Speaker 1: Happy December and welcome back to the Climate Conversations. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Julie Yu. We are on a season break now,
Speaker 1: but during this time, we want to take you back
Speaker 1: to some of our best conversations on this show. In
Speaker 1: this episode, I chat with Richard Nui, a retired three
Speaker 1: star British general who tells us why climate change is
Speaker 1: the military's new enemy. His can
Speaker 1: accounts of soldiers battling extreme heat and suffering from dehydration
Speaker 1: shed light on the immediate consequences of our changing climate
Speaker 1: and he shares how the military is transitioning to be
Speaker 1: more sustainable. That's equally fascinating. Stay tuned next week as
Speaker 1: we bring you the best stories from this year's global
Speaker 1: climate summit. But for now, enjoy this episode. You're listening
Speaker 1: to AC N A podcast
Speaker 1: in the scorching heat of July 2003, British army officer,
Speaker 1: Richard Nui found himself in an unlikely battleground. A sweltering
Speaker 1: brick building that had once been Saddam Hussein's sons hideout.
Speaker 1: The harsh conditions were more than just uncomfortable. They revealed
Speaker 1: a startling truth, extreme weather as Nuj was learning could
Speaker 1: pose as much danger to soldiers as any enemy.
Speaker 1: I'm Julie Yu. And in the second episode of our
Speaker 1: surviving the sizzle series. We talked to someone who's navigated
Speaker 1: some of the world's hottest war zones.
Speaker 1: Lieutenant General Nui's extensive experience in conflict areas like Iraq,
Speaker 1: Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Afghanistan provides firsthand insight into the
Speaker 1: impact of rising temperatures on military operations.
Speaker 1: He shares his solutions for overcoming these challenges and discusses
Speaker 1: the military's role in climate change.
Speaker 1: General Nucci. Welcome to the climate conversations. It's a
Speaker 2: pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 1: In the intro, I briefly mentioned your dramatic experience commanding
Speaker 1: British troops in the sweltering heat of Iraq in 2003.
Speaker 1: Could you reflect on your experience then? Just how challenging
Speaker 1: was it and what was going through your
Speaker 2: mind? So I was in Iraq immediately after the war
Speaker 2: had finished and was into the peacekeeping operation.
Speaker 2: So we were living in an environment where we were
Speaker 2: having to live in tents or in whatever buildings we
Speaker 2: could find. And in fact, most of the troops were
Speaker 2: in a huge hangar and we had no way of
Speaker 2: getting out of the heat. It was more and more
Speaker 2: intense as the summer went on.
Speaker 2: And that was a problem because we found people dehydrating
Speaker 2: very fast. We had no way of cooling water. We
Speaker 2: used water bottles in socks that we would wet, say
Speaker 2: the water from the sock would cool the water inside
Speaker 2: in the bottle. We learned that from stories of what
Speaker 2: had happened in the western desert in the Second World War.
Speaker 2: So we were using very
Speaker 2: rude ways of staying cold. We did have showers which
Speaker 2: had water open to the elements. So you had about
Speaker 2: half an hour between the time when the water was
Speaker 2: cold and the water was too hot to use when
Speaker 2: it was a reasonable temperature. So everybody showered in that
Speaker 2: sort of half an hour. Otherwise, the water was just
Speaker 2: too hot because it was exposed to the sun. And
Speaker 2: for two weeks of the year,
Speaker 2: the Iraqis translated, it's called the cooker. Most of the
Speaker 2: wind comes from northern Iraq and it comes, it's very,
Speaker 2: very dry heat as it gets dried out across the desert.
Speaker 2: For two weeks of the year in the cooker, the
Speaker 2: wind switches and it comes across the Gulf and is very,
Speaker 2: very humid. So you've got intense humidity as well as very,
Speaker 2: very hot temperatures. I think it
Speaker 2: at 55 degrees, 54 degrees, something like that. And there
Speaker 2: you were constantly wet from sweat and even after you
Speaker 2: had a shower and you dried yourself, you were immediately
Speaker 2: completely covered in sweat again. So it was an interesting experience.
