FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 3, 2025
Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | [email protected]
Climate Justice and Frontline Groups Call Out U.S. Military as Major Contributor to Climate Crisis
NEW YORK – In an open letter led by CODEPINK's War Is Not Green campaign titled, Spotlighting the Cost of War: We Choose the People and Planet, climate justice and frontline organizations call out the U.S. military as a major contributor to the global climate crisis.
Signatories include well-known groups like 350.org, Sunrise Movement, Climate Defenders, and frontline organizations addressing climate and ecological destruction like the NDN Collective, Micronesia Climate Change Alliance, Anakbayan USA, Friends of the Congo, Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy, and Diaspora Pa'Lante Collective.
The letter highlights the intersection of militarism and environmental destruction, urging recognition of the U.S. military's role in climate degradation. The world's largest institutional polluter, the Pentagon, consumes 4.6 billion gallons of fuel annually, contributing 77-80% of U.S. government energy use. If the military were a country, it would be the 47th largest emitter globally.
U.S. military bases around the world, including in Indigenous territories, have caused harm to ecosystems, water sources, and biodiversity. From the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine to the military buildup in the Asia Pacific, U.S. actions have significantly worsened environmental conditions and escalated the global climate crises.
The letter also critiques the recent UN Climate Conference (COP) 's failure to address militarism's role in climate degradation, emphasizing the need for global action on both environmental and peace fronts. The growing collaboration between climate justice and antiwar movements aims to challenge militarism's destructive impact on our planet.
"The climate crisis and global systems of war, occupation, colonialism, imperialism, and extraction drive one another forward. The same weapons manufacturers and warmongers who drive oil-fueled and consuming wars that devastate communities and nations are the same politicians and companies pushing forward the climate crisis," explained CODEPINK's War Is Not Green campaign organizer Aaron Kirshenbaum.
"Amidst a constantly changing political, economic, and ecological terrain, it is critical for the climate movement, which is in a new phase of urgency, to unite with the anti-war movement, at its strongest in decades, to create an anti-militarist movement for regeneration and life. To effect change, we can recognize that the ideal movement for the climate, biodiversity, and thriving agroecology is the movement against war, militarism, imperialism, and colonialism and for indigenous sovereignty and peace through liberation. This letter is a piece of this project, and we invite more organizations to sign on to take this first step to spotlight the underlying drivers of the climate crisis that are so often overlooked," they continued.
The open letter underscores the urgent need to reject militarism and embrace peace, sovereignty, and diplomacy for a sustainable future. CODEPINK is calling on other organizations to sign on to spotlight the root causes of the climate crisis and unify the climate and antiwar movements, whose work is synonymous.
You can read the letter in its entirety here.
For more information or a complete list of signatories, contact Aaron at aaron@codepink.
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