How implementation of NATO's 5% spending pledge would worsen climate crisis

NATO leaders this week committed to spending 5 per cent of their nations' GDP on “core defence requirements and defence-related spending by 2035.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte hailed it as a “quantum leap” in guaranteeing the alliance’s “freedom and security” for its one billion citizens. While historic in military terms, the move raises questions that are not widely reported on, like who will truly benefit from it and at what cost?

In a recently published article by Al Jazeera, author Nick Buxton argues that the new 5 per cent target overshadows the fact that many NATO members once dismissed the previous 2 per cent goal as unrealistic.

Though the alliance adopted the 2 per cent benchmark in 2002, only six countries had met it by 2021. By 2024, 23 members had complied, and all 32 are expected to by 2025. Much of this has come through flexible accounting, including broad definitions of military infrastructure spending, and has been shaped in part to appease US political pressures, particularly from former President Trump.

In 2023 alone, NATO countries spent $1.5 trillion on defence—more than half of global military expenditure. He warns that this shift threatens social and climate spending at a time when 30 per cent of Europeans report financial hardship and the planet faces a two-year window to meet climate targets.

Spain’s Pedro Sanchez, who fought for a partial exemption, openly admitted the trade-off: “If we had accepted 5 per cent, Spain would have to spend by 2035 an extra 300 billion euros on defence. Where would it come from? From cuts in health and education.”

However, the reality is that these cuts are already happening. He points out that the UK slashed its aid budget to boost defence spending while France, Belgium, and the Netherlands followed suit, cutting overseas aid by 25–37 per cent. In the US, Trump-era policies gutted climate and healthcare funding while proposing record Pentagon budgets.

Meanwhile, Europe is already falling behind its climate and social pledges. Its main recovery fund, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), will expire in 2026. The European Trade Union Confederation warns that most European NATO members won’t reach the 3.5 per cent defence spending goal without cutting services, raising taxes, or altering fiscal rules.

Beyond financial impacts, the author stresses that increased military spending may worsen the climate crisis, too. NATO is a major emitter, with new funding flowing into fuel-intensive tanks, aircraft, and missiles. Military emissions remain underreported, but projections estimate that 3.5 per cent of GDP defence spending could emit 2,330 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gases by 2030—roughly equal to the combined annual emissions of Brazil and Japan.

"NATO’s justification is that increased investment is needed to confront the threats of 'Russia' and 'terrorism'. Yet there is no rationale behind the 5 per cent target or details on why threats to NATO have so drastically increased. Nor is there self-examination on how NATO’s actions partly set the stage for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia has increased military spending, but it still spends 10 times less than NATO. Nor could it catch up militarily with NATO’s 32-strong alliance, given its economy: $2 trillion in 2024 [nominal GDP], compared with $26 trillion for non-US NATO countries and $29 trillion for the US alone. As for 'terrorism', the idea that NATO’s increased spending could deter it ignores the failures of the 'War on Terror', where NATO interventions in Afghanistan and Libya prompted instability and fighter recruitment," the publication states.

By Nazrin Sadigova