In one of the more unusual studies recently conducted by the trans-Atlantic think tank community, it appears that the US and UK militaries are in arrears to, well, somebody, to the combined tune of $111 billion. For carbon emissions.
UK-based Common Wealth, and the US-based Climate and Community Project, reported that the two countries’ militaries are jointly responsible for some 430 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide, since the 2015 United Nations Paris climate agreement.
Now on the face of it, that number looks rather bad. More than four hundred million metric tons is a lot of carbon dioxide. So let’s analyse that number another way. Since 2015, total global carbon emissions were a combined 254 billion metric tons. To show just how small the combined US and UK militaries’ emissions in fact were, they made 0.16 per cent of all global emissions.
To be making a case for $111 billion worth of reparations based on 0.16 of one per cent of an issue is rather curious, to say the least. What about the other 99.84 per cent of the problem? Well, let’s analyse further.
In no part of the Common Wealth report does the world’s most prolific emitter of greenhouse gases feature; that is, China. In 2021, the communist regime’s 1,118 coal-fired power stations and other activities accounted for some 11.47 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide – roughly a third of all global emissions. If the US and UK militaries are debtors by $111 billion with 0.16 per cent of emissions, logically Xi Jinping owes somebody roughly $23 trillion. That’s considerably more than the entire GDP of China. I doubt he can pay.
So the ridiculousness of numbers aside, for now, to whom is all this money allegedly owed? Well. The Common Wealth report states very clearly, ‘reparations payments to communities affected by emissions and toxic waste’ must be paid. It declines to specify any particular entity or organisation.
In fact, the word ‘reparation’ appears on no less than 25 separate occasions throughout the report. And here we start to uncover the real thinking of the document’s authors; the British are to blame for the industrial revolution which began three centuries ago and which spread to other Western nations including the US. Apparently, this was a really bad thing for the ‘global south’.
Never mind the advances in medicine, health, and global life expectancy, very evident across less developed nations as they gained access to Western medicine. Never mind the dramatically increased wages and labour opportunities provided by an industrialised economy. Never mind the freedoms of opportunity, education, migration, travel, and overall increased quality of life that an industrialised economy provides.
In fact, once the reader manages to get over the bluster and bogus numbers used to scaremonger an audience into agreeing that we must now urgently disband (only) the British and American militaries once and for all to save the global south (from itself?) the report authors’ true ideology becomes plainly apparent. Quoting a figure used by another post-colonialist climate group, Climate Fair Shares, the report states that in fact ‘for the UK to account for its historic emissions burden, the UK owes at least £1 trillion to poorer countries’.
This bizarre reparations fixation by those on the radical environmental left, that somehow the UK owes billions, trillions, however much they ‘determine’ through whatever deeply suspect formula, merely undermines the climate change argument further, and will turn the public against their cause.
Perhaps the most bizarre line in a report heavily laced with historical inaccuracies, is the one which reads; ‘given the outsized contributions that militaries have played in global heating – through direct emissions and their historical role in the creation and maintenance of a global fossil fuel economy…’
The authors appear to be unaware that during the hated industrial revolution, while the British and (to a much lesser extent) the US militaries were seizing imperial control over some parts of the global south, their primary means of transport were renewable, wind powered sailing ships and biofuelled, renewable horses.
Call me cynical, but I rather imagine that the authors of the report rather enjoy living in a society with access to medicine, healthcare, transport, abundant food, clean water and the ability to wear clothes. All made undeniably and irrefutably possible through the ‘global fossil fuel economy’.
And for that, we should acknowledge the positive roles that the British and American militaries have had contributing to that system, not fixating on 0.16 per cent of the problem. A good place to start would be raising more awareness of the irrevocably damaging polices of China, and other major global polluters – three of the top four of which are in the ‘global south’. India in particular is increasing its use of coal at a furious rate.
It’s funny how the actual facts of the matter are always omitted from the reports of historical apologists.