Speaker 2: It just
Speaker 1: shows how demanding the extreme the situation can be. And
Speaker 1: for many of us who aren't familiar about what goes
Speaker 1: on in the ground
Speaker 1: operations, just how badly can heat affect a soldier's physical
Speaker 1: and also mental health and ultimately operational effectiveness
Speaker 2: without proper acclimatization. And without proper equipment, heat can take
Speaker 2: a very big toll. We had a number of soldiers
Speaker 2: put into hospital. I had a battle group of just
Speaker 2: over 1000
Speaker 2: soldiers just south of Basra. We used 100 and 80
Speaker 2: saline drips because people had dehydrated so much, we had
Speaker 2: to send two people back to the UK with heat stroke.
Speaker 2: They were considered in too much danger if they stayed
Speaker 2: in Iraq. So there's a purely physical side which is
Speaker 2: people dehydrating and therefore less able to do their jobs,
Speaker 2: either because they're in hospital or because they've been sent home.
Speaker 2: There's also a psychological side in that. I mean, one
Speaker 2: of my soldiers he dehydrated despite the fact that he
Speaker 2: had drunk 16 bottles of water in one day. And actually,
Speaker 2: what he did is he washed the salts out of
Speaker 2: his system
Speaker 2: out of his body. So we were taking extra salts,
Speaker 2: we brought in bananas because they're very good for potassium.
Speaker 2: And we're trying to find ways when there was no
Speaker 2: way of getting out of the heat trying to find
Speaker 2: ways of keeping people as cool as possible. And of course,
Speaker 2: when you add body armor and helmets and carrying a
Speaker 2: rifle all the time, it makes it a bit more difficult.
Speaker 2: But the psychological side
Speaker 2: it is. And I've seen this on a number of
Speaker 2: reports that soldiers became quite demotivated. So it became an
Speaker 2: additional leadership challenge to persuade people to go out in
Speaker 2: the heat and to operate in the heat. There's an
Speaker 2: English phrase. It's part of a joke which is mad dogs.
Speaker 2: And Englishmen are the only people out in the midday sun.
Speaker 2: And when we were patrolling in the middle of the
Speaker 2: city of Azerbaijan, which at the time had about a
Speaker 2: million people. Now, as I understand has about 2 million
Speaker 2: people in it.
Speaker 2: But we were literally the only people out there apart
Speaker 2: from mad dogs. So it was true. It isn't just
Speaker 2: a joke. And that's because the heat is too intense.
Speaker 1: I mean, these experiences you were talking about, it happens
Speaker 1: more than 1020 years ago, they were already unbearable back then.
Speaker 1: So how are things now? Has it gotten noticeably hotter
Speaker 1: and more extreme compared to previous
Speaker 2: years? So I was reading about safes, which was a
Speaker 2: big exercise that the British Army did in 2019. So
Speaker 2: only four years ago in Amman where we had five
Speaker 2: 1000 troops on an exercise there and the temperature peaked
Speaker 2: at 54 degrees consistently. This is very, very hot temperatures
Speaker 2: indeed to be able to operate. And there we were
Speaker 2: operating the tanks and armored vehicles get incredibly hot and
Speaker 2: really stuffy inside and that can be very, very damaging
Speaker 2: if you don't take care. But interestingly, the number of
Speaker 2: heat casualties they had was significantly lower than they expected.
Speaker 2: And that's because we've learned
Speaker 2: about acclimatization. We've learned about keeping water cold and have
Speaker 2: now got the equipment to operate in those sorts of
Speaker 2: environments to a much greater extent than we had in
Speaker 2: 2003 in Iraq. So in a sense that this sounds
Speaker 2: a really stupid thing to say, but the heat caught
Speaker 2: us slightly by surprise in Iraq, the intensity of the heat,
Speaker 2: but also our unpreparedness for it because we hadn't fought
Speaker 2: in those conditions for a very, very long time.
