Why warfare must be seen as a threat to our climate

As the planet nears critical ecological thresholds, the carbon clock is ticking down. According to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, at current emission rates, we have just four years left before we exhaust the carbon budget required to limit warning to 1.5°C. Every decision we collectively make now either deepens the crisis or lessens its impacts. Yet in this rapidly narrowing window of existential action, governments continue to pour billions into warfare — one of the most destructive, carbon-intensive undertakings under any circumstances.

The carbon footprint of war is often unaccounted for in national inventories, and it remains invisible in climate negotiations — yet the earth’s atmosphere does not recognize these exemptions. More than 5 per cent of global emi