Ever since the Kyoto Accords or Kyoto Protocol negotiations in 1998, in an effort to gain U.S. compliance, all U.S. military operations worldwide and within the U.S. have been exempt from measurement and from agreements on reduction. The U.S. Congress passed an explicit provision guaranteeing U.S. military exemptions. (Interpress Service, May 20, 1998)

After gaining this giant concession, the U.S. government still refused to sign the Kyoto Accord, thus sabotaging years of international effort to forge an ­agreement.

In all past international conferences it was again and again the U.S. government that sabotaged the meetings and refused to be bound by any treaty. The Obama administration on Aug. 27 again confirmed that at the U.N. meeting in New York in September to prepare for the 2015 Paris meeting, only a nonbinding agreement could be put forward.

The only hope that the mass outpouring in September in New York City will have an impact is if independent voices can begin to consciously challenge the greatest global polluter.

For decades, and at an accelerated pace since 2001, the military has provided an endless stream of free war equipment to local city and state police, National Guard units and sheriffs’ offices. Youth of oppressed nations within the U.S. become targets of a vastly expanded police state. The fresh images of tanks and armored police in Ferguson, Mo., confirmed for millions the results of this racist policy.

Exposing the devastation of U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya is essential. These U.S. wars have spread hundreds of tons of radioactive waste from depleted uranium missiles. They have contaminated the soil and water of vast regions under U.S. occupation with benzene and trichloroethylene from air base operations and perchlorate, a toxic ingredient in rocket propellant. More than 1,000 military sites in the U.S. are contaminated with these toxins. Military bases top the Superfund list of contaminated sites. The poorest communities, especially communities of color, are the most severely impacted by this continuing military poisoning.

It is essential to connect the Pentagon exemption from international negotiations to its primary role as the protector and expander of corporate power on a global scale. The most powerful and profitable corporations are the oil and military corporations. These are the other primary polluters.

The Pentagon studies are not on plans to deliver emergency aid in the face of climate disasters such as floods, droughts, famines, epidemics, typhoons, tornadoes, hurricanes, ice storms, water shortages and damage to infrastructure. The plans of their war colleges and think tanks are on how to extract political concessions on docking rights and future military access during a besieged country’s hour of greatest emergency need.

For example, the U.S. Department of Defense releases every four years a Quadrennial Defense Review. This is a broad outline of U.S. military strategy. (tinyurl.com/pn4awm8)

The 2014 QDR describes the threat of climate change as “a very serious national security vulnerability.” Similar to the 2010 QDR, it poses the problem of how to maintain global U.S. military hegemony in the face of ever-worsening global climate disruptions.

The military officer caste is focused on maintaining Wall Street rule and capitalist property relations during a crisis. There is concern with preserving the authority of their puppets, allies and collaborators. The report stresses the importance of developing new policies, strategies and plans.

“Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large. As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing and severe weather patterns are accelerating.

“The impacts of climate change may increase the frequency, scale and complexity of future missions, including defense support to civil authorities. … The Department’s operational readiness hinges on unimpeded access to land, air and sea training.”

The essence of the report is that the melting of the polar ice cap and the “new Arctic environment” means “ocean resources are more readily accessible as sea ice diminishes.” This is an opportunity to access the vast untapped oil, gas and mineral resources and increase the flow of fossil fuels. In other words, big profits for Big Oil. (tinyurl.com/cw2dvhk)

The Center for Naval Analyses has also prepared ominous reports of U.S. policy in this period of global climate crisis. Eleven retired generals and admirals came together in 2007 to examine the security implications of climate change.

In 2014, this federally funded research and development center produced a study headed by Michael Chertoff, former secretary of Homeland Security, and Leon Panetta, former secretary of Defense, and titled “National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change.” This report sees climate change as the source of international instability and the greatest threat to the established capitalist order.

This study, once again, is not on how to use the enormous technological ability of the U.S. military machine to provide solutions or emergency assistance. Everything is posed in terms of national security in the face of alleged potential terror threats.

“In Africa, Asia and the Middle East, we are already seeing how the impacts of extreme weather, such as prolonged drought and flooding — and resulting food shortages, desertification, population dislocation and mass migration, and sea level rise — are posing security challenges to these regions’ governments. We see these trends growing and accelerating.

Based on these reports and on the destructive, self-serving U.S. role in every climate meeting in over 20 years, it is clear that U.S. corporate power and the monstrous military machine it has funded by expropriating more than half the federal budget every year for decades is an enemy of the people of the whole world and a threat to all forms of life on earth. This must become a focus of class-conscious climate activists. This would contribute greatly to an understanding of the source and the real solutions to this global crisis.

Source: Global Research