Cuban foreign minister warns of climate damage due to excessive NATO military spending

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez warned today through his account on X, that while the member states of the North Atlantic Organization (NATO) increase their contracts to acquire more lethal and costly armaments, they restrict their commitments on climate and environmental funding.

On the social network, the Caribbean nation's top diplomat wrote, "The arms industry is the only major beneficiary of NATO's high military spending.

Its member states, while increasing their contracts to acquire more lethal and costly armaments, restrict their commitments in terms of climate and environmental financing." He reflected that the arms industry is the only major beneficiary of NATO's high military spending, Rodriguez stressed on the X platform.

Recently, the head of the island's diplomacy stated on the same social network that the military carbon footprint of the transatlantic organization went from 196 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (C02) in 2021 to 226 million in 2023.

Those numbers exceed the greenhouse gas emissions of 80% of the world's countries, he compared.

NATO will reach another record figure in military spending in 2024, 6 times higher than that recorded in 2014, announced in February its Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, despite international alarm over the deployment of arms.

The Organization's representative indicated that the increase will respond to the projections of 18 member states to use two percent of their Gross Domestic Product on defense issues.

Since 2014, the members of the war bloc increased their military budgets by 600 billion dollars and last year they experienced an unprecedented increase of 11% in the European allies and Canada.