Speaker 2: Now that we've had a lot of experience of fighting
Speaker 2: in those conditions. We understand the importance of keeping the
Speaker 2: core temperature of the body cold and that's either through
Speaker 2: air conditioned tents or through keeping water cold as opposed to.
Speaker 2: And I have a personal loathing now of warm water.
Speaker 2: I can't drink warm water because that's what I did
Speaker 2: for sort of months on end in Iraq. But we
Speaker 2: did eventually towards the end of our time, get air
Speaker 2: conditioned tents
Speaker 2: in Iraq. So it came in quite fast in real terms.
Speaker 2: But my battle group basically went to sleep for 24 hours.
Speaker 2: It's the first time they had been able to sleep
Speaker 2: properly in cool conditions in the four or five months
Speaker 2: that we'd been there. And that again, it shows how
Speaker 2: tired we were just from coping with the heat. But
Speaker 2: I think the heat is going to get worse. But
Speaker 2: now that people understand this more, the chances are that
Speaker 2: we will be able to cope with it better because
Speaker 2: we
Speaker 2: more experience of it.
Speaker 1: You briefly mentioned military installation and equipment also being exposed
Speaker 1: to the heat. Any challenges there? I've read a very
Speaker 1: interesting article where you talked about rising sea temperature causing
Speaker 1: warship engines to cut out
Speaker 2: all large engines and ships are cooled by the seawater
Speaker 2: around them. And that's the cooling mechanism. You take the
Speaker 2: water from the sea, you put it around the engine
Speaker 2: and then spit it out at the back and it
Speaker 2: is constant cold water
Speaker 2: cools the engine. The scientists who I was speaking to
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago were predicting that surface sea
Speaker 2: temperatures by about 2030 in the Gulf would be anywhere
Speaker 2: between 38 and 40 degrees. Occasionally hitting 40 degrees, 40
Speaker 2: degrees is hotter than a bath that is not going
Speaker 2: to cool the engine. And what we found was that
Speaker 2: actually even now with water temperatures, not at that level,
Speaker 2: but higher than we would expect, it limits the ability
Speaker 2: of the engine on ship.
Speaker 2: So that's one example. The other example is helicopters. It
Speaker 2: is well known that the hotter it is the more
Speaker 2: difficult it is for helicopters to take load and take
Speaker 2: off with load because the air is thinner. And so
Speaker 2: this combination of very hot air in environments will make
Speaker 2: our helicopters and our aircraft take much longer to get
Speaker 2: up into the air. If it's aircraft, we need longer
Speaker 2: runways in some respects. But also it is going to
Speaker 2: mean that we can take less load per helicopter.
Speaker 2: Those sorts of things are significant for militaries because our logistic,
Speaker 2: if you like rules of thumb, the measures we operate
Speaker 2: by are changing as a result of the climate. And
Speaker 1: general Aston military anticipates more climate related crises. We're not
Speaker 1: just talking about heat, we're talking about cold storms, typhoons.
Speaker 1: I mean, what kind of plans and strategies are in
Speaker 1: place to protect soldiers during training and operations?
Speaker 2: It's a very good point that I think every academic
Speaker 2: piece of research
Speaker 2: that I have seen suggests that there are going to
Speaker 2: be more environmental disasters. We are seeing this now across
Speaker 2: the world. The amount of wildfires in Canada has, for
Speaker 2: example has absolutely rocketed. So there's going to be more
Speaker 2: requirement for troops and there is a list of some
Speaker 2: 15 to 20 countries this year whose troops have already
Speaker 2: been used to support humanitarian assistance and disaster relief at
Speaker 2: the expense, of course of their job
Speaker 2: to do, which is to defend their nations. So you've
Speaker 2: got a distraction from troops so that can lead to
Speaker 2: two things. One is you can build that into a
Speaker 2: force which is specifically designed around humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
Speaker 2: That's an idea that is gaining favor in a number
Speaker 2: of countries that you have. If you like an independent
Speaker 2: force who are just humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and
Speaker 2: they are troops that could be used in extremists. But
Speaker 2: their primary role is assistance rather than fighting.
