Autumn is in the air here where I live. Another summer is now passing into memory and along with the harvest, the first anticipatory thoughts of winter begin to arrive. I’m in the autumn of my life, now, and I feel it. I’m reaping the harvests of my years of living: of the experiences, the joys, sorrows, and everything in between. I’m also reaping the harvests of the myriad explorations my hungry mind has gone on. Oh, I’ve taken some adventures in my body, but most of my adventures are in learning, observing, analyzing, rearranging what I find in new ways to see if any new puzzle pieces fit. The greatest fun I can have is stumbling across an idea I’ve been pondering for the longest time and there it is! Someone else has asked a question I can’t solve and has offered their knowledge or better yet, done something.
One of these areas of inquiry is, of course, about our climate crisis. I have been concerned about our shared biosphere most of my life. As a child I thought of this through my love of trees, later developing desire to protect the environment. The words have changed over time to global warming, then climate change, and now, as we are experiencing the climate destabilizing, we don’t know what to call it…global heating, climate emergency, Armageddon? The language used matters so that people still try to make constructive change, while not becoming so overwhelmed that they give up or freeze in fear.
But I’m not writing about climate language today. I’m writing because I stumbled across people working on answers to something I have long wondered about in what felt like a vacuum…the climate impacts of war. It’s a scary subject, right?
I have no training to guide me to investigate the question of climate and war, plus I’m nauseated by and recoil from violence, so it’s just not an investigation I had any idea how to approach. Nonetheless, I wondered every time images of explosions and devastation appeared in yet another news report on the latest violent conflict.
I remember watching the bombs falling on mountains in Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001 as the U.S. began its ‘war on terror’ following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City. Specifically, I remember footage of bombs blasting into mountains in places that were sparsely inhabited by people as the U.S. military tried to blow up Osama bin Laden and intimidate the Taliban. Those mountains looked just like my mountains…the Rocky Mountains in Montana in the U.S. Although this kind of footage was likely meant to provide awe of the power of the military and to highlight the human toll, I would fear for Nature and the non-human life on the land being attacked. This time my thought was “What about the elk?” Elk represented the love and awe I feel for my home mountain ecosystems. While it turns out Afghanistan does not have elk, there are rich ecosystems with unique animals and plants[1]. I had no idea what lives there, highlighting my ignorance stemming from my American-centric education and life. I remember this what-about-the-elk moment, because it was the first real awareness I had of the horrible damage war causes to living systems beyond we humans.
I was excited, then, to find an article wherein someone finally asked a question about the climate cost of war. At last, I found that someone else was thinking about this. Fortunately, that someone had knowledge and skills to start to do something to answer the question! According to this article, a man named Lennard de Klerk, who runs a carbon neutral eco-lodge in Hungary, saw Ukrainian refugees pouring into his country. He asked himself how he might help Ukraine, and asked “Why don’t we calculate the carbon impacts of the war?” Fortunately, he had previously worked as an expert in carbon calculations in the Netherlands and had a network of people he knew who had worked on emissions analysis…the specialized knowledge needed. In short order, he contacted prior colleagues and together they figured out ways to calculate the ongoing emissions of the war in Ukraine[2]. Together, they developed a process of gathering, recording, analyzing, and reporting the data. This they presented to the United Nations Climate Summit 2022 in Egypt, with publication of a follow-up report in June of 2023, using the name Initiative on GHG Accounting of War[3].
The reports lay out their methods. The accounting they have done so far is carefully limited to verifiable direct effects of the war in Ukraine and thus is an under accounting, but nevertheless provides a working framework, sets the stage for making rebuilding decisions, and for litigation against aggressors. Work such as this helps we, the public, see invisible emissions quantified, making them visible. With that information, we can begin to process more clearly the costs of continuing to engage in war.
For what appears to be the first time during a war, Ukrainians and others have elevated the idea of ‘ecocide’ as a war crime, being vocal about the harms to their environment as a result of having been invaded by Russia. Their message that this war (and by extrapolation all war) has severe impacts beyond the nations involved, regardless of the political, ethnic, military issues. They have amplified the message that war affects the whole world, and part of that is because of damages to the environment. Those include greenhouse gas emissions, something that is measurable and quantifiable.
The authors of the reports I mentioned conclude that, from its beginning in 2022 through the beginning of 2023, the war has produced greenhouse gas emissions similar to entire countries such as Belgium or the Netherlands. This is a huge amount of damage to our shared climate at a time when rapid work is needed to drastically decrease emissions.
Why hasn’t more of this kind accounting been done? It turns out that the early climate accords, starting with the Kyoto Protocol 1997, exempted militaries from emissions reporting to for some countries to agree[4]. Countries, especially the US, argued that reporting military emissions might jeopardize national security. Apparently, reporting the amount of fuel used and calculation greenhouse gas emissions might give information to adversaries about operations that they feared would increase their military vulnerability. Some of this loophole was closed in the 2015 Paris Agreement but military climate reporting is only just beginning to come under greater scrutiny in the past year or so.
