Labour’s Military Spending Undermines Climate Goals

by Darryl Rigby

As Edwin Starr once sang: “War, what is it good for?” If we’re to believe the United Kingdom’s Labour Party government, it’s good for boosting GDP and protecting your population from the existential threat of Russia.

But one thing increased militarisation most certainly isn’t good for is the environment. Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently announced his plan to steadily increase the defence budget over the next decade. How does this additional military spending align with the country’s climate goals?

Spoiler alert: It doesn’t!

When Labour was campaigning for office in the lead-up to last year’s general election, the environment was a key talking point. The party outlined a number of ambitious pledges to reduce emissions. Chief among them was the promise to fully decarbonise our electricity supply by 2030, five years ahead of the U.K. Climate Change Committee’s target. Starmer said the country would achieve this by tripling its solar power capacity and quadrupling offshore wind capture.

This pro-environmental stance marked a refreshing departure from that of the previous Conservative Party government. Rishi Sunak’s government delayed a ban on new petrol and diesel cars and scrapped rules on gas boilers. They also issued fresh North Sea oil and gas licences, casting serious doubts over the direction the country was headed in.

So, when Labour stormed to victory on the back of promises to invest in environmental projects, things were looking up.

But after Starmer announced plans to increase the defence budget by one percent of GDP over the next decade, it’s beginning to look like that optimism was severely misplaced.

Environmental Cost of Increased Military Spending

For proof that Labour’s plans contradict their supposed environmental targets, look no further than the various studies that show a spike in military spending typically leads to a significant rise in emissions.

One of the most damning pieces of research on this topic is an academic paper titled “The Green Peace Dividend: the Effects of Militarization on Emissions and the Green Transition” by Balázs Markó of Bocconi University. The study showed that a one-percent rise in military spending correlates to a 0.9–2 percent jump in emissions. It also results in roughly a one percent increase in emissions intensity, on average.

Researchers from the Conflict and Environment Observatory used data from Markó’s research to calculate the increase in greenhouse gases if NATO countries commit to the proposed increase in military spending. (NATO members claim the increase is necessary to counter Russian aggression.) The researchers estimate that a two-percent increase in spending across the bloc would result in a rise of between 87 and 194 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year.

To put that into context, it is more than half of the United Kingdom’s total annual emissions.

How Will It Be Used?

The Labour government’s military spending is forecast to rise to around £62.2 billion in 2025/26, then climb to roughly £73.5 billion ($95 billion) by 2028/29. Where will these additional funds actually go? The government will spend much of this on arming the country with twelve brand-new SSN-AUKUS attack submarines. The Dreadnought programme—described as the United Kingdom’s next generation of nuclear-armed subs—will also receive £15 billion per year.

As you might have guessed, these gargantuan pieces of machinery are by no means environmentally friendly. They generate huge amounts of radioactive waste, the disposal of which poses significant environmental challenges. Submarines also require vast amounts of energy to power and maintain.

On top of this, their construction will create off-the-charts levels of emissions. So, from production to maintenance to operation, there’s no part of a military submarine’s life that doesn’t come with an enormous environmental tax.

Then there are the vast quantities of guns, artillery, and ammunition that the increased military budget will inevitably be used to manufacture in the coming years. This will demand huge amounts of energy and churn out vast quantities of emissions.

And let’s not forget the global supply chains needed to source the raw materials and specialist components that keep the defence industry ticking. Rare earth metals and high-grade steel are used in the manufacture of these instruments of destruction. Vast amounts of fuel are consumed during drills, testing, and eventual deployment of troops. All this flies in the face of Labour’s supposed green energy goals!

How Will It Be Funded?

Moving away from emissions momentarily, there’s also the small matter of finances to consider. If “defence” is to receive billions of additional pounds annually, this money needs to come from somewhere. But where exactly? This is where things start to get tricky.

Since becoming the Chancellor, the minister tasked with managing the United Kingdom’s finances, last summer, Rachel Reeves has continually bemoaned the sad state of the country’s coffers. And that was before her dramatic U-turn on the cut to pensioners’ winter fuel allowance and backtrack on the reform of personal independence payments (PIP), which provide financial assistance to those with a disability. The government had eyed cuts to these benefits as a way to save money, but public outcry over the hugely unpopular policies ultimately forced them to backtrack.

The National Health Service is off limits, as is the welfare state, to which funding cuts have proven to be political suicide. U.K. education is already a mess and in need of additional funding, so it’s difficult to imagine savings there. Many public-sector workers have been promised a pay rise, so there’s not much potential for spending cuts there, either.

