“Our research shows that military spending increases greenhouse gas emissions, diverts critical finance from climate action, and consolidates an arms trade that fuels instability during climate breakdown,” says a new report from three international research and advocacy groups, the UK’s Transnational Institute and Tipping Point North South, and the Netherlands’ Stop Wapenhandel.

Nato countries’ increased military expenditure will add an additional 31m metric tonnes of planet-warming emissions to the atmosphere – a surge of about 15%, or the greenhouse gas equivalent of adding 6.7m average US cars to the road for a year.

The true beneficiaries of the surge in defense spending, the authors say, are weapons manufacturers, who the alliance has promised to bolster various plans and pledges.

Military budget growth is not always immediately reflected in weapons manufacturers’ revenues and profits as production and procurement can take years.

But between 2022 and 2023, backlogs of orders at the 10 top global arms firms such as Lockheed Martin, RTX and Northrop Grumman shot up by an average of more than 13%, the researchers found – an indication of forthcoming record profits.

In the wake of the cold war in the early 1990s, leaders in the US and Europe spoke of a “peace dividend”, or a pledge to invest in social spending instead of the military.

The original article contains 895 words, the summary contains 216 words. Saved 76%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!