Speaker 2: But there's another side to that, which is understanding the
Speaker 2: equipment needed for the adaptation that we can help in
Speaker 2: terms of building defenses against climate change. We can try
Speaker 2: and mitigate some of the worst excesses and the military
Speaker 2: are very good at doing that rather than changing the
Speaker 2: way we operate. But it's both, there's lots and lots
Speaker 2: of things that we can do to try and make
Speaker 2: ourselves more professional at dealing with what is coming down
Speaker 2: the road to us, which is more environmental difficulties.
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Speaker 1: any technological advancements or materials being explored to enhance the
Speaker 1: comfort and well being of soldiers.
Speaker 2: So we're doing an awful lot in trying to make
Speaker 2: sure that the load on an individual in heat particularly
Speaker 2: is minimized as much as possible.
Speaker 2: The moment technologies such as Kevlar, which is used in
Speaker 2: body armor. It is of a particular property. It stops
Speaker 2: a lot of ballistic shrapnel and so on and the
Speaker 2: ceramic plates will stop bullets, but it is heavy and
Speaker 2: there's physical properties which you can't get away from at
Speaker 2: the moment. So, whilst we're looking for new technologies and
Speaker 2: so on at the moment,
Speaker 2: we have to protect our people to make sure they
Speaker 2: can fight at the same time as being able to operate.
Speaker 2: So it becomes a tactical. How long do you put
Speaker 2: them on patrol for in an ideal world rather than
Speaker 2: a technical, but we're trying to reduce weight as well.
Speaker 1: You've discussed climate change with various individuals in the military
Speaker 1: hierarchy which say that the nature of the threat and
Speaker 1: how militaries respond to it
Speaker 2: changing. So I think climate change brings different threats and
Speaker 2: it brings different consequences which manifests itself as a type
Speaker 2: of security threat such as terrorism as in the breakdown
Speaker 2: of law and order in countries. And there are various
Speaker 2: other aspects of how a country operates, which can be
Speaker 2: very badly damaged by climate change. I mean,
Speaker 2: take Pakistan as an example, the third of Pakistan was
Speaker 2: underwater due to the floods and that affected the military.
Speaker 2: A lot of the military were trying to clear up
Speaker 2: the mess the floods caused. But I think there are
Speaker 2: other aspects of geopolitical importance and geostrategic importance such as
Speaker 2: the melting of the Arctic that is leading to potential
Speaker 2: conflict areas or tension areas, the race for minerals and
Speaker 2: raw materials
Speaker 2: underneath the Arctic which at the moment isn't mined at all.
Speaker 2: So there are different threats that are being climate change
Speaker 2: is allowing the opportunities to develop. Certainly
Speaker 1: the warming planet exacerbating the existing conflicts and also creating
Speaker 1: new ones as well. And general, I want to talk
Speaker 1: more about your climate journey. At the end of your
Speaker 1: 36 year military career, you decided to take on a
Speaker 1: pretty different enemy. And that's climate change,
Speaker 1: pivotal moment or was it accumulation of all your experiences
Speaker 1: that shaped your perspective? So a bit of
Speaker 2: base, obviously, my experience in Iraq was very, it's sort
Speaker 2: of seared on my brain. So how difficult it was
Speaker 2: to operate in those conditions. But actually, I've been interested
Speaker 2: in this subject for a very long time. I sat
Speaker 2: my last four years, I was head of personnel for
Speaker 2: the whole of the British Defense environment. And climate change
Speaker 2: was never mentioned.
Speaker 2: And I felt that it wasn't so much that I
Speaker 2: knew all the answers. I absolutely didn't, but at the
Speaker 2: very least we should be asking the questions I asked
Speaker 2: to do the report because I felt that defense should
Speaker 2: try and understand and I it was a voyage of
Speaker 2: discovery for me as well, but try and understand. Why
Speaker 2: would defense be interested in climate change? Why would security
Speaker 2: be an issue for climate change because it was, we
Speaker 2: don't really need to worry about that sort of approach
Speaker 2: from UK defense, but also from many other countries as well.
