DISCLAIMER
This speech was presented on 1st December 2022 at the Sustainable Societies, Sustainable Communities organised by the UCD College of Social Sciences and Law. The speech had to be a maximum of 2 minutes long, but the following paper is slightly extended. With the academic purpose of this speech I want to personally support the feminist, nonviolent and antimilitarist proposal. Violence might be part of life, but organised violence is a project, a business and a strategy at the opposite of everything that is peace, collaboration, cohabitation, communication. Let me remind that these three listed above – feminism, nonviolence and antimilitarism – are not some random activism of people who have nothing better to do than blocking streets or damaging paintings (glass in front of paintings), but theories and fields of studies that should be criticised after a serious focus.
ABSTRACT
I will talk about the militarization of climate change and, parallel, of the responsibility of military industries in the climate crisis. From these extreme examples I will try to make clear that without a serious conception of “cohabitation” humans won’t be able to find the best path to avoid climate change to get worse. Earth is seen as something to preserve or to exploit while I might be more functional to see it for what it really is, that is, something we habit, that we live with. It is not a property but a place that we are familiar with. In this dialectic we can very likely get rid of the privileges connected to the wealth of the states and see the planet as something that is as alive as us, independent and cohabitated.
New Words to Understand Climate Change
We cohabit, whether we like it or not. And this implies that we trust1 whatever lives2, whether we like it or not, whether the patriarchal-capitalist society of self-made men makes you believe the opposite, or not. Therefore, the concept of cohabitation is extremely important when we talk about climate change, at least for two reasons.
First, it reminds us, human beings, that cohabiting comes first, and goes against, every single kind of privilege that we might think of, because it addresses us living beings just for our being-present-on-this-planet feature. This might sound so obvious but even in its simplicity it is a very important notion that cannot be taken for granted.
Secondly, it could suggest that we are understanding our relationship to the Earth in the wrong terms, the same terms that are shaping the way we tackle climate change. So, Earth must be preserved, we must defend Mother Nature because this is the only planet we have. If this rhetoric sounds familiar it is because, as I already noted, we live in a patriarchal and capitalist society which is able to take care only of the things that are seen as a property or as a fragile and weak sort-of-holy entity. That cannot be more wrong, also, I would not say that Nature is something that reacts to our pollution, like it is a caprice or a revenge. Nature is not similar to humans, it does not have morality, it does not punish us for the pollution. Its reactions to pollution are mere physics, chemistry, and biology. Humans should not take it personally! This paternalistic view brings us far from understanding what we can do, from the individual to the big industry, can do. Moreover, I think that with a good understanding of cohabitation we can start thinking of Earth not as a container, but as an alive, active, and independent place, with which we cohabit.
I am afraid that without getting these two reasons humans will not be able to avoid climate change to get worse. I am not considering economic interests because it is not my field, but we learnt that capitalists (people and states) are perfectly capable of putting profit before people and the urgency of climate change.
The Example of the Military Industry
This second part of the speech is dedicated to the most hypocritical and alarming example: the military industries. I could not think of something better because, among others, their business is armed conflict and organised violence, and because this industry does not really have limitations on emissions. Also, the reports can be quite arbitrary and unclear, making it almost impossible to have data on the pollution it causes.
For the EU, large public-interest companies are legally required to provide non-financial reporting, which includes information on their GHG emissions. However, the current guidelines on reporting climate-related information are non-binding. It is hoped that planned amendments will strengthen the EU’s non-financial reporting requirements. Global variability means there are big gaps in the data available and only broad assumptions can be made when estimating climate and other impacts, while closer scrutiny of the publicly available data is also needed3.
Militaries in general were not on the agenda of the Cop26 in Glasgow and Cop27 in Sharm El-Sheikh in October 2022 – that is, when the conflict in Ukraine already reached the attention of European media. To understand the downwards esteems of the emissions of such industry it is enough to read Dr Stuart Parkinson article about carbon emissions of the world’s militaries:
We consider that the lower end of these ranges [that is, 0.6% for operational GHG emissions and 3.3% for carbon footprint] is not credible given the focus on energy intensive military technology in much of the world. Hence, our best estimate for the military’s operational GHG emissions is 500 MtCO2 e – 1.0% of global GHGs – and for the global carbon footprint, it is 2,750 MtCO2 e – 5.5% of the global total.4
Some 46 countries plus the EU fill out an annual report on their emissions under the United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC). However, the data is often unbundled and difficult to read. For example, Canada includes its military aviation emissions within transport in general. Many of the powers with the highest military expenditures also do not adhere to the UNFCCC. Among them figure China, India, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Globally, the budget has reached two trillion dollars in 2020, but we still do not know enough about the impact of these gigantic investments on the planet.
