Tag Archives: Arms trade

Bonn Climate Conference attendance + arms industry tax & military spending filtering through

Bonn Climate Conference attendance + arms industry tax & military spending filtering through

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The Bonn UN Climate Change Conference is a midway point in each year in the lead up to the annual COP. It serves as the mid-year meeting of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice. This year, 7000 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. We were able to deepen conversations started at previous gatherings (COP, Bonn, CAN International) as well as develop new climate finance conversations. Both military emissions and military spending were widely referenced and the latter gives hope we are making progress in getting it included in the climate finance debate.

However, overall, Bonn concluded after two weeks of intensive work across a range of issues where the urgent progress needed on GHG reductions and climate finance failed.

“We’ve taken modest steps forward here in Bonn,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell in his closing speech. “[But] too many items are still on the table… We’ve left ourselves with a very steep mountain to climb to achieve ambitious outcomes in Baku.”

Genocide in Gaza

For civil society attending Bonn, the war on Gaza could not be ignored. It became centre stage when a protest was made inside the opening plenary to draw attention and which was picked up by media around the world.

Anabella Rosemberg and Tasneem Essop protest at the opening plenary (Photo: Kiara Worth/IISD ENB)

Military emissions

Given Gaza and Ukraine, it was concerning – and surprising – that Bonn did not accept any one or more of the four side events proposals on military emissions submitted by parties (governments) or civil society NGOs , bringing an abrupt halt to the progress we and others had hoped to build on at Bonn. This as the world has witnessed genocide in Gaza, and the was in Ukraine still ongoing. Side events remain vital to the introduction of new research and advocacy to delegates and this Bonn saw new emissions work released on both Gaza and Ukraine.

Nevertheless, military emissions are now being noted inside the formal negotiations and more widely, in general conversation, including as context for an arms industry sales tax (more below).

Climate finance, military spending + a sales tax on the arms industry

Arms industry tax proposal

‘At Bonn talks, G77 group floats a 5% sales tax on tech, fashion and defence firms to fund green spending in the Global South.’  Climate Home News

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.  While rich nations are obligated to pay for international climate finance under the Paris Agreement, they are now saying they are struggling to find the funds to do so and are calling on countries like China to step up also. To take the initiative back, 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”.

‘Referring to the document in talks on the new finance goal yesterday, Saudi Arabia’s negotiator justified a tax on arms manufacturers by saying that military emissions of planet-heating gases represent 5% of global historical emissions.“One… potential idea is to have a tax on defence companies in developed countries,” he said, suggesting it could be put forward….  Around $21 billion a year could come from a 5% tax on the annual sales of the top 80 defense firms in developed countries, the paper says.’  Climate Home News

A proposal on an arms industry tax from one of the world’s biggest arms buyers, not to mention oil producers, certainly raised eyebrows in some quarters. It is supported by the Arab Group and G77+China and one can only wonder if the war on Gaza played some role in the inclusion of arms in this proposal.

The Saudi /Arab Group Sales Tax proposal resonated with our newly released 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.

Military Spending at Bonn

Press Conferences

TPNS has worked hard to advocate for military spending to be part of the climate finance demands within the larger climate networks. Several of the Climate Action Network press conferences saw military spending & climate finance referenced to a packed media room.

Mohamed Adow, Director of Powershift Africa and a leading media spokesperson on climate and climate finance referenced military emissions and spending at a CAN Int’l press conference on Gaza.

Side Events

Military spending as (a) a comparison with and/or (b) a potential source to tap for climate finance was also referenced in a good number of NGO hosted climate finance side events.

Interfaith dialogue / strategy group

TPNS was able to make a presentation to this important group in their discussion on preparing for COP29.  Deborah was invited to speak about the links between war, climate and military spending.

Media

TPNS and publications at Bonn

   

Our attendance at Bonn is made possible with support from the Movement for Abolition of War and the Quaker UN office.

