WASHINGTON — Is the U.S. military one of the world leaders in air pollution? That’s a claim we’ve seen popping up online following the world climate talks in the United Kingdom.
Where do U.S. armed forces rank in carbon emissions?
A Twitter video went viral during the recent COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland, getting more than 700,000 views. In the video, a reporter tells U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, “The Pentagon is a larger polluter than 140 countries combined.” We're breaking down why that's misleading.
THE QUESTION
Is the U.S. military a bigger CO2 polluter than 140 countries combined?
OUR SOURCES
THE ANSWER
No, the U.S. military doesn’t have a carbon footprint larger than 140 countries combined. However, it does rank higher than about 140 countries for global carbon footprint.
WHAT WE FOUND
“No, that's not true,” Neta Crawford put it plainly.
She has been researching and writing a book on military carbon emissions.
She was joined by Oliver Belcher with the same response. No, the military isn’t a bigger polluter than 140 countries combined—but the key word changing the truth here is "combined."
If you look at where it ranks on the list, the US military is a bigger polluter than about 140 countries. So the claim added one word, ‘COMBINED’ which makes it false.
What are the real numbers:
Crawford said in 2020 the US military totaled more than 51,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent.
Based on The World Resources Institute’s 2018 data, the US military ranks approximately in the top 60 of carbon emitters. It releases similar CO2 levels as countries like Portugal and Finland.
“It is also about the same size as Denmark's emissions in any one year,” Crawford said. “So, US military emissions are rather large, they are certainly the largest portion of US government emissions.”
So we can verify, no, the military doesn't have a larger carbon footprint than 140 countries combined.
But that is the difference a word makes in a sentence. Take out ‘combined,’ and it is a factual statement.