Dear friends and supporters,
The world still waits for ceasefire in Gaza even as Benjamin Netanyahu is welcomed to the heart of USA government; the war in Ukraine still sees no end in sight; and commentary about the new axis powers and looming WW3 is getting more and more media coverage.This is the state we are in. World leaders knowingly asleep at the wheel as climate chaos looms, teaching us what we know already – that climate change has no respect for national borders.
We are in desperate need of substantially more international co-operation, not conflict. Vastly increased levels of diplomacy, not war. We need massive cuts to GHG emissions (military emissions in peace and war included) and vastly increased investment in climate finance across the board if we are to avoid the continued overshooting of 1.5 degrees of warming on planet earth.
As Antonio Guterres is repeatedly saying:
At a time when we see rising hunger, growing poverty & a lack of financing to address the climate crisis, it’s shocking to see military expenditure reaching an unprecedented high—$2443 billion in 2023, according to @SIPRIorg. It’s time to stop running towards mutual destruction.
We live in hope.
Deb & Ho-Chih
Making Headway: military spending, an arms industry tax & climate finance
It’s been a busy and productive few month since our May e-newsletter
EVENTS
Bonn Climate Conference
The Bonn UN Climate Change Conference is a midway point in each year in the lead up to the annual COP. This year, 7000 international delegates attended from governments, UN, civil society and media. For our work on military emissions and military spending, it has become an important calendar moment and we attended our second Bonn conference in June 2024.
Progress is being made on military emissions. The scale of the military emissions problem is now being noted inside the formal negotiations. Since last year, it is noticeable how much more familiar delegates are with the concerns and demands of those of us calling for action within the UNFCCC processes on the matter of full reporting and subsequent cuts to military emissions in peacetime and war.
Progress also being made to bring military spending into the climate finance discussions. Early on in the conference, the debate about how to fill the coffers of the new climate finance goal – in other words, how to move from billions to trillions (and fast) – was clearly taking priority. It was encouraging to see the wider climate justice networks include military spending in their analysis and demands for new sources of climate finance.
Climate activists made sure that the genocide in Gaza would not go unacknowledged and linked Gaza to the wider military spending issue.
Mohamed Adow, the Director of Powershift Africa and a leading media spokesperson on climate and climate finance referenced military emissions and spending at a Climate Action Network Int’l press conference on Gaza.
A climate tax on the arms industry also made news
In advance of Bonn, we published our report ‘Excess profits tax on the global arms industry for climate finance’. So imagine our (pleasant) surprise when, early in week one at Bonn, we read: “… G77 group floats a 5% sales tax on tech, fashion and defence firms to fund green spending in the Global South“.
Saudi Arabia, endorsed by Arab Group and G77+China offered a proposal whereby developed countries can raise $441 billion “without compromising spending on other priorities entirely by adopting targeted domestic measures” such as a “financial transaction tax”, a defence company tax, a fashion tax and a “Big Tech Monopoly Tax”.
This came as a big surprise – indeed shock – given Saudi Arabia is in the top 5 of arms importers. But the proposal has Arab Group and G77+China support so it is of significance.
The Saudi /Arab Group Sales Tax proposal resonated with our report and reinforced the value of the call. We believe the inclusion of the arms industry in the sales tax proposal is a significant step in the right direction and will watch its progress closely. We remain committed to our excess profits tax idea which taxes 100% excess profits, not just 5% on sales, and which is universal, not just levied on rich world arms companies.
More detail on Bonn here.
Our blog on the Saudi/Arab Group/G77+China proposal.
Our Excess Profits Tax proposal.
Bonn – overall failed to make progress.
“We’ve left ourselves with a very steep mountain to climb,” Stiell said.
Representatives from climate-vulnerable nations said it was hard watching wealthy nations fall late with past payments of climate finance while quickly approving new funds for military responses to war or spending billions subsidising CO2-emitting energy sources.
“It seems like money is always there when it’s a more ‘real’ national priority for the country,” Michai Robertson, negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, told Reuters.
Thanks to Movement for Abolition of War and the Quaker UN office for supporting our attendance at Bonn.
Presenting military emissions and spending to the international degrowth community
Progress is being made on military emissions. The scale of the military emissions problem is now being noted inside the formal negotiations. Since last year, it is noticeable how much more familiar delegates are with the concerns and demands of those of us calling for action within the UNFCCC processes on the matter of full reporting and subsequent cuts to military emissions in peacetime and war.
Progress also being made to bring military spending into the climate finance discussions. Early on in the conference, the debate about how to fill the coffers of the new climate finance goal – in other words, how to move from billions to trillions (and fast) – was clearly taking priority. It was encouraging to see the wider climate justice networks include military spending in their analysis and demands for new sources of climate finance.
A climate tax on the arms industry also made news
In advance of Bonn, we published our report ‘Excess profits tax on the global arms industry for climate finance’. So imagine our (pleasant) surprise when, early in week one at Bonn, we read: “… G77 group floats a 5% sales tax on tech, fashion and defence firms to fund green spending in the Global South“.
Saudi Arabia, endorsed by Arab Group and G77+China offered a proposal whereby developed countries can raise $441 billion “without compromising spending on other priorities entirely by adopting targeted domestic measures” such as a “financial transaction tax”, a defence company tax, a fashion tax and a “Big Tech Monopoly Tax”.
This came as a big surprise – indeed shock – given Saudi Arabia is in the top 5 of arms importers. But the proposal has Arab Group and G77+China support so it is of significance.
