The second annual Week of Action for Peace & Climate Justice will address the links between war, militarism/militarisation and social, economic and climate injustice. It will promote grassroots action and policymaking to confront both genocide and ecocide – for peace and a just systemic transition. This year, we’re joining a global mobilisation effort, uniting movements across the world for a collective show of strength, solidarity, resistance and celebration. Together, we call on world leaders to take urgent and decisive action for a safe, just, and peaceful future for people and the planet.

• Toolkit for action – Peace & Climate Justice 
• Toolkit for action – Draw the Line
• Google Drive folder with all Week of Action resources: logos, recommended resources on peace and climate justice links, social media materials and press release (updated continuously) 
• Spreadsheet of all 2025 events and actions – input yours here too (or use the form on the right)!
• Global Week of Action 2025 poster: Demilitarise For The Just Transition! 
• Resource page on war, militarism and ecosocial justice  
• Draw the Line September Mobilisation Moment Website
• This World is Ours Global Mobilisations Website

The Week of Action for Peace and Climate Justice is being facilitated by a sub-committee of the Arms, Militarism and Climate Justice Working Group, including International Peace Bureau (IPB), Peace Boat, Stop Wapenhandel, War Resisters International (WRI), Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR), The Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) and Transnational Institute (TNI). The wider global mobilisation effort taking place in September (see website here) is coordinated in part by the Climate Action Network (CAN), 350.org, Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD), War on Want, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) and the Climate Clock. For more information, please email weekofaction AT climatemilitarism.org 

The Week of Action for Peace and Climate Justice was launched in 2024 and runs yearly, involving a wide range of events and actions organised by groups around the world, from webinars to advocacy events to digital publications to demonstrations. 

Working together, we will:

• Raise public awareness of the links between war, militarism/militarisation, social and climate injustice;
• Build connections between peace, climate and justice movements;
• And build momentum for collective action and policy making against militarism and for social and climate justice.

You can take part in the Week of Action from anywhere, by organising your own event, publication or action for peace and climate justice, or by promoting existing campaigns that address the WoA themes. Use the key resources above, especially the toolkit, to help you plan your event/action, and contact us for any other support.

Militarism can be understood as “the preparation for war, its normalisation and legitimation.” (Read more here) 

Just transition refers to local to global shifts from extractive to regenerative social and economic relations, in which healthy economies and healthy environments co-exist. These shifts must ensure a fair transition for frontline communities: both those most affected by pollution and workers in polluting industries. (Read more here)

War and militarism are causing climate breakdown and consuming essential resources needed to address social, climate and ecological crises. Next to taking lives and devastating whole communities, the build-up and use of armed force destroys lands and ecosystems, polluting waters, soils and air and leaving behind toxic remnants and unexploded weapons that cause harm to generations long after conflicts end. The world’s militaries account for 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions: if they were a country, they would be the world’s fourth largest national emitter. And still, militaries remain exempt from global reporting and reduction agreements. Further, military industries depend on vast amounts of metals, minerals and fossil fuels; the US military is the single largest institutional fossil fuel consumer in the world. Indeed, fossil-energy fuels both wars and climate disaster – and the shareholders profiting from fossil fuel extraction are closely linked with those profiting from global arms, mining and tech industries. Together, they drive global violence and injustice. 

But some people argue militarism is part of the solution: that we need harder borders, more arms and bigger armies to cope with climate breakdown. They claim that war can be made green – but this is a false solution. Today’s escalation of armed, social and ecological harms share systemic roots and must be tackled together. Ecologies of harm require ecologies of resistance. 

And we do have alternatives that can both protect ourselves and the planet. It is vital that movements for peace, social and climate justice understand the connections between our causes and work together for a world that values the safety and wellbeing of everyone; foregrounding people and planet over power and profit. No climate justice without social justice and neither without demilitarisation! 

In September, world leaders will meet at the UN General Assembly — just six weeks before the UN Climate Conference COP30 in Brazil. We are at a crossroads. 2025 must be a turning point for a just transition, for peace, and for real democracy. Right now, powerful governments are sliding toward authoritarianism, engaging in brinkmanship and reversing decades of progress. Multilateral commitments to climate action as well as arms control and disarmament are being weakened or abandoned. Big Business – including fossil fuel, arms, tech, mining and agrifood companies – and their lobbyists have more influence than the people. Frontline communities suffer the most — yet are shut out of the decisions that shape their lives. Leaders should take direction from communities, not corporations. 

