New UN Resolution Obliges States to Act Against Climate Change: What Does Militarization Have to Do With It?

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations. Photo: UN/Mark Garten

Created on May 20 of this year, the new Resolution of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly is the result of discussions already held in mid-2025 within the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Defining the obligation of States to act on climate change and its impacts on populations around the world, the document entitled “Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the obligations of States in respect of climate change: resolution adopted by the General Assembly” is a non-binding instrument in response to the global climate crisis.

The Resolution recognizes climate change as an urgent matter requiring non-optional action by countries which, committed to the self-determination of peoples and respect for territorial integrity, collectively face the civilizational challenge of combating the harms caused by climate change. The document also addresses the customary duty of States — that is, general practices accepted as law in Public International Law — to prevent significant environmental harm, highlighting their obligations regarding greenhouse gas emissions and their disproportionate impact, while also addressing reparations to States harmed by acts of climate irresponsibility.

Although it unfortunately does not mention the extent to which militarization and weapons contribute to climate change and this crisis that alarms the world, these relationships exist and are equally concerning.

Emphasizing how military expenditures — which reached US$2.8 trillion in 2025 — drive increased emissions and geopolitical escalations manifested in armed conflicts that hinder and undermine investments in climate action, the 2025 Tipping Point and Transnational Institute report on militarism and climate change highlights that:

“The struggle for climate justice is increasingly overshadowed by a global arms race, even though global temperatures are reaching record highs.”

The study reveals that militarism is responsible for 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, twice that of the entire global civil aviation and passenger vehicle sector combined. Unsurprisingly, the largest emitters of these gases are also the countries with the highest military expenditures in the world. China, the United States, and Russia appear in both rankings, with the latter two being among the few States that opposed the Resolution of May this year, alongside Belarus, Iran, Israel, Liberia, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.

Countries with the highest military spending and the largest emitters. Source: Tipping Point, Transnational Institute (2025).

If the currently observed pace of planned military spending increases, as announced by organizations such as NATO, continues, an estimated 840 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions will be released between 2025 and 2030. Such data, when contrasted with climate action spending — which is notably lower than military expenditures — demonstrates the urgency of redirecting resources currently allocated to the worsening of humanitarian crises, including those related to climate, toward concrete investments in a struggle that should effectively be waged by the international society of States: action against climate change.

And beyond the expenditures allocated to their production, it is urgent to recognize the impact that weapons themselves have on climate change and the worsening of its crisis, especially Nuclear Weapons.

As the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) rightly highlights, nuclear weapons have environmental impacts even before they are used, from uranium mining and nuclear waste repositories that contaminate land and sea, to the persistent ecological devastation caused by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the hundreds of atomic tests conducted around the world. The Runit Dome, in the Marshall Islands, is the most striking example of the environmental impact of nuclear weapons. The concrete structure seals approximately 110,000 cubic yards of plutonium-contaminated debris resulting from U.S. nuclear tests conducted in the region, and scientists warn that sea-level rise caused by climate change could result in radioactive waste being released into the ocean.

Source: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum / AP

When analyzed from perspectives such as those of Indigenous peoples, these impacts include dimensions such as the phenomenon of “nuclear coloniality” and the damage caused by such weapons to native populations and their territories. In this context, the use of Nuclear Weapons also brings a series of consequences, including forced displacement for the purpose of conducting nuclear tests and displacement resulting from those tests themselves, which continue to affect Indigenous populations years and decades later through diseases and other conditions inherited from exposure to nuclear testing.

Furthermore, since the Second World War, Nuclear Weapons have been widely recognized as capable of creating a “nuclear winter” in the stratosphere. This scenario is based on the unimaginable quantities of soot that a nuclear detonation could produce, leading to global cooling. Moreover, the spiral of violence generated by such weaponry and the current escalation of armed conflicts involving them are factors that worsen the climate crisis.

It must be recognized that climate change is not merely about the numerical representation of the Earth's temperature, which continues to rise year after year. It is also about the deeply felt effects on civilian populations around the world who, afflicted by the impacts of the climate crisis, face forced evacuation, hunger, violence, and irreparable environmental damage, such as the loss of fauna and flora.

Other weapons, such as Landmines and Cluster Munitions, known for their indiscriminate nature, leaving minefields and transforming territories once dedicated to agriculture and community subsistence into areas with contaminated soil, also contribute to this scenario.

Climate-vulnerable countries receiving weapons (green) and their largest suppliers (black). Source: Tipping Point, Transnational Institute (2025).

The enormous military expenditures devoted to maintaining weapons systems that, in many cases, will never be used, under the pretext of a deterrence discourse that diverts attention from combating hunger through stockpiling, also have impacts, as noted, not only on greenhouse gas emissions but also on positive environmental action.

It is in this sense that addressing the impacts generated by military spending and militarization on the environment and climate change is an urgent consideration in discussions regarding the climate crisis and the definition of States’ duties on the matter. States’ involvement in armed conflicts and the damage caused by the weapons they produce, export, stockpile, and use should be a matter of concern and debate regarding accountability for their effects on the environment and on the human, animal, and plant life that inhabits it.

Resolutions such as the one that inspired the writing of this article are important gears in the machinery being built internationally, with significant pressure from organized Civil Society, to slow climate change and its impacts. This represents a significant change that, combined with the efforts established by normative frameworks such as International Humanitarian Law, contributes to guaranteeing the human right to a dignified life, with respect for self-determination and access to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment (UN, Resolution 76/300).

"It is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment." Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, Article 35, Paragraph 3.

Witten by: Fernando Fiala

Reviewed by: Júlia Marcon

08/06/2026 BRT

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the institutional position of Dhesarme.

References

INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS (ICAN). Nuclear tests. Available at: https://www.icanw.org/nuclear_tests. Accessed on: 5 June 2026.

INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS (ICRC). Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1977: Article 35. Available at: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/pt/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-35. Accessed on: 5 June 2026.

INTERNATIONAL PEACE BUREAU (IPB). Climate Collateral 2025 Update: Why the Military's Impact on Climate Change Can No Longer Be Ignored. Available at: https://ipb.org/climate-collateral-2025-update-why-the-militarys-impact-on-climate-change-can-no-longer-be-ignored/. Accessed on: 5 June 2026.

INTERNATIONAL PHYSICIANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR WAR (IPPNW). Climate and nuclear weapons. Available at: https://www.ippnw.org/climate-and-nuclear-weapons. Accessed on: 5 June 2026.

TRANSNATIONAL INSTITUTE (TNI). Climate Collateral: 2-page briefing. Available at: https://www.tni.org/en/publication/climate-collateral-2pagebriefing. Accessed on: 5 June 2026.

UNITED NATIONS. Digital Library: Record 4114032. Available at: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4114032. Accessed on: 5 June 2026.

UNITED NATIONS NEWS. UN adopts resolution requiring countries to act on climate change. Available at: https://news.un.org/pt/story/2026/05/1853219. Accessed on: 5 June 2026.