Press Commentary

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/21/climate-activists-bemoan-scant-progress-on-finance-as-cop29-looms

https://climatenetwork.org/2024/06/13/sb60-press-release-climate-action-network-outcome-reaction/

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2024/06/10/bonn-bulletin-crunch-time-for-climate-finance/

Media release: NATO 2% SPENDING GOAL COULD DIVERT $2.6 TRILLION FROM CLIMATE FINANCE BY 2028

Media release: NATO 2% SPENDING GOAL COULD DIVERT $2.6 TRILLION FROM CLIMATE FINANCE BY 2028

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Embargoed: 00:01am CET, 17 October

NEW RESEARCH: NATO 2% SPENDING GOAL COULD DIVERT $2.6 TRILLION FROM CLIMATE FINANCE BY 2028 

NATO’s goal of 2% spending of GDP on the military will accelerate climate breakdown by diverting millions of dollars from climate finance and increasing greenhouse gas emissions, concludes a new report that urgently calls for a ‘climate dividend’ similar to the ‘peace dividend’ that was won with the end of the Cold War.

The report, Climate Crossfire, produced by Tipping Point North South (UK), together with Transnational Institute (International) and Stop Wapenhandel (Netherlands), estimates the likely financial implications as well as increased greenhouse gas emissions that would result if all NATO members meet their commitment to increase military spending to a minimum of 2% of GDP. 

The report finds that:

  • NATO’s military spending this year – $1.26 trillion-  would pay for 12 years of promised climate finance of $100 billion a year.
  • If all NATO members meet its 2% military spending targets, it would divert an estimated additional US$2.57 trillion by 2028 away from climate spending, enough to pay for climate adaptation costs for all low- and middle-income countries for seven years.
  • NATO’s estimated military carbon footprint this year – 205 million tCO2e – is comparable to the total annual greenhouse gas emissions of many countries. If NATO’s militaries were a country, it would rank 40th in the world in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
  • If all NATO members meet its 2% military spending targets, this would lead to an estimated additional 467 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
  • NATO members export arms to 39 of the 40 most climate-vulnerable countries, fuelling conflict and repression at a dangerous moment of climate breakdown.

Continue reading →

£280bn Global Arms Sales in 2016

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Global sales of weapons and military services have risen for the first time in five years, helped in part by an increase in sales by British companies.

Weapons – many of which are fuelling deadly conflicts in the Middle East – are now being bought and sold at the highest level since 2010, with sales up more than a third (38 per cent) since 2002.

Military kit worth $374.8bn (£280bn) was sold in 2016 by the industry’s top 100 companies, an annual review by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) found.

The findings came as UK firm BAE Systems signed a $6.7bn deal with Qatar to buy 24 Typhoon fighter jets.

British arms sales rose 2 per cent last year and now amount to almost 10 per cent of global sales, researchers found.

Germany’s arms sales jumped 6.6 per cent while South Korean companies notched up 20 per cent more sales than a year earlier. …

Sales by Lockheed Martin – the world’s largest arms producer – rose by 10.7 per cent in 2016, the report found, linked to the sale of F-35 combat aircraft. Continue reading →

Interactive Map: European weapons and Refugees

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Valuable resource from Centre Delàs:

Interactive map « European weapons and refugees »

The purpose of this interactive map is to highlight the link between European arms export and flows of refugees and internally displaced persons, in order to determine whether there is any direct or indirect responsibility of EU Member States for situations of insecurity and violence that drive millions of people to flee their homes every year.

A second objective of this tool is to stress their (ir)responsibility in European arms export authorization or realization as well as their inadequate compliance of the existing legislation, established by the Common Position 2008/944/CFSP of December 8, 2008, which sets up 22 weapons categories including ammunition, light weapons, aircraft and warships, military transport vehicles and all types of military technology for military purposes. On the basis of the criteria set out in the Common Position, the relationship between the European legislation on arms export and situations of insecurity leading to movements of refugees and displaced persons can be established.

http://www.centredelas.org/en/database/arms-trade/interactive-map-arms-trade-and-refugees

UK arms firms pay little tax in Saudi arms sale

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The report, released by children’s charity War Child, claims that corporations, including BAE systems and Raytheon, have made an estimated $775m in profit on $8bn worth of revenue by selling arms to Saudi Arabia between March 2015 and the end of 2016.

