World Climate and Security Report 2024

A Product of the Expert Group of the International Military Council on Climate and Security

Executive Summary

With climate impacts accelerating and the energy transition underway, militaries are increasingly considering the carbon footprint of their operations, infrastructure, and supply chains. Today, though there are gaps in measuring, reporting, and reducing these emissions, many countries already have initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint and improve the efficiency of their militaries.

This report analyzes the urgency of climate change for militaries and explores how military research and innovation might enable both emissions reduction and greater resilience of infrastructure and operations to climate impacts while improving the self-sufficiency of military units and facilities. While the report should be useful to militaries around the world, its recommendations focus on NATO member state militaries.

The report reveals a need for militaries to adopt a comprehensive approach to the climate challenge. This should include research and development (R&D) but also a wider range of policy and procurement changes. The climate crisis is not a challenge that can be solved by a single tool such as military R&D, but rather a broader set of partnerships, policies, and investments that make up a more complete sustainability toolbox.

There are, of course, limits to military research as a solution to climate mitigation and adaptation challenges. For example, when it comes to operational equipment, the decades-long lifecycle of this equipment means that large-scale implementation of new technologies will require an extended transition period. Progress is still important, but there is not a singular or immediate solution to meet emissions targets. Furthermore, military research focuses on mission-specific applications. While there are opportunities within this scope to explore resilience to climate impacts as a mission necessity (e.g. energy resilience on bases impacted by disasters), research on emissions reduction is much more likely to come out of commercial and civilian research efforts.

Yet, despite these constraints, addressing the environmental costs of militaries remains beneficial. Increased efficiency in energy use of platforms, even when incremental, has benefits both for operational capability and reduction of carbon footprint. Hybrid vehicles are a logical innovation that requires little to no change in supporting logistics systems and reduces the logistics burden. Artificial intelligence will increase efficiency, reduce costly accommodations for military personnel in vehicles, and potentially propel new avenues for research. It will be most effective to pursue decarbonization technologies that synergize with other advances that are occurring simultaneously. With these advances, gains in energy efficiency will also reduce the need to transport and secure fossil fuels, limit price volatility, increase self-sufficiency, and reduce environmental damages caused by fuel leaks or spills.

Research programs on technologies including, but not limited to, hybrid vehicles and energy use management by artificial intelligence provide pathways to innovations that will improve energy efficiency and the performance of systems in use. However, the best opportunities to reduce the military’s carbon footprint will be found in innovative procurement and policy approaches. While military research does not represent as large a portion of the global research enterprise as it once did, military procurement budgets remain extremely influential, often representing the single largest customer in their respective nations. As a result, acquisition choices can catalyze and steer markets toward particular policy outcomes even while prioritizing military missions.

After analyzing the urgency of climate change for the world’s militaries and assessing progress, shortfalls, and opportunities for emissions reduction and technology advancement in military operations, infrastructure, and supply chains, this report makes a few key recommendations.

1. Approach military innovation in an integrated and time-sensitive way. In addition to innovating to achieve energy efficiency, militaries must adapt to the impacts of climate change. Technologies that serve both purposes should be prioritized. Adopting these technologies early will give militaries an edge in both operations and international and domestic reputation.
2. Foster public-private partnerships to leverage civilian technological advances. Many useful innovations for the military will be made in the civilian sector, and militaries should support those advances. For example, given that fuel use, especially for aviation, is one of the largest sources of operational emissions, militaries should send strong market signals for sustainable aviation fuel.
3. Set targets for infrastructure decarbonization and strategies for emissions monitoring and sustainable procurement. Clear emissions reduction targets and monitoring strategies are the first steps to achieving military infrastructure decarbonization, including for products in the military’s supply chain (scope 3 emissions). A key way to achieve these targets is for militaries to procure carbon-free electricity for fixed installations. This can be done through targeted power purchase agreements or through the broader greening of the electric grid. Notably, the technologies that will enable this electricity shift already exist commercially.
4. Leverage education and training for climate literacy. Technological solutions are not enough: a climate-literate workforce is essential for transforming how militaries understand and respond to the opportunities and challenges arising from decarbonization. Given shared challenges and goals, there is an opportunity for NATO member state militaries, for example, to catalyze transnational cooperation on climate training.
5. Incentivize the energy transition within military supply chains, leading to lower defense industry emissions. Procurement preferences for and investments into lower embedded carbon levels in the products militaries purchase could accelerate this transition. For example, the EU could give companies that demonstrate a clear commitment to achieving net zero through realistic targets access to more credit by reforming their taxonomy and lending practices.

Many of these recommendations can be encapsulated in one central tenet—acquisition and procurement innovation. To address the climate challenge, militaries will need to think fundamentally differently about how and what they buy. This encompasses procurement policy, process, and requirements that meet both mission and sustainability requirements. Military acquisition leaders should send this market signal to civilian and commercial energy researchers and catalyze clean energy research by committing to purchase the products that are developed.

By broadening the framing of innovation to encompass not only research programs but a fundamentally different way of managing military and defense organizations, military innovation can help reduce its impact on carbon emissions and help militaries confront the climate challenge.

The report concludes that military innovation can indeed make a significant contribution to addressing the climate challenge, but militaries need stronger partnerships with other government agencies, policymakers, and private industry to do so in a manner that’s adequately commensurate to the challenge.