Despite long deference to the right of militaries to secrecy, work has been done trying to quantify military contributions to the climate emergency; groups have made efforts and issued reports. For example, in 2008 a research and advocacy group called OilChange International issued “The Climate of War” in which they attempted to quantify greenhouse gas emissions of the US war in/on Iraq. They attempted to quantify the opportunity costs described as the cost of fighting a war rather than addressing climate change[5]. A 2019 report out of Brown University’s Costs of War project[6] quantified emissions of the US military. According to that report, the US Department of Defense is the largest institutional consumer of petroleum and thus, the largest institutional producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. The authors say that in 2017, the Pentagon’s total greenhouse gas emissions was greater than that of whole countries such as Sweden or Denmark. The report gives detailed information and suggests opportunities for the Pentagon (meaning the whole US military) to decrease its impact while also increasing global security. In a 2022, the Scientists for Global Responsibility issued a report titled Estimating the Military’s Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions (good title telling us exactly what they’re doing). They set out a methodology for making analyses looking at emissions from all the world’s militaries from the data available, limited though it is. They found that the global military carbon footprint makes up about 5.5% of all emissions. If the global military was a country, it would be the fourth largest emitter in the world[7]. These are just some of the reports that have started to emerge.
Where does this ramble through reports about war and emissions find us? I feel strangely encouraged. I find scanning through these reports, reading about war, conflict, and climate emissions to be mind boggling and exhausting. This is clearly work I could never do, and I am so very grateful that there are people who can and do. Having detailed, statistically analyzed information and recommendations does influence powerful institutions as they negotiate funding and planning for the world that is emerging. For governments or militaries to act or change, they need compelling data and analysis. Good information allows the rest of us to make better decisions about how to focus our actions and influence.
Sometimes, when I see news reports of ongoing war - images of tanks, explosions, things burning - I wonder why I bother to recycle that cardboard box or struggle to choose food and other products with the least climate impact available. Is my electric vehicle a step toward a more stable climate or just a waste of time and money? Unless the powerful entities like militaries, countries, and corporations take continued and deliberate, meaningful, and well-intended actions collectively to stabilize our climate, then my personal actions don’t mean much.
On the other hand, if a small group of volunteers with the right expertise can act to inform us about the emissions from the war in Ukraine such that data is available to influence the big powers (governments, militaries, corporations, etc.), then our collective individual actions can mean something, too. I can take inspiration from them and do what I can do.
I hope we humans can someday evolve past the need for huge militaries, and can agree never to engage in war again, but that is not our current reality. Today, we have militaries all over the globe, many engaging in active warfare. People are starting to sound alarms not only about the enormous human toll and injustices of war, but of the climate costs to every living thing…climate costs we cannot afford to continue. An important step for changing systems is measurement and data, which people are now doing the work to provide. Thank goodness!
I am reminded of the story of the story of the hummingbird in the forest fire. There is a lovely YouTube video, just over a minute long. Take a moment to watch, please, before moving on.
The story is told by Wangari Maathai[8], a Nobel Prize recipient for her work on the Green Belt Movement, a movement of African women restoring watersheds and planting trees.
I am inspired by people like Wangari Maathai, by the people of the Initiative on GHG Accounting of War, and by others that I’ve encountered as I researched for this essay. These are people who saw what they, with their unique skills and place in time, could do. They persevered, did what they could, and continue to do so.
The hummingbird story doesn’t tell us how things turn out in the end, because like us, the hummingbird doesn’t yet know[9]. Like the hummingbird dousing the forest fire one beak-full of water at a time, we each have the hope and choice to do what we can. Discouraged or not, I will continue to do my little bit as I am able. I hope you will, too.
[1] To read about some of the animals of Afghanistan click here. Some wildlife did better during the war because large logging operations were interrupted as reported here. I’m sure there are better ways to interrupt destruction of forests and wildlife habitat than war.
[2] This article was in Politico and you can read the whole thing here.
[3] First report on Climate Damage Caused by War in Ukraine, Nov 2022 here. The June 2023 follow-up report is here.
[4] US never ratified Kyoto because the agreement that was negotiated was unable to pass the US Senate even though it was signed by President Clinton. President George W. Bush completely withdrew the US from the agreement when he came into office.
[5] See The Climate of War pdf here. The organization’s website is here. I did a little digging into who they and their founder are. They seem to be doing good work combining data and activism to promote a just and green transition from fossil fuels.
[6] Brown University has a Cost of War project that you can find here. And a Climate Solutions Lab here. I’m glad people are doing this work. I find the war-related projects exhausting just to read never mind doing the work of gathering and writing this information.
[7] Find Scientists for Global Responsibility here and the report, Estimating the Military’s Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions here. Their climate change and the military project is here.
[8] Find a bio of Wangari Maathai here and here and information about the Green Belt Movement here.
[9] The hummingbird fable has been put together as part of a book available from your favorite booksellers including amazon. Here’s a short version of the story. A story that talks about climate work spinning off from the hummingbird story is here. And here’s the link to the YouTube video embedded in my post.
"War is not healthy for children and other living things"
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I"ll say "emerging answers to a difficult question"!! Cynthia.. you are so brave to even tackle this difficult subject of war and climate change. I am so moved that people are dedicating their time and energy in scientifically quantifying (which is what the world will most easily listen to), the hard eco-costs of war on our delicate planet. Thank you for bringing your research, viewpoint and clarity to this challenging investigation. I so appreciate your dedication to being that hummingbird, offering one drop at a time, because that is what you CAN do!! Bravo!! May your inspiration lead each of us to feel into what "one drop" we can do in regard to this challenge!! You ROCK!! In appreciation.. your sister ariel