Yet corporation tax receipts since the war in Yemen began stands at just $40m, something the NGO describes as “pitiful”.
Continue reading →

Israel arms Myanmar military amid crackdown on Rohingya

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Israel has continued to sell arms to Myanmar, despite international condemnation of the country’s crackdown on its Rohingya Muslim minority. …

The armaments sold to Myanmar include over 100 tanks, weapons and boats that have been used to police the country’s border and perpetrate numerous acts of violence against the Rohingya, such that the UN suspects the army is committing ethnic cleansing. Continue reading →

Israel and India arms trade

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India is Israel’s top destination for arms exports, buying 41 per cent of export between 2012 and 2016, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an independent global conflict and arms-research institute.

Israel is India’s third-largest source of arms, with a 7.2 per cent share of imports between 2012 and 2016, next to the US (14 per cent) and Russia (68 per cent). Continue reading →

Don’t Buy Don’t Sell in the Trump era

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After authorising the firing of 59 Tomahawk missiles (each costing around $1.5 million) at a Syrian airbase with no apparent consequential strategic purpose and diminishing none of the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons capability, the maker of the Tomahawk missiles, Raytheon’s stock rose sharply, adding more than $1 billion to its market capitalisation. Other missile and weapons manufacturers, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, also saw their stock rose considerably – collectively gaining nearly $5 billion in market value. This on its own may not matter much, after all, which president of the USA has not dropped  expensive bombs on some ‘remote’ nations of the world. But this time may be different.

Trump used anti-establishment and anti-corporate language during his election campaign to distinguish himself from all other candidates – he opposed neoconservative foreign policy, financial and corporate interests, notably Goldman Sachs. Now, after his inauguration, you can hardly see much difference between his foreign policy plans and policies proposed by neoconservatives. His cabinet looks like a ‘who’s who’ of Goldman Sachs alumni. He ratcheted up the military tension in the South China Sea, ordered a failed major special force operation in Yemen, and now seems to be pushing the USA to the edge of nuclear war with North Korea. The more he uses militaristic confrontational rhetoric and actions, the more ‘presidential’ he  looks in the eyes of the mainstream media. He seems ‘unstoppable’.

But is he, really?

Continue reading →

China boosts arms exports by 74%, while becoming more self-sufficient

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Comparing two five-year periods between 2007-11 and 2012-16, the volume of Chinese exports of major arms increased by 74 per cent. Its share of the global total of exports rose from 3.8 to 6.2 per cent, making it the third-largest supplier in the world, following the United States and Russia.
Unlike the US, which accounts for one-third of exports and supplies at least 100 countries, China delivered major arms to 44 countries, mostly in Asia and Africa. More than 60 per cent of China’s exports went to Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar and another 22 per cent went to Africa.

China has also been expanding its market. In 2015, it exported type 90 multi-barrel rocket launchers to Peru, the first time Chinese weapons were used to equip Peru’s armed forces. A report released by the Pentagon last April estimated that China’s arms sales from 2010 to 2014 totalled about US$15 billion. Continue reading →

SIPRI: Global Arms Trade Highest since Cold War

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The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) said on Monday that more weapons were delivered between 2012 and 2016 than any other five-year period since 1990. Saudi Arabia, which leads a military intervention in Yementhat has cost hundreds of civilian lives, was the world’s second largest importer after India, increasing its intake by 212%, mainly from the US and the UK.

Asia was the main recipient region in the world as India dwarfed regional rivals, China and Pakistan, by accounting for 13% of the global imports. While India received most of its arms from Russia, the Saudis relied heavily on US arms. US and Russia together supplied more than half of all exports. China, France and Germany were also among the top five exporters. Continue reading →

SIPRI’s Arms Trade Treaty database now covers Latin America and the Caribbean

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SIPRI is proud to announce that is has expanded and improved its online database for Mapping Arms Trade Treaty (ATT)-relevant cooperation and assistance activities to include activities in Latin America and the Caribbean. The database now contains information on over 350 activities involving partner states from Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean since 2012. Continue reading →

SIPRI: Top 100 arms sales for 2015 still are 37 per cent higher than those for 2002

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Sales of the world’s 100 largest arms-producing and military services companies totalled $370.7 billion in 2015. Compared with 2014, this is a slight decline of 0.6 per cent. While this continues the downward trend in arms sales that began in 2011, it signals a significant slowdown in the pace of decline. However, despite the decrease, Top 100 arms sales for 2015 are 37 per cent higher than those for 2002, when SIPRI began reporting corporate arms sales.

