The climate crisis is not just something that is happening to us.

Has framing the climate crisis primarily as a security threat slowed the growth of the partnerships and public consent needed to support rapid military decarbonisation?
Climate security orthodoxy
According to climate security orthodoxy, climate change is a threat multiplier. It is a threat to national security. It is something that is happening to us and which amplifies societal tensions, feeding instability. Governments must take note and act accordingly, not least by developing compensatory military strategies and resources.
It is a framing that was intended to integrate the climate crisis into military planning, and was particularly aimed at climate-sceptic US policy-makers and public. And since 2007 it has proved highly influential, going global, spawning innumerable papers, reports and briefings, hours of high-level international debate, and becoming the bread and butter work of many think tanks. It has largely defined the scope of what is, and isn’t viewed as “climate security”.
Until quite recently, the contribution that militaries are making to the climate crisis had not been part of this discussion, and had not benefited from the international attention, policy visibility and institutional mainstreaming that the climate security discourse had created. This was no accident. The threat multiplier advocates had no wish to alienate militaries, and didn’t believe renewable technologies were mature enough to contribute to reducing military emissions. This view appeared to have been formed in 1991 while negotiating the exclusion of some military emissions from the Kyoto Protocol at the US Department of Defense’s behest; the US never ratified the Protocol and dropped out in 2001.
Counterfactuals are always slippery but there is value in exploring what the implications of sidelining military GHG emissions in mainstream climate security discourse have been. Two areas that are emerging as particularly relevant for those states belatedly pursuing military decarbonisation are partnerships and public opinion.
Effective partnerships for military decarbonisation
Make no mistake, military decarbonisation is hugely challenging. The sector is deeply dependent on fossil fuels and equipment life cycles are long. An added complication is that for aircraft and naval vessels, fuel solutions also depend on the trajectories of decarbonisation in the civil sector – neither of which are straightforward. But the accelerating climate crisis means that societal decarbonisation is an urgent task and one that militaries must also be a part of. While a few militaries are further ahead on this than others, it’s fair to say that the sector has a lot of work to do.
Most taxpayers imagine that the huge sums spent on militaries would mean that military research and development would translate into them being leaders in technological innovation but for the UK at least, it is proposed that the Ministry of Defence instead be a “fast follower” of private sector decarbonisation technologies. Innovation is important for decarbonisation and is in turn dependent on effective partnerships – partnerships whose development can be facilitated by state intervention. The private sector needs clear signals, prioritisation and guaranteed markets – whether at home or abroad. Civil servants needing to sign off on projects and spending also need clear signals from politicians – and their peers – that decarbonisation is a priority. Messaging is therefore key.
Our best estimate is that militaries and their supply chains are responsible for around 5.5% of global emissions. We would love to refine that figure but many militaries are way behind on even the basics of decarbonisation: understanding what they emit and reporting that data. Things have begun to change in the last few years, with NATO and some national militaries beginning to develop and refine methodologies but how would things look if meaningful action had begun being taken 10 years ago? How different would ministries of defence look in terms of cultures and carbon literacy? What kinds of partnerships and expertise might have developed between the private sector, academia and civil society? How much further ahead would states be on military decarbonisation if the topic, instead of being sidelined, had been an acknowledged component of climate security discourse from the outset?
Public consent and defusing culture wars
Those tasked with identifying, initiating, resourcing and promoting decarbonisation policies and projects in ministries of defence face a range of challenges. The mission is invariably the priority, equipment performance is critical and spending must be justified.
It is far easier to justify spending on decarbonisation initiatives if the culture of an institution values them. And, as institutions reflect the values of the societies in which they are based – and which they serve – engaging public opinion is important. This is evident enough in the discourse around net zero and the just transition, where vested interests have successfully derailed or watered down domestic policies in a number of countries. Militaries have already been assailed by right-wing politicians and their media allies over “woke policies”, a basket into which the US-based Heritage Foundation has tossed military industry emissions reporting and decarbonisation. The UK’s right-wing media has even attacked compulsory climate education in the military.
Preventing urgent military decarbonisation from becoming yet another culture war casualty requires clear signalling from governments around what is at stake, and what is being done – not least to protect populations from the consequences of inaction – and why. It also requires that governments allay public concern by honestly setting out what the challenges are and what the process is not. The fears in 1991 that the inclusion of military emissions in the Kyoto Protocol might limit the ability of the US to make war seems naïve in hindsight. It feels inevitable that carbon budgets will always be stretched for warfare, just as international law is. But militaries don’t just do war, emissions are ongoing in peacetime, are high in comparison to other sectors and need to be addressed.
The sector needs to decarbonise and it will require public consent – or at least public understanding – to do so effectively. The public conversation around this remains underdeveloped and so risks capture by culture war interests. The military press releases on pilot projects and initiatives that appear in the media are typically techno-positive and simplistic, rarely engaging with the often complex challenges and trade-offs at stake. For example, if the geopolitical security context is constraining the prioritisation of, or spending on military decarbonisation, then other sectors will need to reduce their emissions more quickly to make up the shortfall. The risk of greenwashing is high, with predictable consequences for public trust.
Part of the problem is that the conversation has scarcely begun and government or ministerial signalling on the direction of travel is largely absent. While the topic is belatedly gaining traction, it is moving far more slowly than the climate crisis, and many within military institutions and the wider public remain to be engaged, let alone persuaded.
As with effective partnerships, the changes in public opinion and institutional cultures necessary for effective military decarbonisation would also seem to have been undermined by the sidelining of military emissions in the discourse around climate change and security.
Change is urgent
During the last decade atmospheric CO2 levels have increased from 395 – 425 parts per million and the global average temperature by 1.19°C. Global military expenditure has also increased – for the ninth consecutive year – reaching a total of $2,443 billion.
Decarbonising a proportion of that two and a half trillion dollars of annual military global expenditure is a climatic – and security – imperative, just as reducing it is a societal one. However, until the international community acknowledges that climate change is not just something that influences security, but that security decisions also influence climate change, progress on military decarbonisation will remain slow.
Doug Weir is CEOBS’ Director. This post was inspired by a recent workshop ‘In Defence of the Climate’, which was hosted by the Security & Defence PLuS Alliance Seed Grant programme between King’s College London and The University of New South Wales, Canberra. The event brought together defence, industry, think tanks and academia for conversations locating climate change in the Australian and UK defence industrial strategies.