Climate action must be a priority, not a casualty, of defense spending

By Rob | March 24, 2025 |

Graph: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2019/10/at-716-billion-the-us-military-budget-is-bigger-than-those-of-144-countries-combined-and-largest-contributor-to-climate-change/

Countries ramping up military budgets must also strengthen climate efforts or risk more conflict in the future, warns Ana Toni, Brazil’s chief executive of the Cop30 summit.

EHN news summary

In short:

Ana Toni argues that climate change fuels inequality and poverty, which can lead to future wars, making climate action a key security issue.
Many countries are increasing defense budgets, partly in response to Donald Trump’s foreign policy shifts, including withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement.
The UK is cutting overseas aid and renewable energy funding to boost defense spending, a move Toni warns sends a dangerous signal.

Key quote:

“Wars come and go. Unfortunately, climate change is there for a long time. We need to take climate change very seriously, otherwise we will have even more wars in the future.”

— Ana Toni, chief executive of Cop30

Why this matters:

The intersection of climate change and global security is becoming harder to ignore. As geopolitical tensions flare and nations ramp up defense spending, there’s growing concern that climate action could take a back seat despite mounting evidence that environmental crises themselves are driving instability. The U.S. decision to scale back climate commitments under the Trump administration adds another layer of uncertainty to international efforts, leaving a leadership vacuum in global emissions reduction and sustainable development.

If military budgets grow at the expense of climate initiatives, the world may face a self-perpetuating cycle: environmental degradation leading to conflict, which in turn justifies further military investment. Some experts warn that failing to address climate change as a national security threat now could make future crises even more costly — both in dollars and human lives.

Countries must bolster climate efforts or risk war, Cop30 chief executive warns

Ana Toni also criticises the UK’s plans to slash overseas aid to fund defence spending

Some countries could decide to include climate spending in their defence budgets, suggested Ana Toni, Brazil’s chief executive of the Cop30 summit.

Climate change is an accelerator of inequalities and poverty, and we know that the consequences of inequality and poverty can turn into wars in the future

“Climate change is an accelerator of inequalities and poverty, and we know that the consequences of inequality and poverty can turn into wars in the future,” she said. “The fight against climate change needs to be seen as something that’s not divorced from the big security issue of humanity.”

Toni is one of the top Brazilian officials coordinating the Cop30 conference, scheduled to take place this year in Belém, a rainforest city at the mouth of the Amazon. All countries will be expected to submit stringent national plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but preparations have been overshadowed by the complex geopolitical situation.

Many developed countries, including EU member states and the UK, are scrambling to devote more money to defence in reaction to Donald Trump’s threats to withdraw US support to Ukraine, and his warnings on foreign policy. Trump is also withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement.

Countries must not make a choice between defence and climate, Toni told the Guardian in an interview in London, but must understand that reducing efforts to combat the climate crisis would have an impact on their future security.

We need to take climate change very seriously, otherwise we will have even more wars in the future.

“Wars come and go. Unfortunately, climate change is there for a long time. We need to take climate change very seriously, otherwise we will have even more wars in the future. So that trade-off between short-term defence needs now, versus the long-term need to prevent this bigger fight on climate change, is absolutely needed.

“[Whether] we should put climate into the defence budget or not, each country will decide,” she added. “Climate is a bigger battle, not of one country but humanity.”

Germany’s coalition agreement, signed last week, includes €100bn (£85bn) to be spent on the climate over the next 12 years, alongside massively increased defence spending, achieved by removing the country’s longstanding “brake” on increasing debt.

The UK has taken an opposing tack, slashing overseas aid and threatening to cut the budget for Great British Energy, the national renewable energy champion, in order to pay for increased defence spending while staying within the “fiscal rules” self-imposed by Rachel Reeves, the chancellor.

Toni, an economist by training who has previously worked in civil society roles, spoke out against the UK’s move, which many experts have warned could reduce developing countries’ capacity to tackle the climate crisis.

“Obviously, it’s not a good signal,” she said. “We need to understand that signal, and what type of consequences those signals have.”

Alongside the Azerbaijan government, which hosted Cop29, Brazil is working on a roadmap to show how developed countries could meet the pledge made last year of devoting $300bn (£230bn) a year to climate finance for the poor world by 2035.

Ed Miliband, the UK energy and net zero secretary, concluded a three-day visit to China on Monday. Toni predicted that the US’s turn away from climate action under Trump would not weaken China’s efforts to cut carbon.

