Why warfare must be seen as a threat to our climate

National Observer

6 days ago

As the planet nears critical ecological thresholds, the carbon clock is ticking down. According to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, at current emission rates, we have just four years left before we exhaust the carbon budget required to limit warning to 1.5°C. Every decision we collectively make now either deepens the crisis or lessens its impacts. Yet in this rapidly narrowing window of existential action, governments continue to pour billions into warfare — one of the most destructive, carbon-intensive undertakings under any circumstances.
The carbon footprint of war is often unaccounted for in national inventories, and it remains invisible in climate negotiations — yet the earth's atmosphere does not recognize these exemptions. More than 5 per cent of global emissions are linked to conflict or militaries. Recent research estimates that 15 months of Israel bombing Gaza, including arms production, military operations, and post-conflict reconstruction has and will contribute 32 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO 2 e) from October 2023 — January 2025. That's more than the annual emissions of 41 of the lowest-emitting countries and territories combined. Other research has shown that the 12 months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have produced 120 million tCO2e — equivalent to the emissions of the country of Belgium.
These emissions, like the loss of human life and community, are entirely avoidable. They not only add further strain to a climate system already breaking down, but also disproportionately harm those least responsible for the conflict: civilians, children, and those in climate-vulnerable regions.
In this context of warfare, diplomacy is not simply a tool to minimize casualties, displacement, and the destruction of infrastructure — it is an existential necessity. We are a species standing at the edge of climate tipping points. Diplomatic solutions, especially when viable channels for negotiation exist, should be considered the only path forward. Indeed, at this moment in history, warfare is an almost incomprehensible act of hubris — short-term strategic posturing, and a dangerous disregard for planetary boundaries. Can we not force world leaders to settle their differences over phone calls, in rooms, or over Zoom?
And for children and youth — those growing up amid intersecting crises — can we not find language that helps them make sense of this incoherence? This is not just a moral challenge, but a pedagogical one. Young people are experiencing profound cognitive dissonance as they are taught in school to value democracy, justice, and collective responsibility — while witnessing elected leaders disregarding their future, failing to recognize human rights, refusing to act on the climate crisis, and funding wars that undermine those very principles. At the root of this: betrayal. As young people try to make sense of a world where adults have failed to safeguard their well-being and future, they must reckon with the systems that are failing them. The results of the reckoning are the core characteristics of climate anxiety: fear, sadness, helplessness, anger, and frustration.
Young people need spaces to process these feelings and opportunities for meaningful individual and collective action. Classrooms could serve as sites of refuge and resistance — but most educators feel ill-equipped to navigate these emotional and political depths. So the anxiety mounts, as students encounter headlines about Russia invading Ukraine, Israel's war in Gaza, and U.S. airstrikes in Iran.
These are not just geopolitical events — they are vivid illustrations of how power is misused at the expense of planetary and intergenerational survival. I recently had a conversation with a sustainability colleague, who confided that they had lost respect for Greta Thunberg for attempting to deliver aid to Gaza. I told them I completely disagreed, and reflected on how that conversation was emblematic of the need for justice to be centered on climate education.
We cannot afford to ignore the carbon cost of wars any longer, writes Ellen Field.
As educators, we have to hold onto the possibility of peaceful and transformed futures, but given the increasing turn towards more warfare, authoritarianism, and the turning away from climate action, where do we even begin? Urgent hope feels overly simplistic as leaders look past the existential threat of climate collapse and focus instead on power, territory, retaliation, and legacy. As Canada engages in nation-building projects, we need projects that move us beyond 20th century approaches and into the transformed futures we want, and that match our ambition. What about education as a transformative nation-building project?
We need to be better able to connect the dots AND we need cooler heads, collective courage, and the wisdom to prioritize life over legacy. We have to look clearly past entitled blindness shaped by the relative stability of the Holocene — assuming that the conditions which allowed civilizations to flourish will continue is incredibly naive. We cannot afford to ignore the carbon cost of conflict any longer and collectively find individual and collective coping and actions that bring in more stabilized futures.
Dr. Ellen Field is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at Lakehead University. Her research interests are in policy and practice of climate change education in the Canadian K-12 system. She teaches Environmental Education (B.Ed) and Climate Change Education (M.Ed) in the Faculty of Education, and has engaged hundreds of in-service teachers in professional development workshops.