Trump’s huge spending boost for the US military will have catastrophic climate consequences
After President Donald Trump signed his “One Big Beautiful Bill” into law, the new US military budget is set to grow beyond $1 trillion in 2026. The defense portion of the bill would allocate an additional $150 billion in defense spending. This is a 17 percent increase for a country that already has, by far, the world’s highest military expenditure.
The new Trump-budget will have severe negative impacts on everything from healthcare and social programs to electric vehicles and green energy. It is rightfully being called “one big, beautiful, climate-killing bill” and the “most anti-environment bill in history“.
But it’s not just the new fossil fuel tax cuts and subsides, or the slashed tax credits for green energy and electric vehicles that will hurt the climate. Trump’s huge spending boost for the US military will also result in catastrophic climate consequences.
According to a new analysis by the Climate and Community Institute (CCI), Trump’s increased defense spending will increase Pentagons carbon emissions by an additional 26 megatons (Mt) – that’s the equivalent of the annual emissions generated by 68 gas power plants or the entire country of Croatia. And it will push the Pentagon’s total greenhouse emissions to a staggering 178 Mt of CO2e, That’s more than the entire annual carbon footprint of Ethiopia, a country of 135 million people, and it would make the US military the 38th largest emitter in the world if it were its own nation.
“Every extra dollar grows the Pentagon’s carbon bootprint – and shrinks the chances for a livable future. With this additional funding from the big beautiful bill, the US’s trillion-dollar war machine will be responsible for more emissions than 138 individual countries,” said Patrick Bigger, lead author and CCI research director to the Guardian. “Supposedly this spending is for national security. But what security is there in more droughts, floods, hurricanes, and rising seas?”
The authors of the analysis also stresses that the Pentagon’s true climate impact is most likely much worse, as emissions generated from “future supplemental funding”, such as the billions of dollars that are being appropriated separately for military equipment for Israel and Ukraine, are not part of these calculations.
It’s clear that US military emissions – and spending – are the highest in the world by a long way. But by how much is harder to estimate, and one reason for that is simply because nations are not required to account for military emissions to the UN. That’s because the former Clinton administration pushed for a blanket exemption for emissions generated by military fuel use during the negotiations to the international Kyoto protocol in 1997.
Despite this, it is estimated that the world’s total military carbon footprint is roughly about 5.5 percent of global emissions – and this does not include emissions from the actual conflicts and fighting. That’s more than the combined emissions of civilian aviation and shipping, which accounts for 2 and 3 percents respectively. And as the world’s nations are rapidly increasing their military expenditures, just last year the world invested a total of $2.7 trillion into their military capabilities, it is clear that this military buildup will have catastrophic climate consequences. And just like the analysis notes: there is no plausible path to “greening” the military. The only way to stop these rapidly rising military-related emissions is to cut them from our nation’s budget’s. That’s the only way for us all to be safe in a rapidly warming world wrecked by climate catastrophes.