The Saudi /Arab Group Sales Tax proposal resonated with our report and reinforced the value of the call. We believe the inclusion of the arms industry in the sales tax proposal is a significant step in the right direction and will watch its progress closely. We remain committed to our excess profits tax idea which taxes 100% excess profits, not just 5% on sales, and which is universal, not just levied on rich world arms companies.
More detail on Bonn here.
Our blog on the Saudi/Arab Group/G77+China proposal.
Our Excess Profits Tax proposal.
Bonn – overall failed to make progress.
“We’ve left ourselves with a very steep mountain to climb,” Stiell said.
Representatives from climate-vulnerable nations said it was hard watching wealthy nations fall late with past payments of climate finance while quickly approving new funds for military responses to war or spending billions subsidising CO2-emitting energy sources.
“It seems like money is always there when it’s a more ‘real’ national priority for the country,” Michai Robertson, negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, told Reuters.
Thanks to Movement for Abolition of War and the Quaker UN office for supporting our attendance at Bonn.
Presenting military emissions and spending to the international degrowth community
With an attendance of more than 1100 people from 48 different countries, the conference had the participation of academics, activists, students and teachers of secondary education.
Deborah Burton joined Corinne Lamain to present the session ‘Degrowing the military: reducing military emissions and rethinking responses to socio-ecological conflicts.’ Deborah’s presentation addressed how and why we must degrow the military-industrial complex, and built on TPNS’s paper ‘Placing the military in the degrowth narrative‘ published in 2023. Corinne’s presentation spoke to degrowth as a driver of reduction of so-called ‘climate conflicts’ and drew on her research as PhD Candidate in the Political Ecology Research Group at the International Institute of Social Studies at the Erasmus University in the Hague.
More here.
PUBLICATIONS
Climate in the Crosshairs: Updated Briefing (TPNS/TNI/Stop Wappenhandel)
As NATO marks its 75th anniversary at its summit in Washington D.C. in July 2024, what will be the climate impacts of the world’s most powerful military alliance of 31 nations? NATO spent $1.34 trillion dollars on the military in 2023, an increase of $126 billion in one year. Our briefing shows that military spending increases greenhouse gas emissions, diverts critical finance from climate action, and consolidates an arms trade that fuels instability during climate breakdown. It is therefore accelerating the climate crisis in a decade that the UN Secretary General António Guterres has called ‘climate crunch time’, where urgent action is needed on ‘every front’. This briefing updates the statistics in Climate Crossfire launched at COP28 and is a companion piece to Climate Collateral: How military spending accelerates climate breakdown.’
Confronting Military Greenhouse Gas Emissions
TPNS contribution to this interactive publication addressed our call for military emissions to be included in the next landmark IPCC Special Report on Cities. The publication, edited by colleague Ben Neimark at QMUL, details the realities of carbon pollution, militaries, and what this signifies for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting and reduction. With contributions from a range of researchers, academics and campaigners including Prof Neta Crawford and Stuart Parkinson (SGR).
Confronting Military Greenhouse Gas Emissions Interactive Policy (Digital Version)
Towards Climate Justice: Redistributing Military Spending to Climate Finance
This excellent 3 page briefing was produced for the Bonn Climate Conference by our colleagues at WILPF (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom) and included TPNS’s military spending proposals and emissions work. It addressed the relevance of militarism and climate finance to UNFCCC negotiations and the routes by which we could see the redistribution of military spending to climate finance.
As NATO marks its 75th anniversary at its summit in Washington D.C. in July 2024, what will be the climate impacts of the world’s most powerful military alliance of 31 nations? NATO spent $1.34 trillion dollars on the military in 2023, an increase of $126 billion in one year. Our briefing shows that military spending increases greenhouse gas emissions, diverts critical finance from climate action, and consolidates an arms trade that fuels instability during climate breakdown. It is therefore accelerating the climate crisis in a decade that the UN Secretary General António Guterres has called ‘climate crunch time’, where urgent action is needed on ‘every front’. This briefing updates the statistics in Climate Crossfire launched at COP28 and is a companion piece to Climate Collateral: How military spending accelerates climate breakdown.’
Confronting Military Greenhouse Gas Emissions
TPNS contribution to this interactive publication addressed our call for military emissions to be included in the next landmark IPCC Special Report on Cities. The publication, edited by colleague Ben Neimark at QMUL, details the realities of carbon pollution, militaries, and what this signifies for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting and reduction. With contributions from a range of researchers, academics and campaigners including Prof Neta Crawford and Stuart Parkinson (SGR).
Confronting Military Greenhouse Gas Emissions Interactive Policy (Digital Version)
Towards Climate Justice: Redistributing Military Spending to Climate Finance
This excellent 3 page briefing was produced for the Bonn Climate Conference by our colleagues at WILPF (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom) and included TPNS’s military spending proposals and emissions work. It addressed the relevance of militarism and climate finance to UNFCCC negotiations and the routes by which we could see the redistribution of military spending to climate finance.
MEDIA
- Guardian The Guardian reported on how our briefing shows that military spending increases greenhouse gas emissions.
- Climate News Tax on Arms Industry.
- ECO magazine (CAN Intl) covers military spend/climate finance and ref TPNS ‘correlation between spending and emissions’.
- Scoop NZ – UNFCCC and War.
- Politico TPNS’ submission to UN Global Stocktake.
Tipping Point North South 