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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Oliver HeidrichORCiD, Professor Christian HicksORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Climate change has a direct impact on the military, for example damage to infrastructure or operational capabilities being affected by extreme conditions. It also has an indirect impact through global instability arising from droughts, desertification, storms, flood, food insecurity, poverty, displacement and migration, which increases threat levels (Amakrane and Biesbroek, 2024). The defence sector is also a major contributor of GHG emissions, due to a heavy reliance on the fossil fuels. In the UK the military is responsible for approximately 50% of UK Government emissions (MOD, 2021). However, the reporting of emissions to the UN Framework Convention on climate change is voluntary and the quality of data is poor (CEOBS, 2022). Clearly the military needs to consider both the mitigation of carbon emissions and adapting to climate change arising from increasing GHG emissions. Few countries have climate action strategies that consider defence (Rajaeifar et al., 2022). Those that have published defence climate action strategies include the UK, US and NATO, which aims to become carbon neutral by 2050 (DOD, 2022; NATO, 2022). NATO published a methodology for mapping and analysing GHGs (NATO, 2023) based on the GHG Protocol (WRI, 2004). Typical steps in mitigating climate change include benchmarking emissions through identifying GHG inventories associated with defence activities including fuel use, waste, energy consumption etc. The collection and analysis of such data is essential to enable militaries to set targets and develop/implement climate change mitigation strategies. This presentation shows the greenhouse gas emissions from a large air force base. A carbon accounting methodology was developed based upon ISO standards and is consistent with the NATO and WRI approaches. We report the GHG emission from a range of sources at the Base from using white/red diesel, Petrol to Nitrous oxide and gas. These are recorded from services and facilities such as Offices, residential, sewage plants to large hangers. We found that the base in 2022/23 used 11,211,647 kWh of electricity, 19,219,978 kWh gas to 22,800 kg of F-gas. Based on the case study we propose a framework that is based on the production-based list of carbon sources and sinks associated with the specified unit of analysis and scope that quantifies carbon emissions and removals. It will include all significant emission sources and include the volume of emissions and the impact on the sources/sinks. For the future it is important to identify institutional responsibilities for maintaining the inventory and periodic reporting across the UK and other NATO militaries to achieve the carbon reduction targets. It is important to provide appropriate training to those accountable for these duties. The carbon accounting process should consider access to information and level of data accuracy throughout. It is necessary to periodically review the emission quantification boundaries, the list of sources and sinks and any changes in volumes. There should also be regular maintenance of monitoring equipment and information systems to ensure that accuracy is maintained. References ADDIN EN.REFLIST British Standards Institution, 2019a. BS EN ISO 14064-1:2019 Greenhouse gases - Part 1: Specification with guidance at the organization level for quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removals. BSI Standards Publication. British Standards Institution, 2019b. BS EN ISO 14064-2:2019 Greenhouse gases - Part 2: Specification with guidance at the project level for quantification, monitoring and reporting of greenhouse gas emission reductions or removal enhancements. British Standards Institution. British Standards Institution, 2019c. BS EN ISO 14064-3:2019 Greenhouse Gases - Part 3: Specification with guidance for the verification andvalidation of greenhouse gas statements. British Standards Institution. CEOBS, 2022. A framework for military Greenhouse Gas emissions reporting- Militart Emissions Gap. Conflict and Environment Observatory, United Kingdom. DOD, 2022. Department of Defense Sustainability Plan. Department of Defense. EPPO, 2018. Energy statistics. MOD, 2021. Ministry of Defence Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach. Ministry of Defence. NATO, 2022. NATO climate change and security action plan- Compendium of best practices. NATO. NATO, 2023. The NATO Greenhouse Gases Emission Mapping and Analytical Methodology. Rajaeifar, M.A., Belcher, O., Parkinson, S., Neimark, B., Weir, D., Ashworth, K., Larbi, R., Heidrich, O., 2022. Decarbonize the military—mandate emissions reporting. Nature Publishing Group. WRI, 2004. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol: A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, 2 ed. World Resouces Institute, Geneva, Switzerland.
Author(s): Heidrich Oliver, Hicks Chris
Editor(s): Lynette Cheah Harn Wei Kua
Publication type: Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstract)
Publication status: Published
Conference Name: 12th International Conference on Industrial Ecology (ISIE2025)
Year of Conference: 2025
Print publication date: 02/07/2025
Online publication date: 03/07/2025
Acceptance date: 03/07/2025
Date deposited: 10/07/2025
URL: https://isie2025.sg/index.php
ePrints DOI: 10.57711/rqce-5250
