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BY SHEILA ROZARIO
WHEN world leaders gather at climate summits— from Kyoto to Paris, from Glasgow to Dubai- they speak of emissions, decarbonisation, and net-zero transitions. They debate coal phase-outs, green finance, and electric mobility. Yet, amid all that rhetoric, one of the world ' s most destructive and least discussed sources of carbon emissions remains absent from the agenda: WARS. The urgency of addressing war-related emissions cannot be overstated, as the environmental impact is immediate and severe.
From Gaza to Ukraine, the carbon cost of modern conflict has reached staggering proportions. Fighter jets, tanks, supply convoys, missile systems, and reconstruction efforts are releasing greenhouse gases on a scale that rivals or exceeds the annual emissions of entire nations.
Still, military and war-related emissions remain the elephant in the room at every COP meeting.
MEA URED IN LIVES AND
MEGATONS Consider this: In just the first two years of the Russia – Ukraine war, emissions— including those from destruction, fires, and reconstruction— were estimated at 175 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.
The Israel – Gaza conflict, according to recent academic analyses, emitted more greenhouse gases in its first 60 days than the annual emissions of 20 countries. Fifteen months of fighting have now surpassed the yearly footprint of 36 nations.
Over the span of the US-led wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria( 2001 – 2018), emissions
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reached an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of CO₂e— comparable to the annual output of a mid-sized industrialised country over an entire decade.
Even rubble has a carbon price tag. Demolished cities require clearing, transporting, and rebuilding— cement and steel production alone can generate millions of tonnes of CO₂ during reconstruction.
“ Wars don’ t just kill people; they heat the planet,” says a 2025 review by researchers analysing conflictlinked emissions.“ Every missile strike, every convoy, every rebuilt bridge adds to the atmospheric burden.”
THE HIDDEN POLLUTER
Unlike power plants, vehicles, or factories, military and war-related emissions are mostly invisible in global climate accounting. That’ s no accident.
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“ Wars don’ t just kill people; they heat the planet.”— 2025 Conflict Emissions Review
Under the Paris Agreement, countries report emissions through their Nationally Determined Contributions( NDCs). But military operations and warfare are not explicitly required to be included. Many governments classify such data as national security secrets.
Fuel consumption by tanks and jets, emissions from munitions manufacturing, or the destruction of civilian infrastructure— all of these fall into a statistical black hole. The result: the world’ s wars are climateblind by design.
Even in peacetime, the military sector is one of the planet’ s largest institutional emitters. Analysts estimate that militaries collectively account for approximately five per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions— more than the entire aviation and shipping industries combined.
And yet, there is no global standard
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for military carbon reporting, no obligation to disclose fuel usage, and no climate penalty for warfare.
COP WON’ T TALK ABOUT IT
The reasons for this silence are layered— political, institutional, and psychological.
First, secrecy. Defence ministries often argue that disclosing logistics, troop movement data, or energy use could reveal strategic vulnerabilities.
Second, bureaucratic siloing. The ministries negotiating at COP— typically environment, economy, or energy— seldom have authority over defence.
Third, political sensitivity. Admitting that one ' s country ' s war contributes to climate change raises uncomfortable moral questions: Who pays for the climate damage caused by war? Should aggressors compensate victims not just in human and economic terms, but also in environmental ones?
Finally, there’ s convenience. For diplomats struggling to cut coal or methane, adding war to the equation seems impossibly complex. So it stays off the table.
As one climate policy scholar put it:“ It’ s easier to talk about cows than about cruise missiles.”
COUNTING THE UNCOUNTED But change may be coming. Civil society organisations, such
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