Biden Should Shrink the Pentagon Budget to Secure His Climate Legacy

World leaders just wrapped up 2023’s international climate forum, COP28, held in Dubai.

The forum opened on November 30 with an embarrassment for the host country, the United Arab Emirates, when the president of the gathering—who also leads the UAE’s state oil company—was caught using the platform to secretly push fossil fuel deals.

But, Washington also had cause for embarrassment.

Even a modest $100 billion cut to the Pentagon would be transformative—that’s enough to fund solar power for every household in the country, with billions of dollars left to spare.

After all, the United States is responsible for more cumulative fossil fuel emissions than any other country. And we’re spending more and more resources on a big part of the problem: the Pentagon. The Department of Defense remains the most carbon-intensive institution in the world, responsible for more annual emissions than most countries.

This year, Americans have experienced record-breaking temperatures and dozens of billion-dollar climate disasters, including floods, wildfires, winter storms, and hurricanes. The American people deserve safety and security—but plowing more money into the military isn’t going to ensure either.

The United States continues to spend more on its military than the next 10 highest spenders combined. Even though the Pentagon recently failed its sixth straight audit, Congress just passed a gargantuan, $886 billion military spending bill.

On top of that massive Pentagon budget, the White House is calling for an additional $106 billion in emergency supplemental funding for military assistance to Israel and Ukraine, and to countries surrounding China—where there is no ongoing war.

With nations at COP28 approving a global climate aid fund to help poorer countries adapt, that number has some added significance: $106 billion is the exact same figure the U.S. owes in climate reparations to other countries for all those historic emissions, one Columbia University researcher estimates.

By contrast, President Joe Biden has pledged just $1 billion for global climate aid—ten times less than an earlier commitment he made in 2021.

Many still applaud Biden’s climate-forward policies, including the historic climate investments made as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. However, these efforts still fall short of what is needed.

We need to shift more of our considerable resources away from the carbon-intensive Pentagon and toward serious efforts to stop rising temperatures and stabilize regions threatened by climate catastrophe. That would make the world—and the United States—a lot safer.

Even a modest $100 billion cut to the Pentagon would be transformative—that’s enough to fund solar power for every household in the country, with billions of dollars left to spare.

When it comes down to what makes us safer, we must look at the state of our planet for future generations. After another year plagued by climate disasters and wars, it’s clear we cannot continue down a course of investing in militarism while neglecting our planet.

As leaders negotiate how to reduce worldwide emissions, they must look critically at their most carbon-intensive institutions. And if the Biden Administration is serious about leaving a positive climate legacy, it should start with the Pentagon.