Speaker 2: That actually defense was not really engaging with climate change
Speaker 2: at all. And my report basically said there will be different,
Speaker 2: as I've just said, there will be different security threats
Speaker 2: that we need to be aware of and start to
Speaker 2: prepare for, there will be problems for our equipment that
Speaker 2: we need to be aware of and should prepare for.
Speaker 2: And then there's a whole acceptance of society that defense
Speaker 2: produces emissions and how long
Speaker 2: society, particularly in Europe going to accept that their defense
Speaker 2: forces do nothing about their emissions. And I argued that actually,
Speaker 2: I don't have a crystal ball but there will come
Speaker 2: a time when if we as a country has to
Speaker 2: by law reach net zero by 2050 when people turn
Speaker 2: around and say, why is defense contributing so much to
Speaker 2: the emissions without doing anything about it and start to
Speaker 2: limit what we can do? And my whole piece was
Speaker 2: actually defense
Speaker 2: must make the right decisions. Otherwise somebody will make the
Speaker 2: decisions for defense which will not be in defense's interest.
Speaker 2: And that's a very difficult awkward place to
Speaker 1: be. You mentioned that military forces are not necessarily a
Speaker 1: tree hugging environmentalist. Could you
Speaker 2: elaborate in peacetime with our peacetime conditions? The UK and
Speaker 2: I use the UK as an example. We're about 1
Speaker 2: to 2% of the UK S emissions in war, it
Speaker 2: goes out of all, out of all proportion. So
Speaker 2: the assessment from the Ukraine Russian war is that that
Speaker 2: war in the first, I think it was nine months,
Speaker 2: put something like 100 million tons of co two emissions
Speaker 2: into the atmosphere. This is very large amounts and war
Speaker 2: does that the war is very damaging to the climate.
Speaker 2: So there's that side of it, which is about emissions,
Speaker 2: but there's another side to it, which is that actually
Speaker 2: almost every nation that has an army has training areas.
Speaker 2: Those training areas
Speaker 2: very often are very wide open expanses of land that
Speaker 2: could be used if the temperate climates are right to
Speaker 2: enhance our carbon sequestration, enhance our ability to offset if
Speaker 2: you like the emissions that we use, but only if
Speaker 2: we treat them properly and try and maximize the carbon
Speaker 2: sequestration potential. And I think that therefore an understanding of
Speaker 2: that becomes really quite
Speaker 2: important because we have a duty. I would argue to
Speaker 2: use our land most effectively. Yes, of course, for training,
Speaker 2: but also if possible to sequester carbon that will depend
Speaker 2: on the environment. Of course,
Speaker 1: what other kinds of climate conscious military strategies would you
Speaker 1: say would prove effective or have proven effective so far?
Speaker 1: Any notable success stories or positive outcomes resulting from your
Speaker 1: work so far?
Speaker 2: I'm really heartened. I
Speaker 2: at least my whole argument on two aspects and a
Speaker 2: lot of the sort of the more radical environmentalists really
Speaker 2: don't like me when I say this, but there were
Speaker 2: two basic parameters that I wanted to try and get
Speaker 2: across the military of any country have a very clear purpose.
Speaker 2: It is to defend the citizens of that country or
Speaker 2: protect the citizens of that country. That's, that's our whole job.
Speaker 2: That's why we're there as our primary purpose. Yeah, there
Speaker 2: is little point in making a military less good than
Speaker 2: it can be.
Speaker 2: I've always argued if you can be the greenest, the navy,
Speaker 2: the greenest air force and the greenest army in the world.