Robert Clark served in the British Army
In one of the more unusual studies recently conducted by the trans-Atlantic think tank community, it appears that the US and UK militaries are in arrears to, well, somebody, to the combined tune of $111 billion. For carbon emissions.
UK-based Common Wealth, and the US-based Climate and Community Project, reported that the two countries’ militaries are jointly responsible for some 430 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide, since the 2015 United Nations Paris climate agreement.
Now on the face of it, that number looks rather bad. More than four hundred million metric tons is a lot of carbon dioxide. So let’s analyse that number another way. Since 2015, total global carbon emissions were a combined 254 billion metric tons. To show just how small the combined US and UK militaries’ emissions in fact were, they made 0.16 per cent of all global emissions.
To be making a case for $111 billion worth of reparations based on 0.16 of one per cent of an issue is rather curious, to say the least. What about the other 99.84 per cent of the problem? Well, let’s analyse further.
In no part of the Common Wealth report does the world’s most prolific emitter of greenhouse gases feature; that is, China. In 2021, the communist regime’s 1,118 coal-fired power stations and other activities accounted for some 11.47 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide – roughly a third of all global emissions. If the US and UK militaries are debtors by $111 billion with 0.16 per cent of emissions, logically Xi Jinping owes somebody roughly $23 trillion. That’s considerably more than the entire GDP of China. I doubt he can pay.
So the ridiculousness of numbers aside, for now, to whom is all this money allegedly owed? Well. The Common Wealth report states very clearly, ‘reparations payments to communities affected by emissions and toxic waste’ must be paid. It declines to specify any particular entity or organisation.
In fact, the word ‘reparation’ appears on no less than 25 separate occasions throughout the report. And here we start to uncover the real thinking of the document’s authors; the British are to blame for the industrial revolution which began three centuries ago and which spread to other Western nations including the US. Apparently, this was a really bad thing for the ‘global south’.
Never mind the advances in medicine, health, and global life expectancy, very evident across less developed nations as they gained access to Western medicine. Never mind the dramatically increased wages and labour opportunities provided by an industrialised economy. Never mind the freedoms of opportunity, education, migration, travel, and overall increased quality of life that an industrialised economy provides.
In fact, once the reader manages to get over the bluster and bogus numbers used to scaremonger an audience into agreeing that we must now urgently disband (only) the British and American militaries once and for all to save the global south (from itself?) the report authors’ true ideology becomes plainly apparent. Quoting a figure used by another post-colonialist climate group, Climate Fair Shares, the report states that in fact ‘for the UK to account for its historic emissions burden, the UK owes at least £1 trillion to poorer countries’.
This bizarre reparations fixation by those on the radical environmental left, that somehow the UK owes billions, trillions, however much they ‘determine’ through whatever deeply suspect formula, merely undermines the climate change argument further, and will turn the public against their cause.
Perhaps the most bizarre line in a report heavily laced with historical inaccuracies, is the one which reads; ‘given the outsized contributions that militaries have played in global heating – through direct emissions and their historical role in the creation and maintenance of a global fossil fuel economy…’
The authors appear to be unaware that during the hated industrial revolution, while the British and (to a much lesser extent) the US militaries were seizing imperial control over some parts of the global south, their primary means of transport were renewable, wind powered sailing ships and biofuelled, renewable horses.
Call me cynical, but I rather imagine that the authors of the report rather enjoy living in a society with access to medicine, healthcare, transport, abundant food, clean water and the ability to wear clothes. All made undeniably and irrefutably possible through the ‘global fossil fuel economy’.
And for that, we should acknowledge the positive roles that the British and American militaries have had contributing to that system, not fixating on 0.16 per cent of the problem. A good place to start would be raising more awareness of the irrevocably damaging polices of China, and other major global polluters – three of the top four of which are in the ‘global south’. India in particular is increasing its use of coal at a furious rate.
It’s funny how the actual facts of the matter are always omitted from the reports of historical apologists.
Robert Clark served in the British Army