Youth care about the environmental cost of war, even if the full story behind the impacts of conflict on the climate isn’t shared with them.
- Randa Ali
- 13 hours ago
- 7 min read
Youth are increasingly faced with climate anxiety and strong opinions about wars they aren’t signing up for, yet will inherit. The environmental cost of war shows that these two issues are interconnected and that this data is not being provided to them.
"When it comes to the intersection of war and the environment, youth feel how heavily it has and will impact them. They expect more from world leaders."
Editor's Note:
This article is the first installment of a three-part series. The 44 North will release two more articles, the first delving into how Canadian policy allows the military to avoid climate accountability and the second discussing how the environments of countries experiencing conflict are hit the hardest. Youth will discuss how they feel about the climate impact of the bombings they witness from their phones, alongside Canada’s specific role in the environmental cost of war.
“Yesterday morning I woke up, and the sky was orange,” says Sylphia, who describes witnessing the effects of climate change in Toronto this summer. As a 24-year-old freelance journalist who writes on the Middle East and keeps up with news on climate change, she’s no stranger to how these two issues intersect. When she thought about speaking about the environmental cost of war with The 44 North, she said: “I think the environment, war, and capitalism are very interconnected webs.”
Youth are reporting feeling immense climate anxiety and frustration over wars they never subscribed to, but will inherit the consequences of. After witnessing the impacts of bombings via independent journalists documenting conflict zones on their social media feeds, they already know that wars harm the environment. Due to a lack of accountability and communication in reporting the impacts of militaries and war on climate, youth—and everyone, really—are left unaware of the full extent of these intersecting crises. Through interviews with three climate-conscious youth and one climate researcher, The 44 North explores what youth need to know about the environmental cost of war.
What the environmental cost of war means
Youth are painfully aware of how deeply war and conflict are affecting the world. “This has been going on for years and years and years and years,” says Ethan, a law student, recalling multiple global conflicts, particularly in Gaza.
This is not just a feeling. Since records began being collected in 1946, there hasn’t been a single year without conflict. The global conflict tracker by the Council on Foreign Relations shows nearly 30 active conflicts are unfolding across the world as of 2026, the environmental impacts of which aren’t being reported by the responsible parties, ranging from carbon emissions to environmental degradation. This doesn’t come as a surprise to Sylphia, especially given her line of work: “I do think that there’s a definite thread between the multiple ongoing wars, [...]the military industrial complex and how much the climate crisis seems to have accelerated.”
The full scope of the environmental cost of war is vast: The resource extraction, energy use, emissions from maintaining military weapons and personnel, war-fighting, physical destruction of the land, and reconstruction of the ruins. Ethan paints a picture of his understanding of this full process:
“The environmental cost is not just the dropping of bombs, but the extracting of all the raw materials necessary to build them, and the oil being spent to ship them across international waters [between] where the raw materials are [excavated] to where bombs are constructed. And then, there’s the oil used to fly the fighter jets.”
The weight of military emissions
When we think of the world’s worst climate offenders, few people expect military emissions to top the list. The intersection between militarism and the environment is rarely discussed—whether in mainstream media, statistics released by global bodies, or advocacy through most environmental organizations. Meanwhile, researchers and advocates in this field say that the environmental impacts of the military are too vast to continue to overlook.
Andrew Jorgenson is a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia (UBC), and the founding director of UBC’s Climate & Society Lab. Jorgenson’s research examines how national militaries contribute to their respective country's economies and overall carbon emissions. When he teaches students about the environmental impacts of the military, he says, "A common reaction [is] 'Wow, this really makes a lot of sense. I've never thought about this. It's never crossed my mind.'"
Military activity and its enormous global supply chains are estimated to account for approximately 5.5% of all global greenhouse gas emissions during relative peacetime post-World War II. The world’s militaries emit approximately 2.75 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per year. These emissions are greater than the entire global shipping (3%) and aviation (2%) industries combined. In fact, if the world’s militaries were a country, they would have the fourth highest carbon footprint on the planet, higher than the entire nation of Russia.
Further, these numbers are an estimation: Military emissions are one of the largest unaccounted sources of carbon emissions in the world. Despite a drastic rise in conflict and war, the data remains concealed, optional to report, and consistently omitted from global climate accounting. Furthermore, if the full scope of destruction and reconstruction were added, researchers expect the true figure would be many times higher.