Speaker 2: But if you come second in a battle, you come
Speaker 2: second in a battle. And if you're going to come
Speaker 2: second in a battle, there's almost no point in trying. Now,
Speaker 2: that's a very black and white argument. And of course,
Speaker 2: it's not as simple as that. It would never be
Speaker 2: as simple as that. But the idea is that actually
Speaker 2: we should try and optimize our capability. So what I
Speaker 2: have persuaded the UK defense is that there are new
Speaker 2: technologies that are available which optimize
Speaker 2: our capability. They make us better as a force. But
Speaker 2: these equipments and these technologies have been designed to try
Speaker 2: and reduce emissions and designed to try and combat climate change,
Speaker 2: but we're using them to enhance our capability. And there's
Speaker 2: a very good example of that. We've got some experience
Speaker 2: with some hybrid armored vehicles and hybrid patrol vehicles, not
Speaker 2: yet fully electric because that technology doesn't exist yet. But hybrid,
Speaker 2: which means that when we're on battery power, we are
Speaker 2: completely stealthy. There's no emissions, there's no heat coming from
Speaker 2: the engine and there's no noise. So we are just
Speaker 2: much better at stealthy patrol when we're on battery power.
Speaker 2: The other most interesting thing was that when we experimented,
Speaker 2: we found our soldiers were more alert because their senses
Speaker 2: weren't being dulled by both the vibration of the engine
Speaker 2: and by the noise of the engine and by the fumes.
Speaker 2: So what you've got is you've got more alert soldiers
Speaker 2: in a more stealthy environment for those particular vehicles, which
Speaker 2: means that they're better on the battlefield.
Speaker 2: So there's an example where by getting hybrids and if
Speaker 2: we went all electric, if that technology existed, we've actually
Speaker 2: created a better outcome, but we've also reduced our emissions
Speaker 2: very significantly. That's fascinating. So finding those technologies that both
Speaker 2: reduce emissions, but actually at the same time, make us
Speaker 2: better or save us lots of money. So the British
Speaker 2: Army is investing a lot of money in 76 solar
Speaker 2: farms on its bases where we are going
Speaker 2: to reduce our electricity bill by over a third actually.
Speaker 2: And we're going to have our own supply of electricity. Now,
Speaker 2: that's really good from a cash point of view, it's
Speaker 2: also really good from a resilience point of view. So
Speaker 2: that if for whatever reason, the National grid was brought
Speaker 2: down by a cyber attack or something like that, we'd
Speaker 2: still have electricity and as a military force having that
Speaker 2: self sufficiency and resilience is a really good idea. It
Speaker 2: sounds
Speaker 1: like an ultimate vision of intersection of military preparedness,
Speaker 1: environmental stewardship, as well as security in the face of
Speaker 1: climate change in general to wrap up. What sort of
Speaker 1: advice would you offer to other military leaders worldwide that
Speaker 1: aim to incorporate climate considerations into their
Speaker 2: strategies? I think it's really straightforward. The first thing is
Speaker 2: to understand how climate change is going to affect at
Speaker 2: the strategic level, the way that countries are going to
Speaker 2: operate and what opportunities and threats come directly from climate
Speaker 2: change. So understand your enemy. But the second one is
Speaker 2: try and enhance your force by taking advantage of the
Speaker 2: new technologies. I am a huge fan of the innovation
Speaker 2: that is going into the world to try and combat
Speaker 2: climate change. There is a lot of innovation. Of course,
Speaker 2: it's not fast enough. Of course, we need to do more.
Speaker 2: We as the military should be taking on that new
Speaker 2: technology as well and enhancing our force in order to
Speaker 2: be able to operate better. So my advice is understand
Speaker 2: and act, don't wait for it all to be to happen,
Speaker 2: act now and learn and build your force as a
Speaker 2: more effective force, but one with fewer emissions as well.
Speaker 2: Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. General nue your experience. And a perspective
Speaker 1: are indeed invaluable in guiding this essential transformation going forward.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for your time. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks to my guests and thanks to everyone for
Speaker 1: tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode and do
Speaker 1: remember to like and subscribe to this podcast. So, you know,
Speaker 1: when the new episode drops, leave us a message on
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Speaker 1: think the team behind this podcast, Issy and Nguyen, Jacqueline
Speaker 1: Chen Joanne Chen Tiffany Yang, Crispina Robert and I'm Julie
Speaker 1: Yu signing off.