If War Wins, Climate Mitigation Progress is at Stakes
The Ukraine crisis is a tragedy of tragedies, catastrophic for the Ukrainian people, disaster for the global supply chain, threatened for international economy and a setback for global peace & stability. Albeit Putin called his deed as special operation, the emotional fog said is just a war. No one loves war. The public commentary is about who wins, who loses, and who is hero or villain. The inconvenient truth is that perhaps we will all lose.
The existence of war has swept aside concerns about the pandemic recovery, likewise the climate mitigation. What the war means for the fragile agreement on climate action assigned in Glasgow United Nations Climate Conference (COP) 26. Just to be clear, make no mistake is a direct connection between military spending and carbon emission. Means, more we invest on military, more we attract emission machine to produce extra carbon emission. The bad news is the world’s total military expenditure trend roses time by the time (USD 2 trillion in 2020).
A study from The Brown University Watson School of International and Public Affairs estimated that the US Department of Defense becomes the world’s largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly, the single largest institutional producer of greenhouse houses (GHG) in the world. Back in 2017, for instance, the Pentagon’s total greenhouse gas emissions (both installations and operations) were much greater than the GHG of entire industrialized countries, such as Portugal, Denmark and Sweden.
Long story short, increased defense expenditure will accelerate energy and non-renewable material consumption, absorb best talents for war efforts, escalate carbon emissions, thus diverting scarce resources away from climate progress. In short, when we win the war, we put our decades of climate mitigation progress at stakes.
Lest we forget, what the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, called the 2021 year. The “make it or break it year” for global climate action. He quoted, scientists to say the world must cut global emissions by 45 percent by 2030, compared with 2010 levels to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. On top of that, according to the World Scientists’ Warnings into Action, Local to Global, signaled a global climate emergency in energy scarcity, pollutants, nature, food security to people economy. They urged one “verb” for halting those nightmare, collaborative actions across boundaries. Unfortunately, war has torpedoed collaborative efforts due to political stability is being disrupted.
Last but not least, it looks easy to call for a “Global Marshall Plan” for civilization. But with war that incrementally hot, it is likely Europe will prioritize a Marshall Plan for restoration of the Ukrainian economy first. Like all crisis, war has divided the world into those who are rich and protected, and those who are poor, insecure, and vulnerable. This is no longer a zero-sum game, once one side win the war, our climate action totally loses.