This is our moment to draw the line — and take back our future from those who profit by destroying it.

This September, thousands will take to the streets as part of a global justice mobilisation to draw this line. From mass rallies to strikes, walkouts and information campaigns, people everywhere are preparing to take action — against injustice, pollution, and violence, and for a future built on peace, clean energy, and fairness.

Joining in this effort, The Week of Action for Peace and Climate Justice is answering the climate movement’s call to organise a globally coordinated mobilisation moment, September 15-21st 2025, to tell polluters and world leaders that This world is ours! And together we will Resist, Reclaim and Rise up for System Change! 

COP29 in Baku (2024) ended with the Least Developed Countries (suffering the worst impacts of climate breakdown) declaring global climate negotiations a “betrayal“, as the world’s richest countries (those most responsible for climate breakdown) failed to deliver an ambitious climate finance goal and comprehensive support for adaptation and loss and damage. Meanwhile, there always seems to be money for war. In 2024 global military spending rose for the 10th year in a row, reaching a record high of $2.72 trillion: an increase of 9.4% in real terms from 2023 and the steepest year-on-year rise since the end of the cold war. NATO states are responsible for more than half of this spending, totalling $1,51 trillion in 2024 – while the five biggest spenders globally include the US, China, Russia, Germany and India. Military spending is a significant driver of resource and energy use, and thus of carbon emissions. 

2024 was also the hottest year on record, followed by more record temperatures and unprecedented forest fires, floods and extreme weather events in 2025. Experts agree that we are looking to breach the 1.5 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures from pre-industrial levels by 2030. And yet, amid escalating climate change effects and their disastrous toll on social and economic wellbeing, governments across the globe are militarising at pace. Over the course of 2024 and 2025, a majority of NATO and EU states have committed to historic increases in military spending while gutting public funds for real climate and biodiversity action, overseas aid, social welfare, migrant justice, civil society and peacebuilding. This trend is echoed globally and, indeed, has global consequences for people and planetary health. If NATO states would meet the spending target of 5% of GDP accepted by almost all members at the June 2025 NATO Summit, they would divert $19 trillion to military build-up by 2030. Estimates suggest that this would generate an extra 2,760 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2) over the next five years – that is, more carbon emissions than the combined annual emissions of Brazil and Japan. 

We need to invest in building a safer and fairer world in the long-term, rather than in fueling armed violence, social disaster and climate breakdown. It is time to move the money from militarisation to just forms of social security and climate action. It is time to break the ties with military and fossil power, for the world’s wealthiest to reckon with colonialism and make progress on reparations for loss and damage. It is time to rally behind a system-wide, rapid and equitable transition toward just, truly sustainable and regenerative global and national economies and societies. A just transition leaves no one behind – including those caught up polluting industries, from arms to fossil fuels. Groups are welcome to focus on the linkages between peace and climate justice that are most important to them in their actions, but we invite people to unite behind a common demand to divest from war – invest in the just transition! 

Reduce and redirect military spending to meet social and climate needs

Stop global arms races 

Reinforce multilateral cooperation and promote disarmament and diplomacy over deterrence 

We refuse to let polluters and billionaires dictate our future

We refuse to let states and corporations profit from war and genocide

We draw the line against militarisation and ecosocial destruction 

We demand demilitarised climate justice

We demand common security and people and planetary wellbeing 

We demand a just transition away from armed, social and ecological violence

The first-ever Global Week of Action for Peace & Climate Justice in 2024 brought together activists, students, researchers, and communities from every corner of the globe to demand an end to the militarised systems fuelling climate breakdown. Over the course of just one week — from 21 to 28 September — more than 60 coordinated events took place across at least 20 countries and five continents, creating a global wave of awareness and action. From India to Mexico, Sweden to Malawi, Australia to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and from Tokyo to New York, both in person and online, participants demonstrated that peace and climate justice are inseparable, and that both require bold action to confront militarism. (Read more here)

Contact: weekofaction@climatemilitarism.org