Declassified files released by the US National Security Archive reveal the extent of paranoid and aggressive American backroom bullying in negotiations over the Kyoto Protocol, a historic 1990s agreement that obliged almost every country in the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in an attempt to thwart the onset of global warming.
In particular, Washington sought to ensure the Pentagon was exempt from emissions targets. This desire was understandable – after all, research by Durham and Lancaster University published in 2019 revealed the US military is “one of the largest climate polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more CO2 than most countries.” If it was a nation state, it would be the world’s 47th largest greenhouse gas emitter.
Still, President Joe Biden has declared climate change to be the biggest threat to national security, although a cynic might suggest the real fear is that environmental destruction could mean that the US defense budget – $768 billion this year alone – might be scaled back slightly. That was certainly the case in the leadup to the Protocol’s signing in December 1997.
A confidential State Department cable from late 1997 advised UN Ambassador Mark Hambley to seek a “national security exemption relating to military activities that are directly in support of peacekeeping,” despite acknowledging the Federal government and its “defense installations and training operations” were the “single biggest user of energy” by the US.