COP-OUT27 Hastens Climate Catastrophe #COP27

Source: "Estimating the military's global greenhouse gas emissions"
report by Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOB), November, 2022

Following international climate summit COP26 in Glasgow, with a parallel People's Summit I participated in, the focus on military emissions and their lethal undercount has faded in the war fever of the alleged battle for "democracy" and "freedom" in Ukraine. 

COP27, held in the especially brutal police state of Egypt (thanks, "Arab Spring" color revolution) was swarmed by both fossil fuel lobbyists and private jets. 

Activists temporarily blocked private jets from taking off for Egypt from Amsterdam as an expression of the new climate focus that says billionaires and their greenhouse gas emissions are THE problem.

I disagree.

Multi-millionaires who "lead" the big weapon systems manufacturers are THE problem when it comes to climate. Because the revolving door between U.S. government and the military-industrial complex is always spinning, and this ensures non-stop spending on war planes and bombs which both contribute massively to climate disaster. (And that's just the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg.)

I've been following this thread for years and compiling a collection of links I find especially useful. Groups like the Veterans for Peace Climate Crisis and Militarism Project and researchers like Dr. Neta Crawford continue to focus on the military aspect of the larger climate problem: wealthy nations cause the crisis while people living the Global South suffer the most dire impacts.

CEOBS researchers have taken on the task of monitoring military emissions by nation, reporting on this in a database we can all use.

Since U.S. military spending is so excessive compared with all other nations, it's not surprising that the Pentagon fears what the chart at the top of this blog post would look like if military emissions were included in the national total.

It used to be said that the first casualty of war is truth.

In the 21st century, the first casualty of war might be climate.