COMMENTARY | As the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, America’s military must be reined in
Climate change is happening, highlighted by dramatically shifting weather patterns and ever more deadly storms, floods, droughts and wildfires. And the evidence is overwhelming that it is driven by the steady increase in greenhouse gases in our atmosphere produced by our fossil fuel-based economic system.
Aware of global warming’s deadly consequences, millions of people have taken to the streets to demand action to end our use of fossil fuels as part of a systemwide transformation that would also ensure a just transition for all communities and workers.
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However, the largest generator of greenhouse gas emissions continues to fly above the clouds and largely out of public view. As Neta Crawford, co-director of Brown University’s Costs of War Project , points out, “the (U.S.) Department of Defense is the world’s largest institutional user of petroleum and, correspondingly, the single largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world.”
Flying above the clouds
We know that we have an enormous military budget. U.S. military spending is greater than the total military spending of the next seven countries combined: China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and Germany. The budget of the Department of Defense alone commands more than half of all U.S. federal discretionary spending each year.
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This kind of information is readily available. The military’s contribution to global warming is not. One reason is that because of U.S. government pressure, the governments negotiating the 1992 Kyoto Protocol agreed that emissions generated by military activity would not count as national emissions and would not have to be reported. As a consequence, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which produces one of the world’s most trusted reports on the rate at which climate change is occurring, does not include national military emissions in its calculations.
Uncovering the carbon costs of the U.S. military
Although the military does not publicly disclose its fuel use, four researchers — Oliver Belcher, Benjamin Neimark, Patrick Bigger and Cara Kennelly — used multiple Freedom of Information Act requests to the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to produce solid estimates .
The DLA is charged with overseeing the supply chain that supports all military activities, including its warfighting, peacekeeping and base operations. The Defense Logistics Agency-Energy (DLA-E), a unit within the DLA, has responsibility for managing the military’s energy requirements. As Belcher, Neimark, Bigger and Kennelly explain, “the DLA-E is the one-stop shop for fueling purchases and contracts within the U.S. military both domestically and internationally, and acts as the U.S. military’s internal market for all consumables, including fuel.”
In simple terms, the military needs fuel — to fly its jets and bombers on surveillance or attack missions, to deliver troops and weapons to bases and areas of conflict, to power ships on maneuvers, to run the vehicles used by patrols and fighting forces, and to maintain base operations here and around the world. And because it is the DLA-E that secures and distributes the required fuel, the four researchers used “Freedom of Information Act requests to compile a database of DLA-E records for all known land, sea, and aircraft fuel purchases, as well as fuel contracts made with U.S. operators in military posts, camps, stations and ship bunkers abroad from FY 2013 to 2017.” The resulting calculation of total fuel purchases served as the basis for the authors’ estimate of the military’s production of greenhouse gas emissions.
The U.S. military runs on fuel
The fuel dependence of the U.S. military has dramatically grown over time. The main reason is that the military has come to depend ever more on airpower to directly threaten or attack its enemies as well as support its heavily armored ground forces operating in foreign countries. And airpower guzzles fuel.
For example, the fuel consumption of a B-2 Bomber is 4.28 gallons to the mile. That is gallons to the mile, not the more common miles to the gallon. The fuel consumption of a F-35A Fighter bomber is 2.37 gallons to the mile, and it is 4.9 miles to the gallon for a KC-135R Refueling Tanker (loaded with transfer fuel). The military’s non-armored vehicles are also heavy gas users. The Army’s 60,000 HUMVEEs get between 4 and 8 miles per gallon of diesel fuel.
Needless to say, an active military will burn through a lot of fuel. And as Belcher, Neimark, Bigger and Kennelly point out, the U.S. military has indeed been busy: “Between 2015 and 2017, the U.S. military was active in 76 countries, including seven countries on the receiving end of air/drone strikes, 15 countries with ‘boots on the ground,’ 44 overseas military bases and 56 countries receiving counter-terrorism training.”
The carbon footprint of the U.S. military
Belcher, Neimark, Biggerand Kennelly determined that “the U.S. military consumes more liquid fuels and emits more carbon-dioxide equivalents than many medium-sized countries.” The military’s 2014 greenhouse gas emissions, just from its use of fuel, was roughly equal “to total — not just fuel — emissions from Romania.” That year, the U.S. military, if considered a country, and again just from its fuel use, would rank as the 47th largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and not far behind a host of other countries.
The military’s ranking would be much higher if its other emissions were included, such as from the electricity and food the military consumes. And of course, none of this includes the emissions from the many corporations engaged in producing weapons for the military.
One reason that the U.S. military is such a large greenhouse gas emitter is that most of its purchased fuel is jet fuel for use by the Air Force or Navy. Their planes burn fuel at extremely high altitudes, which “produces different kinds of chemical reactions, resulting in warming two to four times greater than on the ground.”
The military’s response to climate change
The military is well aware of the dangers of climate change — in contrast to many of our leading politicians. One reason is that it threatens its operational readiness. As Crawford explains:
"In early 2018, the DOD reported that about half of their installations had already experienced climate-change-related effects. A year later, the DOD reported that the U.S. military is already experiencing the effects of global warming at dozens of installations. These include recurrent flooding (53 installations), drought (43 installations), wildfires (36 installations) and desertification (six installations)."
But most importantly, the military sees climate change as a threat to national security. For years, the military has considered the impact of climate change in its defense planning because, as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence puts it, “global environmental and ecological degradation, as well as climate change, are likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress and social discontent through 2019 and beyond.” Of course, in planning responses to possible climate-generated threats to U.S. interests, the military remains committed to strengthening its capacity for action, even though doing so adds to the likelihood of greater climate chaos.
People are right to demand that governments take meaningful and immediate steps to stop global warming. And those steps need to include significant reductions in military spending as well as overseas bases and interventions. Since the military is the single largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world, the fight to rein in militarism in this country is especially important. As an added benefit, the money freed could be put to good use helping to finance the broader systemwide transformation required to create an ecologically responsive economy.
Martin Hart-Landsberg is a professor emeritus of economics at Lewis & Clark College. Street Smart Economics is a periodic series written for Street Roots by professors emeriti in economics.
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