It is clear that humanity must question the limits of past 20th century national self-interest if we are to address the greatest threat to our collective survival – runaway climate change. Transform Defence for Sustainable Human Safety describes the paradigm shift we will need to meet this monumental challenge.

Transform Defence for Sustainable Human Safety is Tipping Point North South’s primary policy/advocacy project.

It grew out of its work to make the case that runaway military spending must be addressed by all those campaigning on climate justice including the international development sector.  The work was initially framed through the The Five Percent Proposal and its two-part formula for cuts to global military spending. This in turn led to research on how runaway global military spending is inextricably linked to the global military’s impact on climate change.

As a result, this work led us to look at the many ways the global military’s interest is working against the good work of the United Nations. Our work now also addresses the absence of military emissions reporting in various critical UN processes and the absence of the military in Green New Deal discussions.

And as climate finance needs becomes ever more urgent, we join all those who call out those over-developed nations which grew rich on fossils fuels, to stop offering shameful excuses about ‘no money’ and pay up. Finding hundreds of billions to re-arm your militaries puts paid to the lie that the resources are not there. Clearly they are. For defence.

If the expectation of every aspect of human activity is to decarbonise – from agriculture to fashion, transport to house building – then the global military must surely be part of this. But for a fossil-fuel-reliant sector responsible for 5.5% of global GHG emissions, what does this mean?  It does not mean falling military greenwash – business as usual with reduced GHG emissions.

The climate emergency – along with other significant threats to human safety such as pandemic and ever-deepening inequality – demands we think differently about how we understand the true meaning of ‘defence’. And how we pay for it. The time has come to transform defence for sustainable human safety. 

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How to Transform Defence for Sustainable Human Safety: 10 Talking Points for a Difficult Conversation

An attempt to offer up a framework that tries to envision how we get a much better deal for the world’s citizens from the abject failure of past and current foreign and defence policies that sees us stagger from one war to the next; the world carved up according to spheres of influence; stupid narrow mindsets prevailing over catastrophic climate change.

Read more How to Transform Defence for Sustainable Human Safety: 10 Talking Points for a Difficult Conversation

a cartoon image of four politicians standing at podiums arguing and pointing to each other while there is a globe with explosive war happening in front of them as they ignore it

Overturning the economics of war to deliver a co-operative future and peaceful green prosperity

This article was commissioned by Working Notes and explores the ecological aspects of conflict—with a particular focus on the carbon dioxide emissions associated with the military—through an economic lens. It asks what must be done to change course if humanity and our home planet is to reverse the current trajectory.

Read more Overturning the economics of war to deliver a co-operative future and peaceful green prosperity

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.

Albert Einstein

What we urgently need now is a rethinking of the entire concept of security. Even after the end of the Cold War, it has been envisioned mostly in military terms. Over the past few years, all we’ve been hearing is talk about weapons, missiles and airstrikes… The overriding goal must be human security: providing food, water and a clean environment and caring for people’s health. To achieve it, we need to develop strategies, make preparations, plan and create reserves. But all efforts will fail if governments continue to waste money by fueling the arms race… I’ll never tire of repeating: we need to demilitarize world affairs, international politics and political thinking. (Time Magazine, April 15, 2020)

Mikhail Gorbachev