“There is no vacuum in leadership, and Chinese companies are really going forward with the decarbonisation process, because they realise it is very good for their own economy,” she said.

All countries have agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels”, she said, so she expected China to address that issue in its national plan, known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC) under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Developing countries could use their NDCs as investment plans, to attract private and public sector cash from overseas

Developing countries could use their NDCs as investment plans, to attract private and public sector cash from overseas, she added. “We are hoping that the NDC becomes part of a social and economic plan of development. You cannot think about development any more without having a climate perspective.”

Divert military spending to fund climate aid, activists urge Cop28

World’s militaries produce at least 5.5% of emissions, as evidence mounts that climate crisis puts regions at greater risk of war

Wealthy nations should divert 5% of their military budgets to climate finance, advocates argue.

The call comes as global leaders at Cop28 in Dubai gather for a special-themed day on “relief, recovery, and peace” on Sunday, marking the first time climate-fueled conflict has ever been on an international climate conference agenda.

Participants will discuss the need to direct aid to “highly vulnerable, fragile, and conflict-affected communities” as evidence mounts that climate disasters put regions at greater risk of war, and amid ongoing conflict in Palestine as well as Ukraine, Sudan, and other areas.

But truly protecting communities from climate and conflict will require a shift in priorities, says the Transnational Institute, an international research and advocacy group.

“Money is being spent on militarization rather than on climate action,” said Nick Buxton, a researcher with the Transnational Institute, “though the climate crisis is the biggest [common] security threat that we face today.”

By diverting just 5% of global military budgets, the world could raise $110.4bn for climate finance – more than enough to meet a repeatedly broken annual climate finance target of $100bn, the organization has found.

“National – and global – security in the 21st century will depend on limiting the rise in temperature and resulting havoc more than on any other thing,” said the environmental activist and author Bill McKibben.

The world’s militaries produce at least 5.5% of greenhouse gas emissions – more than the total footprint of Japan – according to one 2022 estimate. But no country is required to provide data on military emissions thanks to successful lobbying by the US at the Kyoto conference in 1997. Leaders removed the exemption in 2015 but made reporting military emissions optional.

Military spending has grown by more than a quarter in the past decade, exceeding $2.2tn in 2022. During the same time period, attempts to mobilize funds for climate finance have faltered.

In 2009, for instance, rich countries agreed to spend $100bn on climate finance for developing world annually by 2020, but they broke that promise, providing only $90bn for climate finance in 2021.

Preliminary data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released this month indicates that the $100bn goal may have finally been met in 2022, but some experts say that assessment is based on inflated numbers. A 2022 investigation from Oxfam concluded that due to wealthy nations’ “dishonest and misleading” accounting, climate finance estimates in 2020 were as much as 225% too high.

Even if it turns out wealthy nations genuinely met the commitment, said Buxton, countries should still reallocate 5% of their military budgets. The $100bn number is widely understood to be far below the true need in poor countries; one 2022 report found that developing nations need $1tn per yearto cope with the climate crisis.

Highly polluting nations will also need to come up with funding for loss and damage in poor countries. The need is already greater than $400bn annuallyand rising, by one estimate.

Countries with the largest militaries – largely the richest, most polluting nations – should bear the most responsibility for cutting global defense spending, the researchers say. They place particular focus on Nato, whose 31 members include the UK, Canada and the US, whose military, which is the world’s top-funded, is also the world’s largest institutional emitter.

Nato members accounted for more than half of all global military spending last year, and budgets are expected to rise. This year, members made “an enduring commitment to invest at least 2%” of their national budgets to their militaries. If that promise is fulfilled, by 2028, the additional funding would be enough to pay for all needed climate adaptation in hard-hit countries for seven years, the researchers calculated based on United Nations data.

Increased militarization harms climate-affected countries in other ways, too, the researchers say. For instance, they found that Nato members are currently selling arms to 39 of the 40 most climate-vulnerable countries; 17 of which are already in armed conflict.

“It’s a real perversion: rather than providing support for communities we are actually making the situation more dangerous and more unstable,” said Buxton.

Diverting some military spending to climate finance would make the world safer, said Perry O’Brien, climate justice organizer at US veteran-led advocacy group Common Defense.

“We know true national security means protecting people and communities from harm,” he said.

Garcia D. Redirect military budgets to tackle climate change and pandemics. Nature. 2020 Aug;584(7822):521-523. doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-02460-9. PMID: 32820243.

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