NATO’s Spending Boom Puts Climate Targets at Risk, New Briefing Warns

A new analysis by the Transnational Institute, Tipping Point North South and Stop Wapenhandel,  released the week of the NATO summit in the Netherlands, shows that the Alliance’s rapid military build up is already undermining global climate goals and threatening to divert trillions from clean energy investment.
Since 2021, NATO nations have raised their combined defence budgets by 25 per cent to US $1.5 trillion. That surge has driven the Alliance’s estimated carbon footprint up nearly 40%, from 196 million to 273 MtCO2e. In 2024 alone, European NATO members and Canada booked their steepest annual increase in decades (17.9%).

Leaders meeting this week will debate a new target of 3.5 per cent of GDP for the military. If adopted, NATO outlays would reach US $13.4 trillion by 2030—an additional US $2.6 trillion beyond current spending plans. That sum is big enough to cover almost three years of the climate finance needs of developing countries, or to upgrade the entire global electricity grid to be Net Zero compatible by the end of the decade.
The climate cost is equally stark: cumulative military emissions under a 3.5 per cent goal would hit 2,330 MtCO2e, roughly the combined annual emissions of Brazil and Japan, and enough to cancel out the EU’s yearly 2030 emissions cut target in a single stroke. Meanwhile, Europe’s main green transition pot, the Recovery and Resilience Facility, ends in 2026, leaving a €180 billion funding gap through 2030.

NATO states already spend 52 times more on the military than on climate finance, and the gap is widening: military budgets rose 14.8% between 2023 and 2024 while aid fell 7.3%. If the 3.5% benchmark spreads the risk of a global arms race grows, alongside emissions and lost social and climate investment. 
The briefing warns that NATO’s deepening militarisation risks locking in a cycle where security is pursued at the expense of climate stability, development finance, and long-term global resilience. As leaders meet in the Hague this week, the choice is clear: double down on an arms race, or invest in a safer, cleaner, and more sustainable future.

Deborah Burton, co-founder of Tipping Point North South  said:
“NATO is driving a rearmament agenda that does one thing only: increases global insecurity on every level at this critical moment in human history. It will further accelerate the arms race, further increase greenhouse gas emissions and shamefully, add trillions to the war machine whilst those same rich NATO member countries rob the global south of reparatory climate finance.  We urgently need to de-escalate tensions and find peaceful solutions to conflicts if we are to defend our planet.”

Nick Buxton, climate security researcher at Transnational Institute , said: 
“NATO calls itself a security alliance, but it is fueling rather than preventing the climate crisis, which is the biggest security threat faced by humanity. Rather than announcing unnecessary military spending increases that only reward arms companies, they should be investing in ending  poverty, rebuilding welfare systems, creating green jobs, and supporting those most impacted by climate change.”

The full briefing, NATO 3.5% spending goal: Unsustainable on every count, is available here: NATO’s Spending Boom Puts Climate Targets at Risk, New Briefing Warns

The briefing is an update of figures based on a longer report that examined NATO’s contribution to climate change that was published in 2023 at Climate crossfire – How NATO’s 2% military spending targets contribute to climate breakdown