Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/anti.13006

Militaries around the world are a major source of carbon emissions, yet very little is known about their carbon footprint. Reliable data around military resource use and environmental damage is highly variable. Researchers are dependent upon military transparency, the context of military operations, and broader emissions reporting. While studies are beginning to emerge on global militaries and their carbon footprints, less work has focused on wartime emissions. We examine one sliver of the hidden carbon emissions of late-modern warfare by focusing on the use of concrete “blast walls” by US forces in Baghdad over a five-year period (2003–2008).

Link: https://ceobs.org/proceedings-of-the-first-military-emissions-gap-conference/

The first international Military Emissions Gap conference Military and Conflict GHG Emissions: From Understanding to Mitigation took place in September 2023. In this review, members of the conference’s organising working group explore each panel in depth and the questions raised by audience members online and in person.

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03444-7

The world’s militaries are heavy emitters of greenhouse gases. No one knows exactly how much; estimates range between 1% and 5% of global emissions, comparable with the aviation and shipping industries (2% each). Yet militaries are largely spared from emissions reporting. This must change, or mitigation measures risk becoming mere guesswork1.

Link: https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.add9472

The US military’s eye-watering carbon footprint must be mitigated, argues a political scientist

Link: http://10.1126/science.abb1173

As Australian wildfires raged and youth-led climate movements inspired millions globally to march against climate change, commentators dubbed 2019 “the year the world woke up to the climate crisis” (1). However, one of the major contributors to climate change over the course of the past century too often remains overlooked: the U.S. military…

Link: https://theconversation.com/how-the-worlds-militaries-hide-their-huge-carbon-emissions-171466

Climate change leadership requires more than stirring speeches. It means facing up to hard truths. One truth that governments around the world are struggling with is the immense contribution their militaries are making to the climate crisis.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12319

This paper examines the US military's impact on climate by analysing the geopolitical ecology of its global logistical supply chains. Our geopolitical ecology framework interrogates the material-ecological metabolic flows (hydrocarbon-based fuels, water, sand, concrete) that shape geopolitical and geoeconomic power relations…

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629816302001

The United States military is treating climate change as a crucial factor in its preparation for future conflicts. This concern manifests not only in strategic planning and forward-looking documents, but also in building infrastructural capacity and material provision. Yet, the impetus to ‘green’ the military goes ‘beyond the deployment of existing technologies…

Link: https://theconversation.com/us-military-is-a-bigger-polluter-than-as-many-as-140-countries-shrinking-this-war-machine-is-a-must-119269

The US military’s carbon bootprint is enormous. Like corporate supply chains, it relies upon an extensive global network of container ships, trucks and cargo planes to supply its operations with everything from bombs to humanitarian aid and hydrocarbon fuels. Our new study calculated the contribution of this vast infrastructure to climate change…

Link: https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0265.05.pdf

Full book: http://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/14335/1/14335.pdf

The United States military is the largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels in the world, but until recently accurate data on its fuel consumption were not widely available. We explain how the US military’s expansive and coupled global logistical networks, hardware, and interventionist foreign policy paradigms help to ‘lock-in’ future military emissions.