The Worst Greenhouse Emitter on Earth: The US Military

The United States has the strongest and most modern military on earth. It is revered by most Americans, given high priority when it comes to federal budget decisions, and it usually exempt from the kinds of scrutiny applied to “the rest of us.” What’s more, even as Donald Trump was attempting to dissolve the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. military officially recognized that climate change is and was an “existential” threat to national security, spurring conflict and mass migration. Starving people chasing dwindling resources has been an impetus to global instability. Wars between well-armed factions, involving missile strikes, artillery, mass use of military vehicles and bombs are bad enough, but the rising smoke and toxic emissions from the smoldering targets is now a new normal.

The war in Ukraine is no exception. “The war has led directly to emissions of 33 million tons of greenhouse gases that warm the Earth's atmosphere, claimed Ruslan Strilets, Ukraine's environmental protection minister… ‘ Russia has turned our natural reserves into a military base. Russia is doing everything to shorten our and your horizons. Because of the war, we will have to do even more to overcome the climate crisis,’ he said… The amount is the equivalent of adding nearly 16 million cars to the UK's roads for two years.” BBC.com, November14th.

This disruption has forced the European Union to cut its reliance on Russian natural gas imports. As a result, the United States has become the largest net exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG) on earth. At a cost. “The United States is experiencing a liquefied natural gas export boom. Though it only started to export the fuel in 2016, the U.S. became the world’s leading exporter in 2022, amid the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine and its disruptions to global energy supplies… Today, the U.S. has seven LNG export terminals in operation, with plans for 20 more.

“These terminals, where natural gas is cooled into a liquid and loaded onto barges, could emit more than 90 million tons of greenhouse gases a year—as much pollution as about 18 million combustion-engine cars a year—according to the Environmental Integrity Project.” FastCompany.com, February 2nd. But as the Russian invasion of Ukraine illustrates, the United States’ existence just may rely on our military. But having a large military has a hidden cost.

Military deployment is a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emission in general. Even before the Ukraine war, “The world’s militaries [were] responsible for about 6 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR). The U.S. military, with a $760 billion budget for 2022, [led] the pack in emissions. The Costs of War Project estimated it emitted 51 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2020—more than the emissions of most countries. The bulk of those emissions come from fuel use and maintaining more than half a million buildings.

“Those figures are just an estimate based on publicly available data from the Department of Energy and bulk fuel purchase records. They indicate the largest shares of military emissions come from fuel and powering facilities, according to [a study from Brown University]. (SGR’s analysis, which it presented in Glasgow last week, extrapolated from UK data and included indirect ‘value-chain’ emissions, putting that figure significantly higher, at 205 million tons.)

“The Defense Department does not regularly report its contributions to climate change, although that may change. [Federal budgeting has] called for the Pentagon to report on the past ten years of greenhouse gas emissions. The agency missed its July [2021] deadline.

‘In a democracy, we should have information with which to make informed decisions,’ said Neta Crawford, a political scientist at Boston University and author of the Costs of War report. ‘It is the practice of holding an institution to account and making it possible for public policymakers and interested individuals to come up with ideas which could feed into a better outcome.’… She said the military, which has reduced emissions over the last 17 years, could make further cuts by continuing to wean off coal, closing underutilized facilities, and rethinking some US operations. … ‘​​Look at the central command—do we need an aircraft carrier there 24/7, 12 months a year?’ she said. ‘You could go through the commands and their exercises and ask yourself, ‘what can be reduced or eliminated entirely and still be secure?’ ’

“In remarks at Wayne State University in Detroit [in mid-November of 2021], Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said the White House set a goal for the DoD to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and that the Pentagon was developing a sustainability plan that would reduce emissions and focus on developing ‘a zero-emissions, non-tactical vehicle fleet.’ She added, ‘We also know that we need to optimize energy use in our tactical vehicles.’” Nexus Media News, 11/23/21. Is it a balancing act, or can we achieve environmental stability and continue to have a powerful military to protect our nation? Perhaps we must… or there may be nothing left to protect.

I’m Peter Dekom, and just making environmental concerns in military procurement one of our highest priorities would be a good start, and an impetus to new technology advancements that would benefit us in so many other ways.