![]() Even those that do record and report their military emissions, like the United States and Canada, do not count the carbon pollution produced by military suppliers in the private sector. One of the greatest challenges is that few countries know the baseline for their military’s greenhouse gas emissions well enough to set goals to reduce them. Some are more prepared than others to take such steps, and all are aware that potential foes-particularly Russia and China- have no plans to reduce their military reliance on petroleum. But it will be up to the governments of each of its 30 member nations to decide what goals to set for decarbonization of their armed forces. NATO is expected to adopt emissions reduction targets for its own 4,000-person headquarters in Brussels and command centers around the world. soldiers killed or wounded during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in attacks on fuel and water resupplies.īut it is not easy, either politically or as a practical matter, to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of armed forces, when military strength has long been defined in terms of the ability to deploy jets, tanks and other equipment that burn copious amounts of fuel. “Russia’s invasion, along with the associated global energy and food insecurity it has generated, means we need to accelerate the energy transition and enable militaries to lead by example.”ĭependence on fossil fuels has proven to be a battlefield liability as well, with Russia’s advance stalled partly by fuel shortages and thousands of U.S. “While some say that the war and the provision of military aid to Ukraine makes it harder to decarbonize defense, in fact, the opposite is true,” said Goodman. ![]() Goodman made the remarks earlier this month when an expert group she leads, the International Military Council on Climate and Security, released a roadmap for decarbonizing defense in advance of the NATO summit. deputy undersecretary of defense during the Clinton administration. “Russia’s war in Ukraine underscores the urgency of acting today to reduce Putin’s weaponization of fossil energy on the West,” said Sherri Goodman, who served as U.S. But the war-fueled by Russia’s oil and gas revenue and with global impacts on food supply and economies-appears to have created new motivation within the alliance to address the security risks of both climate change and fossil-fuel dependence. NATO announced its climate plan a year ago, and some observers thought it might be pushed aside at the Madrid summit by the urgency of how to support Ukraine in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression. On the agenda of the three-day meeting: Integrating climate change into NATO’s statement of purpose for the first time, and setting out a roadmap for how the heavily fossil fuel-reliant militaries in the alliance can reduce their massive greenhouse gas footprints. As war rages in Ukraine, leaders of the world’s largest military alliance convened in Madrid on Tuesday for what NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he envisions as a “ transformative” summit, aimed at making the pact “even stronger and more agile.”
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