Pavlich: When weapon shortages and climate change collide

Americans started last week by learning President Joe Biden approved the transfer of cluster bombs to the Ukrainian military, despite the weapons being banned by hundreds of countries and prone to cause excessive civilian casualties. 

While the U.S. is not a signatory to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which regulates and prohibits the use of these weapons, the move raised serious questions about the morality of the decision — especially given Biden’s administration previously called their use a “potential war crime.” 

“Experts warn that the likelihood of leaving behind dangerous unexploded material is dependent on several factors and potentially much higher than the Pentagon has estimated. The reality is that there is no such thing as a safe cluster bomb — and using or transferring them for use hurts the global effort to eradicate these dangerous munitions, taking us down the wrong path,” nearly two dozen House Democrats released in a statement condemning the move. “We can and will continue to support our Ukrainian allies’ defense against Russia’s aggression. However, that support does not require we undermine the United States’ leadership in advocating for human rights around the world, enable indiscriminate harm that will only further endanger Ukrainian civilians, or distance us from European partners in the conflict who are signatories to the U.N. Convention opposing cluster munitions.”

But another fact about the decision is cause for alarm. The cluster bombs are being transferred because other forms of ammunition and weaponry are in short supply. Worse, the U.S. can’t keep stockpiles resupplied due to slow manufacturing and lack of domestic production. 

“The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition. The ammunition that is, they call them 155 mm weapons. This is a war related to munitions and they’re running out of that ammunition and we’re low on it,” Biden revealed. 

“They are using artillery at a very accelerated rate…many thousands of rounds per day. This is literally a gunfight,” National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby added. “They’re running out of inventory. We are trying to ramp up our production of the kind of artillery shells that they’re using most but that production rate is still not where we want it to be.” 

The shortfall and slow production caught the eye of Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who highlighted U.S. vulnerability to steel supply chain issues due to an outsourcing to China. 

“The fact that we do not have enough conventional artillery to send Ukraine should be a wake up call. Most of the top 15 steel producers now are Chinese & we don’t have a single one. The US urgently needs a strategy to become a manufacturing superpower,” Khanna tweeted. 

But in order to ramp up domestic production of steel for weapons to defend the United States and American allies around the world, the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress are going to have to make a choice between their climate change agenda and national security. Their crusade to decarbonize is at odds with current steel production capabilities and therefore, the ability to produce mutations and replenish stockpiles. 

“As regulatory, investor, and consumer pressures amplify the urgency for industrial decarbonization, the steel industry faces increasing demands for real plans to reduce emissions,” the Boston Consulting Group published last year. “To meet the emissions reduction targets under discussion among regulators around the world, the steel industry would have to undertake a large-scale technological transformation that would affect the entire steel ecosystem. As noted earlier, companies have by and large avoided these approaches, which are not yet perfected, seem very disruptive, and could negatively impact growth.”

The production of steel is carbon intensive, clocking it at 9 percent of total global CO2 emissions. In addition to a few other economic reasons, steel production has been outsourced to China as environmental regulations on U.S. plants have become increasingly unworkable.

“Steelmaking is a truly global industry, and raw materials (such as iron ore and scrap) and steel products are traded globally to a large extent. Today, over 70% of global steel production takes place in Asia,” the World Steel Association states. “The production of steel remains a CO2 and energy-intensive activity.”

The realities of war and what it takes to produce weapons is slamming right into climate change delusions and President Biden’s foreign policy while putting the national security of the U.S. at severe risk.

And while some may argue wind energy does contribute to steel production, wind power certainly can’t produce enough energy on its own, not to mention at a fast pace, to produce the amount of steel necessary to resupply ourselves and allies in need. Not to mention becoming a steel manufacturing “superpower.” Only the use of oil can do that. 

Pavlich is the editor for Townhall.com and a Fox News contributor.