In addition, the studies on an actual greenwashing of the military industries are not encouraging. The armies of richer countries emphasise their efforts to tackle climate change, pointing to the installation of solar panels on bases, the preparation of sea-level defences (I will come on that later) and the replacement of fossil fuels in some military equipment.
In most national military climate strategies, reduction targets are vague and undefined. The UK’s 2021 Defence Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach, for example, does not set any reduction targets other than to ‘contribute to the achievement of the UK’s legal commitment to net zero emissions by 2050’. No appropriate alternatives have been found to fuel transport and equipment used in operations and training, which account for 75% of military energy consumption. Meanwhile, the military continues to develop new weapon systems that pollute even more. For example, the F-35A fighters consume around 5,600 litres of oil per hour compared to the 3,500 litres of oil of the F-16 fighters that are being replaced. Since military systems have a lifespan of 30-40 years, this means holding back highly polluting systems for many years to come.
The hypocrisy stands in the fact that the armies are taking on the burden of fighting climate change, taking fundings that were not meant for them – for the reason I explained right above – and applying their hierarchical and authoritarian mentality to the problem, and their economic interest bias. That said, it is extremely important in my opinion to think of climate change as a problem of the global community, and to rethink the actual necessity of military industries and armies in societies, and mostly for the survival of the global community of living beings. As it is usually being said, armies are made to protect peace and people, and now the best thing they could do to protect us is just stop running.
Italian Case
In conclusion, I want to show how this of the military industries is a reality. I am talking about Leonardo, one of the biggest weapon seller and producer in the world. Leonardo is a parastatal agency, 30% property of the Italian Ministry of Defence. In addition to major agreements with Politecnico di Milano, Politecnico di Torino, University of Genoa, University of Bologna, and University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, the Leonardo group has active collaborations with more than 90 universities and research centres globally. Leonardo finances hundreds of PhDs, more than half of which are in Italy.
In December 2021, Leonardo asked the European Commission to consider the defence sector as sustainable. The intention is to include weapon production (along with tobacco and gambling) in the social taxonomy and classify them as ‘socially harmful’. Alessandra Genco, Chief Financial Officer at Leonardo, spoke in front of the European Commission:
If the defence industry is put on the naughty list… the money will go elsewhere. This is particularly true for thousands of small and medium enterprises in Europe, which have less bargaining power with banks than big groups, such as Leonardo. Leonardo this year secured a total of 3 billion euro ($3.39 billion) bank financing whose costs are tied to reaching several sustainability targets, making ESG-linked credit half of the group’s sources of funding. We want to expand further the portion of our ESG-linked financing towards 100%, but this will be only possible if defence is considered among the sustainable activities.
Difficult access to capital markets would mean less investments in technology and innovation in the defence industry, and at a time when EU member states are discussing greater collaboration on security the risk is that of weakening the sector, Genco said. The conclusion with a lapidary and quite impressive sentence: «You can have a healthy environment without Co2, but if you live in a place under terrorist attack, I’m sorry but it won’t do you much good».
Now we know why they are wrong.
Notes
1. To make it easy, the examples are infinite, but just think that when we have to go somewhere, we trust the pilots, the bus drivers, the taxi driver. And from this point of view, laws regarding the cohabitation of the community are thought mostly to keep this trust safe and reach a common, shared, level of it (we all agree that no one should murder someone else). It might also be said that when such laws are broken what is at stake is the trust within the community. If we want to go further, that is why prison as punishment, is a pointless solution since it does not work towards restoring the loss of trust.
2. This “whatever lives” is the “we” I started the paper with, and it wants to imply every living being on earth: plant, human and non-human animals.
3. Cottrell Linsey, and Eoghan Darbyshire. “The military’s contribution to climate change.” The Conflict and Environment Observatory – CEOBS, 16 June 2021, https://ceobs.org/the-militarys-contribution-to-climate-change/ .
4. Parkinson, Stuart, and Linsey Cottrell. Estimating the Military’s Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) and the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), Minor Foundation for Major Challenges, 11/2022, ISBN: 978-1-8383986-1-3, p.8.
Photo credits: by Maria Giulia