"If anything, we're all probably under-counting,” says Jorgenson. “What we're estimating is very conservative [compared to] the actual overall impacts."
The burning of fossil fuels is the main component fueling human-led climate change, and an essential part of running global militaries. The military runs on an enormous amount of fossil fuels, demonstrated most clearly by the U.S. military. The U.S. Department of War, formerly known as the Department of Defence, is the world’s largest institutional consumer of petroleum, accounting for 80% of all U.S. Federal government energy consumption since 2001. In 2024, the combined military emissions of NATO countries, China, and Russia reached a record high of 551 million metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent. This is the equivalent of driving over 300 million cars on the road every year.
As Jorgenson researches this data to figure out what drives military energy consumption, he shares, “Part of it is largely [...] tied to the direct burning of fossil fuels by jets and other related machinery, because they're just so energy intensive."
In Canada, the Department of Defence accounts for 60% of its federal emissions. Sarah, an environmental engineering student who asked that her name be changed to protect her privacy, was surprised to hear this figure. “I didn't think the number was that large,” she says. “I thought it was more like 20%.”
Why military emissions are not included
The responsibility for the carbon footprint of militaries was deliberately left out of the climate equation almost 30 years ago, before most of today’s youth were even born. During the Kyoto Accords in 1997, the United States successfully lobbied to exclude military emissions from any global climate frameworks. The Paris Agreement partly addressed this issue, leaving reporting voluntary. Of the 70 largest militaries committed to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), only half submit any military emissions data. Even among those that do, no nation reports emissions on war-fighting activities. At best, experts estimate that militaries only report 10% of their carbon footprint.
"A lot of governments, when they don't want to take accountability for something specific, either j don't report on it or don’t [collect] the data for it,” says Sarah. “Part of a functioning democracy is [making] that data available so that people can ask for what they want because they can see the whole picture [...] If you can't see what [the government is] doing, then how do you know what to ask for?"
Military emissions matter now
Researchers have been sounding the alarm about military emissions for decades and maintain that it’s a critical time for addressing the extent of this issue. As global military spending has risen every year for the past decade, setting a record $2.7 trillion in 2024, emissions have grown with them. Countries have released plans to expand their militaries even further, which implies an emissions-saturated future without any plans for climate accountability. As current wars stretch across months and even years, these active conflicts will continue to add unmeasured and devastating costs to the environment. Without including these costs, researchers say the picture of the environmental cost of war is still out of sight: plans to decarbonize cannot be made without these essential data points.
When it comes to crafting decarbonization plans or reducing environmental impact, the targets militaries have set almost exclusively address buildings and administrative vehicles. The emissions associated with their operational fleets (fighter jets, tanks, warships, and more), alongside international operations, make up the majority of emissions. Jorgenson says his research found an important opportunity, where "Modest decreases in military spending for the U.S., such as a 6% decrease in their annual military spending budget, could lead to [meaningful reductions in energy consumption]."
Governments, global bodies, and militaries are aware of this significance and the environmental impacts of their operations and warfighting. In 2021, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg said, “There is no way to reach net zero without also including emissions from the military.”
Looking Ahead
The discussion on the environmental cost of war does not end here. To any students wondering what to do with this information, Jorgenson says: "Now [that] you actually know about it, and you're thinking about it [...] share this with your friends and your relatives and your colleagues."
When it comes to the intersection of war and the environment, youth feel how heavily it has and will impact them. They expect more from world leaders. Sarah shares her message to the government on how their actions are reflecting to youth:
"The government needs to start taking accountability for the emissions that occur from war. And not only that, but the social impact costs as well. Because this is not only affecting the environment, it's also affecting people."
The 44 North will release two more articles, the first delving into how Canadian policy allows the military to avoid climate accountability and the second discussing how the environments of countries experiencing conflict are hit the hardest. Youth will discuss how they feel about the climate impact of the bombings they witness from their phones, alongside Canada’s specific role in the environmental cost of war.
Randa Ali is a Toronto writer whose work focuses on sustainability, climate, arts & culture. She's interested in how intersections between people, planet, and profit shape politics, culture, and communities. She holds a Master of Science in Sustainability Management from the University of Toronto and is training in journalism. Randa’s work can be seen on Instagram @byrandaali.
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