What Does Military Readiness Mean in a Warming World?

NATO’s member countries—including the U.S. and European countries—have routinely failed to deliver adequate climate finance to poorer nations in the global south. The alliance, meanwhile, has grown increasingly insistent that more of its members commit to spending 2 percent of their annual gross domestic product (GDP) on the military. Doing so, TNI finds, would expand NATO’s total footprint to two billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent, “greater than the annual GHG emissions of Russia.”

While the overwhelming focus of their approach to climate readiness and resilience is on protecting troops, bases, and equipment against extreme weather, NATO and the Pentagon have each highlighted modest initiatives to bring down operational emissions in recent years, like using more sustainable aviation fuel and projects aimed at “advancing carbon-free electricity” on air force bases. Researchers argue, though, that the kind of unchecked military expansion NATO aspires to—and the extensive carbon-intensive manufacturing that entails—is incompatible with meeting even low-bar climate goals and certainly those as ambitious as the Paris Agreement’s target of capping temperature rise at “well below” two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Military spending and climate spending aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. But even for the U.S. government, which has an extraordinarily large budget to play with, continually expanding Pentagon operations eats up resources, like industrial capacities, which could be put to use for other things. Practically speaking, as well, governments that prioritize expanding their militaries may opt to spend less on climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. In the recent U.K. election, for example, both Labour and the Conservatives pledged to spend 2.5 percent of GDP on the military while walking back climate commitments. Together, those two countries account for an outsize share of military emissions. Research at Common Wealth and the Climate and Community Project—climate-focused think tanks in the U.K. and U.S., respectively—note that, since the Paris Agreement was brokered in 2015, the U.K. and U.S. militaries have emitted a combined 430 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, more than the total greenhouse gas emissions produced by the U.K. in 2022.