The importance of tackling the climate impacts of UN Peacekeeping

Setting the standard for reporting

The UN has already taken important steps to reduce the climate and environmental impacts of its peacekeeping operations. Since the launch of the Environment Strategy for Peace Operations in 2017, peacekeeping and special political missions have begun to reduce their emissions, and the updated Way forward: Environment Strategy for Peace Operations 2023-2030 prioritises both reducing energy consumption and transitioning to renewable energy. Transparent reporting has been central to this progress; by measuring and reporting energy use, the UN has been able to track progress and identify areas for improvement.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cannot be effectively managed without being measured. However, while reporting military emissions to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) remains voluntary, most countries do not require their militaries to provide any meaningful GHG emissions reporting and as a result, data is unreliable and inconsistent. This outdated reporting exception is sometimes attributed to national security concerns, but the unique nature of UN Peacekeeping missions means that this argument isn’t relevant to this context, even if it made sense in the first place. Therefore, introducing standardised reporting to the UN Department of Operational Support (DOS) could make a significant impact in filling the data gap around military emissions, providing essential data to track progress and promote much-needed transparency in the military sector.

In addition to this, data gaps are often the most significant from militaries of Non-Annex 1 countries — those judged to have been in the process of industrialising in the 1990s. This is because they enjoy fewer reporting obligations to the UNFCCC and as a result, report very little if anything of their military emissions. Non-Annex 1 countries include India and Pakistan, who are within the top military spenders globally. However, both India and Pakistan, as well as Nepal, Rwanda and Bangladesh, are also some of the top contributors of personnel to UN Peacekeeping missions. This means that more comprehensive and transparent reporting of UN Peacekeeping missions could help unlock much needed and hard to access data to better understand the impact of Non-Annex 1 militaries on global emissions.