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Maëlle Salzinger argues that a mentality shift is needed – away from traditional visions of security, military secrecy and the exclusion of civil society.
War is on everyone’s mind as thousands of Palestinians die under Israel’s indiscriminate bombing, following Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on 7 October. Conflicts have been rising globally, with dire consequences for civilians and the natural environment that sustains them. In 2022, 56 countriesexperienced conflict and the number of battle-related deaths was the highest in 40 years. Also global military spending is at an all-time high. It has consistently increased since the late 1990s to reach $2240 billion in 2022.
While the cost of violent conflict is often calculated with civilian deaths, injuries and destruction of infrastructure, the environmental cost of war and its long-term effect on the climate are often overlooked.
The COP28 climate conference cannot continue to ignore the impacts of war and militarisation on the environment and greenhouse gas emissions. The COP28 declaration on climate, relief, recovery and peace drafted under the United Arab Emirates’ Presidency and planned for adoption at the COP, calls for more climate action and finance going to communities affected by conflict. But the declaration is silent on the responsibility of the military sector to curb its emissions. States avoid this conversation because it exposes their contradictions of committing to climate action while at the same time increasing their military spending and arms trade. But that’s precisely why it’s necessary.
The environmental degradation that occurs during war can deprive people of vital natural resources for generations after a conflict ends. Afghans, for instance, still feel the impact of the US military intervention in the form of air pollution, contaminated land, poisoned water and diseases. In 2017, the US dropped its ‘mother of all bombs’ near Achin, at the border with Pakistan. Since then, people have developed skin diseases and crop yields have dropped.
In Ukraine, too, Russia has bombed industrial sites and chemical plants, leading to toxic gas leaks and damaging water treatment facilities. This is causing health problems, air pollution and biodiversity loss, but also degrading Ukraine’s agricultural soils on which millions of people depend for their food security globally.
International organisations like the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross have sought to address conflict-related environmental damage for decades via biodiversity COPs, multilateral environmental agreements and guidelines for states. More recently the International Law Commission (ILC) produced the PERAC principles for the Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflict. But these efforts have led to very little action. During a conflict, the environmental cost of war is deprioritised by politicians and the wider military system, but also by researchers working on the ‘climate security’ agenda who focus primarily on how climate change impacts security rather than the other way around.
Militaries are big carbon emitters and not only during conflict. Aircrafts, naval vessels and land vehicles are fossil-fuel intensive, and even more emissions occur in the process of manufacturing and delivering military equipment. Militaries have complex supply chains with many suppliers and sub suppliers (of fuel, equipment, food, etc.) and long procurement cycles, which account for the majority of military emissions but often go unreported. United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions, which account for over half of the total UN emissions, are not exempt from this challenge....
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