British military planners have set a target of making the Royal Air Force carbon neutral by 2050. They want to make half of their fuels sustainable and see a future where troops travel to the battlefield in battery-powered armored vehicles and where aircraft carriers capture carbon from the flight deck, in line with an ambitious target by the British government to slash emissions by nearly 80 percent over the next decade and a half.
And as the Biden administration releases its first budget, officials at the U.S. Defense Department are looking to the United Kingdom as a model, where the Defence Ministry is already envisioning deploying military planes, ships, and vehicles powered by sunlight and sustainable fuels in the near future. It’s a vision that British officials insist is all about building a stronger military, whereas many in the United States are jittery about a green military being less ready to take on China.