With few options left, there’s a good chance the axe will fall on green initiatives Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has been crowing over since joining the cabinet.

Ditching some of these costly policies will free up precious funds for the guns and bombs we so desperately need. And with a media class that’s largely disinterested in environmental issues, Labour can quietly nuke its own green promises with relative impunity.

Involvement in Conflicts

Even if these green policies survive the chopping block, the government’s military posturing and support for war on the world stage remains a major threat to global climate goals.

From the Middle East to Ukraine, Britain has refused to prioritise peace and diplomacy over escalation. Directly or indirectly, this is partly responsible for not just widespread human suffering, but also colossal environmental destruction.

Take the incomprehensible situation in Gaza, for instance. Since the start of the war, the United Kingdom has assisted Israel in multiple ways. It has provided the parts Israel needs for F-35 planes. It has also supplied intel from the Royal Air Force’s spy plane missions based out of Cyprus. You know, those notoriously eco-friendly Shadow R1 spy planes!

This is despite the fact that the Israel Defence Force’s response to the October 7th attacks has gone way beyond what anyone could describe as proportionate. The world’s leading scholars on the subject now unanimously categorise Israel’s actions as genocide. Numerous high-ranking Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are now wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

After almost two years of relentless Israeli bombardment carried out using U.K.-prescribed weaponry, the Gaza Strip has been completely decimated. The homes, schools, and hospitals that once formed the backbone of Palestinian communities have been reduced to rubble.

As well as the devastating impact this conflict is having on the Palestinian people, all this carnage is profoundly harmful for the planet. Consider for a minute the size of the job at hand once the dust has finally settled and it’s time to rebuild the ravaged territory.

Clearing the mountains of rubble is a colossal job in itself. The machinery needed will burn through millions of litres of diesel. That’s before a single structure has been reconstructed.

When it’s time to replace the thousands of buildings bombed into oblivion, the sheer volume of concrete, asphalt, steel, and other energy-intensive materials needed will be incalculable. So too will the carbon footprint left in their wake.

Contributing to the Iran Escalation

Alarmingly, Gaza isn’t the only place in the Middle East where war is threatening to cause environmental chaos. Not satisfied with armed conflict on just one front, Israel recently decided to bomb Iran. With both sides wielding ballistic missiles, this kicked off another potentially disastrous war after years of tensions between the two nations.

The United Kingdom faced the prospect of being drawn into a wider conflict between the two warring factions and their allies. How did the government react to this rapidly escalating situation? By sending gas-guzzling fighter jets to the Middle East, of course!

Rather than calling for cool heads and using his diplomatic power to help de-escalate the situation, Keir Starmer reaffirmed Israel’s “right to self-defence.” (This presumably grants Israel carte blanche to bomb anyone they don’t like.) Starmer immediately dispatched the Royal Air Force across the Mediterranean in a clear show of aggression.

Starmer then headed to the G7 meeting in Canada to cosy up to Donald Trump. The U.S. president proceeded to greenlight the dropping of multiple 30,000-pound bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Israel’s attacks breached international law. They were also condemned by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which said “armed attacks on nuclear facilities could result in radioactive releases with grave consequences within and beyond the boundaries of the State which has been attacked.”

Another timely reminder that war isn’t the most eco-conscious of pastimes.

The Business of War

As of yet, nobody from the U.K. government has offered up any criticism of the illegal attacks. Each Labour mouthpiece has repeated the same mantra: that Iran must be prevented from having a nuclear weapon. This is despite the United States’s own intelligence service concluding in March that they’re still years away from doing so.

None of this comes as a surprise. Back in February, whilst announcing new funding for Ukraine, Starmer talked up the business opportunities of war. He made it clear he sees militarisation as a way to boost GDP.

There might be record numbers of homeless people. Public services may be on their knees. Environmental destruction might be so bad that we are at the point of no return. But who cares about minor inconveniences like that as long as BAE Systems and Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises are raking in record profits for their shareholders?

Western governments are intent on cashing in on militarisation. Tensions across Europe and the Middle East are pushing the world closer to a nuclear catastrophe. Our species and the planet we inhabit are facing an existential crisis.

If things continue on their current path, perhaps the main question is which will collapse first.

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Darryl Rigby is a Content Writer at TradeSparky, a UK-based electrical wholesaler and supplier of solar power panels and batteries.