Under the Radar: The Carbon Footprint of Europe's Military Sectors -- A Scoping Study
Publisher: Conflict and Environment Observatory and Scientists for Global Responsibility
Author(s): Stuart Parkinson and Linsey Cottrell
Date: 2021
Topics: Climate Change, Peace and Security Operations
This study set out to estimate the carbon footprint of the EU’s military sectors. To do this, the authors examined available data from both government and industry sources from the six largest EU countries in terms of military expenditure, and the EU as a whole. The study therefore focused on France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. The report also provides a broad overview of the policies and measures currently being pursued to reduce military GHG emissions in the EU, and their likely effectiveness. The authors estimate that the carbon footprint of EU military expenditure in 2019 was approximately 24.8 million tCO2e, which is equivalent to the CO2 emissions of about 14 million average cars. This is a conservative estimate, given the many data quality issues. Breakdowns of this estimate by country and sub-sector are provided in the main report. Current trends in the levels of military GHG emissions in the EU are hard to discern due to a lack of data. The combination of the upward trend in military expenditure to reach the NATO target of 2% of GDP, technology modernisation programmes, and NATO/ EU deployments outside of Europe all risk fuelling an increase in emissions. However, ongoing energy efficiency programmes and moves to expand renewable energy use have the potential to reduce emissions.