Companies headquartered in the United States and Western Europe have
dominated the list of Top 100 arms-producing and military services companies
since 2002. And, true to form, this was the case for 2015: with sales reaching $305.4 billion, companies based in the USA and Western Europe accounted for 82.4 per cent of the Top 100 arms sales. Continue reading →

CAAT: UK government works ‘hand in glove’ with arms firms

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The British government and the UK arms industry have a “politically intimate and hugely compromising relationship” that sees government officials working “hand in glove” with companies promoting weapons exports, according to campaigners who have tracked thousands of meetings between officials and arms trade representatives.

Officials from the government’s dedicated arms export department, the Defence and Security Organisation (DSO), attended more than 1,000 meetings since the 2010 election – more than a third of all meetings recorded by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), which has published data on contact between the government and the arms industry.
Continue reading →

Obama administration has sold more than $115 billion in weapons to the Saudi kingdom

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In addition to providing Saudi Arabia with intelligence and flying refueling missions for its air force, the United States has enabled the bombing campaign by supplying $20 billion in weapons over the past 18 months. In total, President Obama has sold more than $115 billion in weapons to the Saudi kingdom – more than any other president.

27 U.S. Senators Rebel Against Arming Saudi Arabia
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/21/27-u-s-senators-rebel-against-arming-saudi-arabia/

Top 100 defense companies 2016

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Total 2015 defense revenues for the Top 100 companies came in at $356.7 billion, down more than 7 percent from the 2014 Top 100 total of $385.8 billion. The top 25 companies accounted for 73 percent of total defense revenues in the year, and the Top 10 firms accounted for 54 percent of total defense revenues in the year, an improvement from the last two cycles, which saw that percentage drop a point each in 2013 and 2014.

Geographically, 41 of the Top 100 firms are based in the US, which accounted for 60 percent of total defense revenue, up from 54 percent in 2014 – a sign that even as other nations expand their defense industries, American companies remain dominant on the global stage. Europe has 27 companies featured, which increases if Russia’s six major defense companies are included, while the Asia-Pacific region has 17 companies. In contrast, Africa and South America were represented by a single firm each. …
Continue reading →

UK, the second biggest arms dealer in the world

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Britain is now the second biggest arms dealer in the world, official government figures show – with most of the weapons fuelling deadly conflicts in the Middle East.

Since 2010 Britain has also sold arms to 39 of the 51 countries ranked “not free” on the Freedom House “Freedom in the world” report, and 22 of the 30 countries on the UK Government’s own human rights watch list.
Continue reading →

U.S. Defense Contractors: Russian Threat Is Great for Business

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Retired Army Gen. Richard Cody, a vice president at L-3 Communications, the seventh largest U.S. defense contractor, explained to shareholders in December that the industry was faced with a historic opportunity. Following the end of the Cold War, Cody said, peace had “pretty much broken out all over the world,” with Russia in decline and NATO nations celebrating. “The Wall came down,” he said, and “all defense budgets went south.”

Now, Cody argued, Russia “is resurgent” around the world, putting pressure on U.S. allies. “Nations that belong to NATO are supposed to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks. “We know that uptick is coming and so we postured ourselves for it.”
Continue reading →

£1bn of weapons flow from Europe to Middle East

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Thousands of assault rifles such as AK-47s, mortar shells, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons and heavy machine guns are being routed through a new arms pipeline from the Balkans to the Arabian peninsula and countries bordering Syria.

The suspicion is that much of the weaponry is being sent into Syria, fuelling the five-year civil war, according to a team of reporters from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

Arms export data, UN reports, plane tracking, and weapons contracts examined during a year-long investigation reveal how the munitions were sent east from Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Slovakia, Serbia and Romania.
Continue reading →