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