At COP30, emissions from many sectors were examined, but those related to military activities and armed conflicts remain excluded from climate discussions, despite their significant ecological impact.
Context
In November 2025, at the COP30 conference held in Belém, Brazil, delegates from around the world reviewed the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Key sectors such as agriculture, aviation, steel, and cement manufacturing were notably scrutinized. These industries are recognized for their significant contribution to global warming and are the focus of targeted efforts to reduce their emissions. However, a fundamentally geopolitical and planetary security-related area was systematically excluded: military emissions.
The issue of emissions caused by military activities and armed conflicts is rarely addressed in international climate negotiations. Yet, war not only destroys human lives and infrastructure but also has a lasting impact on the climate. By excluding this sector from emission inventories, the international community neglects a significant portion of global greenhouse gases. This omission compromises the transparency and effectiveness of global climate policies.
This silence around military emissions occurs while advanced predictive models and sophisticated satellite data now allow better quantification of the environmental impacts of human activities. The challenge is therefore twofold: better understand these emissions to refine climate projections, and integrate this sector into global greenhouse gas reduction measures to meet the targets set by the Paris Agreement.
Facts
According to an article published on Phys.org in May 2026, emissions related to military operations are not accounted for in national greenhouse gas inventories. This notably concerns fuel consumption by military vehicles, temporary infrastructures, weapons production, and the indirect consequences of conflicts on lands and forests. Yet, these emissions contribute significantly to the increase of greenhouse gases.
Armed conflicts also cause massive destruction of ecosystems, releasing carbon stored in soils and vegetation. For example, bombings and fires in forested or agricultural areas intensify deforestation and disrupt natural carbon cycles. These effects are not integrated into climate models used by organizations such as the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) or Copernicus, which mainly rely on atmospheric data from civilian activities.
Experts emphasize that without rigorous consideration of military emissions, national inventories are incomplete and biased. This distorts environmental performance indicators of states and complicates the task of neural networks and other machine learning algorithms that analyze this data to develop reliable climate predictive models.
The Role of Technologies in Measuring Military Emissions
Advances in artificial intelligence and remote sensing now offer powerful tools to estimate emissions related to conflicts. Models like Pangu-Weather, FourCastNet, or GraphCast exploit satellite data to monitor war zones, analyze land use changes, and detect greenhouse gas emissions in near real-time.
These technologies combine machine learning and atmospheric data to identify specific signatures of military activities, such as smoke plumes, energy consumption at bases, or environmental disturbances. They thus allow quantification of emissions previously invisible in traditional inventories. Integrating this data into climate forecasts would refine the accuracy of predictive models and improve understanding of the overall impact of conflicts on the climate.
However, these approaches remain underutilized in international negotiations. Geopolitical stakes, confidentiality of military operations, and technical complexity hinder the integration of this data into official inventories. The scientific community calls for better collaboration among climate experts, defense specialists, and satellite technology professionals to overcome these obstacles.
Analysis and Stakes
The exclusion of military emissions from climate inventories is a major blind spot that compromises global efforts to combat warming. According to researchers, emissions from the military sector could represent several percent of global emissions, a share comparable to or even exceeding some industrial sectors.
Failing to account for these emissions leads to an underestimation of greenhouse gases and biases national commitments under the Paris Agreement. This weakens the credibility of carbon neutrality goals and could slow the global energy transition. Moreover, destruction related to conflicts increases ecosystem vulnerability, worsening local and global climate risks.
From a meteorological perspective, integrating this data would improve the quality of predictive models and the understanding of complex interactions between human activities and the atmosphere. By refining emission modeling, neural networks and other AI algorithms could provide more accurate forecasts, essential for anticipating extreme events and planning effective adaptation measures.
Reactions and Perspectives
In response to this gap, several environmental NGOs and scientific groups advocate for military emissions to be included in future COPs. According to them, ignoring this sector is tantamount to turning a blind eye to a major source of pollution and compromising the fight against climate change.
States, faced with sovereignty and security issues, remain cautious on this subject. Transparency regarding military activities is difficult to obtain, which slows progress. Yet, technological advances in remote sensing and artificial intelligence pave the way for better quantification, even in sensitive contexts.
The scientific community calls for strengthened dialogue among climate, geopolitical, and technological experts to progressively integrate this aspect into international negotiations. This approach is essential to ensure a comprehensive, fair, and effective approach to combating global warming.
In summary
Military emissions constitute a major yet ignored source of greenhouse gases in global climate inventories. Their exclusion harms the accuracy of predictive models and weakens emission reduction policies.
Thanks to artificial intelligence technologies and satellite data, it is now possible to better measure and integrate these emissions into climate models. Their future consideration is essential for a global and effective fight against climate change.
