Are the world's armies fuel guzzlers with a destructive carbon footprint? 

Many academics, scientists and groups fighting for the future of the planet would certainly think so and some are pointing to recently-released emission figures to back their cause.

Militaries account for 5.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2022 estimate by international experts.

Defense forces are not bound by international climate agreements to report or cut their carbon emissions and it's being argued that data published by some militaries is unreliable or incomplete at best.

Military emissions abroad, from flying jets to sailing ships to training exercises, were left out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gases - and exempted again from the 2015 Paris accords - on the grounds that data about energy use by armies could undermine national security.

With temperatures hitting new highs, environmental groups and scientists have had enough and are ramping up pressure on the UN to force armies to disclose all their emissions and end a long-standing exemption that has kept some of their climate pollution off the books.

Tipping Point North South and The Conflict and Environment Observatory, along with academics from the British universities of Lancaster, Oxford and Queen Mary are demanding more comprehensive and transparent military emissions reporting, using research papers, letter campaigns, and conferences in their lobbying drive.

The groups also wrote in February to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) calling on the UN's climate body to include all military emissions given their significance for comprehensive global carbon accounting.

"Our climate emergency can no longer afford to permit the 'business as usual' omission of military and conflict-related emissions within the UNFCCC process," the groups wrote.

Emissions accounting will come into focus in the first global stocktake - an assessment of how far behind countries are from the Paris climate goals - taking place at the COP28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates from November 30.

"The omission of conflict-related emissions in UNFCCC accounting is a glaring gap," said Axel Michaelowa, founding partner of Perspectives Climate Group, adding that hundreds of millions of tons of carbon emissions may be unaccounted for.

It would seem, though, there could be a long way to go for the lobbying drive.

The UNFCCC hs revealed there are no concrete plans to amend guidance on military emission accounting. Asked if military emissions would be discussed at COP28 in Dubai, the UAE presidency said one of its thematic days during the two-week summit would be "relief, recovery and peace."

There is some hope. 

NATO, the 31-country Western security alliance, said it had created a methodology for members to report military emissions. New Zealand are considering adding previously excluded areas, such as emissions from overseas operations, while the UK and Germany are looking to address grey areas in their reporting, defense officials said.

Washington sent U.S. Army and Navy representatives to the COP27 climate summit in Egypt last year, the first time a Pentagon delegation has attended the global climate summit.

A Pentgaon delegate said: "What I think that signified is that we are part of the conversation, we are certainly emitters when it comes to fossil fuels and energy."

The U.S. Defence Logistics Agency, which oversees oil buying, said 84 million barrels were purchased in 2022, down almost 15 million from 2018. Emissions in 2022 fell to 48 million tonnes from 51 million tonnes in 2021.

Neta Crawford, professor of international relations at Oxford University, said U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq, the adoption of renewable energy technologies, more fuel-efficient vehicles, as well as fewer and smaller military exercises, had contributed to the decline in fuel use.

Drones may also have helped. A senior U.S. defense official said: "One of the biggest emissions reduction technologies has been the used of unmanned aerial vehicles - drones. When you take a human out of the aircraft, you get dramatically improved energy performance."

Groups lobbying the UN to lift the military exemptions point to a surge in emissions related to the Ukraine conflict as a good reason for the change.

"Ukraine has absolutely brought the spotlight onto this issue in a way that other conflicts have not," said Deborah Burton from environmental group Tipping Point North South.

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A report from Dutch carbon accounting expert Lennard de Klerk estimated the first 12 months of the Ukraine conflict will trigger a net increase of 120 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, equivalent to the annual output of Singapore, Switzerland and Syria combined.

Ukraine's environment ministry spokesperson said it would seek backing from governments at COP28 for more transparent military emissions reporting.

Could transparency hinder the operations of some military operations though?

Markus Ruelke, from the German defence ministry's environmental protection unit, said: "We would not want to let everybody know how much fuel we use in these missions – how far we fly, how far we drive, and what our exercise patterns are."

The UNFCCC stated some military emissions were recorded under unspecified fuel combustion in the UN's reporting tables.

While the battle for military emission information rages, on and off the battlefield, the executive director of the group Scientists for Global Responsibility believes there is much work to do.

Stuart Parkinson said: "It's all very well telling people to stop flying or switch to an electric car, whether that's an expense or inconvenience to them, but it's hard to do that when the military gets a free ride."

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