The starkest of contrasts

In mid-April, the latest volume from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was published, assessing current and future action to reduce carbon emissions. Coincidentally this came out just as the annual figures on global military spending were released. Comparing these sources provides a revealing insight into the current priorities of our political masters – and how they misuse science and technology Global military spending in 2013 stood at a whopping $1.75 trillion, according to new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). This is a small decrease in real terms from the post-Cold War peak in 2011. The USA continued to dominate, spending 37% of the total – though its spending is finally falling following the huge rises during the ‘War on Terror’. Nevertheless it still spends as much as the next eight countries put together. Chinese and Russian spending continued to grow rapidly – driven by various territorial disputes, economic growth, and a desire to close at least some of the spending gap with the US. Spending in Western Europe was down, but the region still spent an enormous $312 billion – more than China and Russia combined – with France, the UK and Germany being responsible for the majority of this. Numerous other regions and countries saw increases due to local arms races or war, but less obvious drivers were high levels of oil and gas extraction (and the income it generates) or just economic growth. Compare these spending levels with those on tackling climate change. The IPCC estimates that recent global spending on both mitigation – reducing carbon emissions – and adaptation to climate change stands at only about $364 bn a year, a small fraction of the total military spend. They estimate that – to give a better than 50% chance of staying below internationally agreed target of a 2°C global temperature rise – world annual spending on mitigation needs to rise by about $483 bn. This would be equivalent to about a quarter of current global military spending. It is the minimum extra in funding that we need to tackle climate change – although many researchers and commentators (myself included) believe we need to do considerably more. After all, a 50% chance of reaching the global temperature target is not good odds. No insurance company would accept such a high risk. Despite recent falls in total military spending, the UK still has the sixth largest budget in the world, and its spending per head is, for example, six times that of China’s. And it is important to realise that the budget for UK military technology has not been cut. Indeed the latest Defence Equipment Plan includes spending of £164 bn ($277 bn) over the next ten years as the UK plans to replace its nuclear-armed submarines, complete building of the two biggest aircraft carriers in its history, introduces the new F-35 Lightning II strike plane and much more. A look at its recent research and development spending highlights the continued focus by the UK military on ‘force projection’ far from British shores well into the future. Using freedom of information requests, Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) was able to access a lot of new data on R&D expenditure that illustrates the government’s security priorities. Firstly, the largest area of spending is nuclear weapons-related work – including the warheads and new submarines to replace the current generation. Then comes a range of major conventional weapons systems including long-range strike planes and attack helicopters. A rapidly increasing area of spending is unmanned aerial vehicles or ‘drones’. SGR compared the military spending to a range of civilian R&D areas which can help to understand and tackle the roots of conflict. These areas included international development and poverty alleviation, climate change impacts, sustainable energy technologies, food security, international relations, natural resource management, biodiversity, environmental risks and hazards, sustainable consumption and other measures to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Even including such a wide range of work in our assessment, UK public spending on R&D that helps to tackle the roots of insecurity is still only equal to about half the military R&D spend. Indeed, comparing individual programmes also provides some striking examples. For example, military spending on nuclear weapons R&D is five times the public spending on R&D for renewable energy. Indeed, the lack of priority given to climate change is confirmed by a look at some of the recent policy decisions by the UK government. For example, we have seen a 2030 target for decarbonising the electricity sector shelved, while new tax breaks are being offered to UK offshore oil and gas exploration and major new incentives made available for onshore fracking for shale gas. Meanwhile, government mismanagement of home energy efficiency programmes has led to a 93% fall in the annual number of loft insulations carried out and a 77% fall in installations of cavity wall insulation. This follows hot on the heels of mismanagement of the feed-in tariff scheme which led to a near collapse in the market for solar photovoltaic panels in 2012. To add insult to injury, plans are now being drawn up for a moratorium on new onshore wind turbines.

Military spending on nuclear weapons R&D is five times the public spending on R&D for renewable energy

There are some positives in UK action on climate change – for example, having a legally binding target to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050 and being the world leader in offshore wind energy. However, analysis of UK carbon emissions by the Committee on Climate Change has concluded that recent reductions have been completely offset by increased consumption of carbon-intensive products from abroad. The IPCC has warned of “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts” if action to reduce carbon emissions is not considerably increased soon, and has pointed out that climate change can destabilise societies – through, for example, greatly increased risks of water and food insecurity. Such things increase the risk of violent conflict. Indeed, some analysts have argued that recent drought in the Middle East was one of the casual factors of the Arab Spring. So the security arguments for putting the required funding into tackling climate change are becoming increasingly clear. It is also worth noting that even some leading military figures have become more outspoken about their concerns on climate change over the past few years. The IPCC’s warnings have been emphasised by the latest research on the West Antarctic ice sheet. Glaciologists from NASA have analysed satellite observations of large sectors of this sheet over the last 20 years and concluded that melting in these sectors is now irreversible. This will raise sea level by an additional 1.2 metres, although it will take centuries for these sectors to completely disappear. This leads to the question of at what point will melting in the rest of the ice sheet become unstoppable. Such a melt would lead to a further 3m of sea level rise. With hundreds of millions of people living in coastal regions, the implications are extremely serious. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that “the world is over-armed and peace is under-funded”. We need world leaders to accept this perspective and pursue positive change. One key way would be to shift a large fraction of current military spending – including redirecting associated scientific and technical skills – to tackling climate change. This is what would really make the world safer.” Author Dr Stuart Parkinson is Executive Director of Scientists for Global Responsibility, a UK membership group that promotes science, design and technology which contribute to peace, social justice and environmental sustainability More information Committee on Climate Change (2013). Reducing the UK’s carbon footprint and managing competitiveness risks. http://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/carbon-footprint-and-competitiveness/ Dept of Energy and Climate Change (2013). Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation (ECO): monthly statistics (December 2013). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/green-deal-and-energy-company-obligation-eco-monthly-statistics-december-2013--2 IPCC (2014a). Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Working Group II contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Summary for Policy-makers. http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/ IPCC (2014b). Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Working Group III contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Summary for Policy-makers. http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/ Ministry of Defence (2014). Defence Equipment Plan 2013. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-defence-equipment-plan-2013 Rignot et al (2014). Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith and Kohler glaciers, West Antarctica from 1992 to 2011. Geophysical Research Letters. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL060140/abstract SGR (2013). Offensive Insecurity: the role of science and technology in UK security strategies. http://www.sgr.org.uk/publications/offensive-insecurity SGR (2014). UK nuclear weapons R&D spending: addendum AA1 to Offensive Insecurity. http://www.sgr.org.uk/publications/uk-nuclear-weapons-rd-spending SIPRI (2014). Trends in world military expenditure, 2013. http://books.sipri.org/product_info?c_product_id=476