Did you know that the US Department of Defense is the single largest institutional contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the world?

And we argue that they have a commensurate responsibility to pay international climate finance,

those countries that are most affected by the climate crisis, but least responsible.

It's Tuesday, December 19th, but, as you know, every day is Science Friday. I'm sci-fri producer, Rasha

oridi. Between the fuel consumed by military bases, planes and ships, plus the process of making and using

weapons and clearing land, militaries around the world account for almost 6% of all greenhouse

gas emissions. A new report calculated how much two prominent militaries the U.S. and the U.Ks

would hypothetically owe if they paid for the damage caused

by their carbon emissions. The total, $111 billion. Here's Irafledo.

Joining me are two authors of the report, Kamra Galey, senior researcher at Commonwealth,

a think tank in London, Dr. Patrick Bigger Research Director at the

Climate and Community Project, a progressive climate policy think tank. He's based in Maryland.

Welcome to Science Friday. Thank you so much, Ira. Thanks for having us. Patrick, you focused on the

U.S. and the U.K. militaries. Why choose those two?

Well, for one thing, we're based in the U.S. and U.K., and so these are policy decisions that we're very

concerned with, and also the roles historically of the U.S. and U.K. in really creating and

securing the global fossil fuel economy that we've been living with

over the past century or so. That's the primary driver of greenhouse gas emissions and associated

changes to the climate. Now, I mentioned that $11 billion figure in climate reparations. How did you

get that number? Give me some of the math there.

Sure.

So it's not a particularly complicated set of math.

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