COP 29 just concluded with an incredibly disheartening non-binding agreement to mobilize some money from the Global North to countries in the Global South. While Global South countries are least responsible for the climate crisis, they bear the brunt of it. The agreement was so insufficient that Papua New Guinea’s representatives walked out on the negotiations.
Now, Papua New Guinea and other small island nations are taking their case to court. After bearing the burden of the Global North’s pollution and war, they’re making their case at the International Court of Justice about these countries’ responsibility for addressing the climate crisis. This case has come from the nation of Vanuatu and Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change. And it has not come out of nowhere.
The U.S. military has long been expanding into the Pacific for our government’s own selfish short-term interests to escalate against China, while emitting millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere that existentially threaten the same island nations it occupies the land of. Its expansion has also come with contamination of drinking water, leakages of toxic chemicals, and bomb testing that destroys ecosystems.
Amidst this historic case on the responsibility of nations regarding climate change, the U.S. must take responsibility for its role in destroying the livability of the Pacific. Tell Admiral Samuel L. Paparo to close these bases in the Pacific for the climate, world, and survival of the Pacific.
We, the undersigned, are writing from within and beyond the country whose military is the largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels in the world. We are writing this in the aftermath of a conference that was a slap in the face to countries that are already being devastated by the climate crisis and to any serious movement to take on the climate crisis effectively or justly. We are writing this amidst a new case in the UN World Court that has been initiated by the countries that have been completely thrown under the bus by the U.S. government’s stubborn non-commitment and negligence.
The initiators of these ICJ hearings on the responsibility of states regarding the climate crisis, are from small island nations in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Pacific Command houses over 200 of the military’s 800+ military bases and accounts for 22% of the Pentagon’s total energy usage.
In the Japanese Island of Okinawa, the US military’s multiple bases have contaminated the drinking water, leaving over 450,000 residents at risk. The 2021 leak from the Red Hill Naval Storage Facility in illegally occupied Hawai’i has also poisoned the drinking water for the residents of O’ahu. Another leak could risk the water supply being undrinkable. Our air force base in Guam has leaked hazardous chemicals into the soil. Each of these bases has contributed to the Pentagon’s status as the largest single emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world.
While we continue to increase this needless, expensive, and imperialist presence across the Pacific, the sovereignty and existence of these same islands are threatened by the natural disasters caused by this military build-up.
These bases do not exist for the protection of those living there. Where the US military’s boots touch the soil, we only continue to escalate and drive destruction, to the land, to peace, and to the basic sovereignty and freedom of the region.
These bases do not exist for the protection of U.S. citizens. The militarization of the Pacific is part of an emerging cold war with China. Escalation with China does nothing to keep the U.S. safe, nor the world. By refusing cooperation and diplomacy, the U.S. cuts off the green energy programs that China is developing, escalates proxy wars that continue to destroy the planet, and creates a moment where the World Court is hearing climate testimonies in the context of International Human Rights Law.
Simply put, the continued more than excessive presence of our poisonous bases in the Pacific does nothing except exacerbate catastrophe. We demand that the U.S. military close its bases in the Pacific Ocean and stop the build-up.