving the geopolitical interests of the military suppliers. Small Island Developing States (SIDs) and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are at immediate risk, which needs to be addressed at a multilateral level. Each possible conflict would be met with resistance requiring more weapons, wars and human rights violations to settle it out. There is ample evidence to substantiate this argument. The SIPRI report has also highlighted that in 2021, global military spending surpassed $2.1 trillion, which has been the highest since the end of the cold war. Further, the Institute for Economics and Peace study, 'Why United Nations Peace Operations Cannot Ignore Climate Change' (2021), highlighted that 10 out of the 21 ongoing UN peace operations were located in countries ranked as most exposed to climate change. Thus, there is an urgent need to sensitise the security agencies of developed countries to climate change.
Finally, the developed countries might argue that IPCC (2006) has supported inventory standards focusing on fuel for waterborne navigation and aviation and other machines not used in military operations. But this needs to be expanded too, because of established military carbon footprints. Narrow interpretations of military carbon emissions should be ended for the betterment of future generations. Developing countries, particularly India, should initiate discussions and debates on the vicious circle of arms production, supplies, wars and climate change, for there can be no better platform than COP27.
It is here that India can take a possible lead as the world looks upon India, and PM Modi has reiterated on many platforms that violence and wars should come to a halt. India stands committed to international multilateral cooperation, and concepts on climate change and climate finance should be revisited in light of the above discussion. The militaries worldwide, including that of China, should firmly adhere to PM Modi's mantra of LiFE which invariably aims to substantially impact the planet's health and well-being. The developed countries should not let down the coming generations.
The new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG) and climate financing should include the calculations of the military carbon emissions. It is the inclusion of these military carbon emissions into climatic change consequences that might change the inevitable catastrophe. The developed and the rich countries should contribute the most in technology, finance and capacity-building initiatives as they have contributed more to the "loss and damage" to the environment. Lastly, a leading futurist Jamais Cascio had said "preventing global warming from becoming a planetary catastrophe may take something even more drastic than renewable energy, superefficient urban design and global carbon taxes".
(The author is an Associate Professor Central University of Punjab, Bathinda
