Since late February, thousands of US and Israeli bombs, missiles, and drones have struck Iran’s oil refineries, military bases, and industrial zones. Iran has responded with retaliatory strikes on targets in Israel and across the Gulf, including the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain. Within days, analysis warned that energy itself had become a central battleground.
Patrick Bigger, co-author of a study on the war by the Climate Change Institute, described the conflict as transforming the Middle East into a vast “environmental sacrifice zone.” In just 14 days of fighting, over 5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases were emitted. If sustained for a year, this would total 131 million tonnes, comparable to the annual emissions of a fossil fuel driven economy like Kuwait, or more starkly, the 84 lowest emitting countries combined.
The largest share of emissions came not from weapons themselves but in repairing the damage. According to the Iranian Red Crescent, more than 20,000 civilian buildings were damaged in the first two weeks of fighting, generating an estimated 2.4 million tonnes of greenhouse gases.
Fuel consumption came second, with US heavy bombers flying thousands of miles to Iran from as far as England. Alongside support vessels, vehicles produced roughly 529,000 tonnes of emissions. Aircraft losses and military hardware also carry significant costs: the destruction of aircrafts, naval vessels, and missile launchers on both sides generated a gross total of 170,000 tonnes of emissions in those two weeks.
These figures remain uncertain. Effective monitoring has been hampered by the frequency and speed of the attacks on either side, and the situation is worsened by Iran’s refusal to release environmental data and its current constraints on local reporting, particularly since environmental activism is often associated with espionage and thus met with suspicion.
What we can be sure of however, is the upheaval this war has caused in Iran’s climate. This was most striking when Iranians witnessed black rain falling from the sky, caused by Israel bombing four major storage depots. Millions of litres of fuel was set ablaze, and an estimated 1.88 million tonnes of emissions was released. Authorities urged residents to remain indoors as thick plumes of soot, sulphur compounds and oil particles filled the air, before dissolving and falling as black acidic rain.
The immediate health consequences of the war have been severe: a Greenpeace study reported that an estimated 10 million Iranians have reported trouble breathing during the bombing, alongside chemical burns and increased cardiovascular risks when particles enter the bloodstream.
The conflict has made clear that the environmental consequences of war are not incidental, but structural and tactical. As Patrick Bigger argues, the ‘fastest way to supercharge the climate crisis is to let fossil fuel interests dictate foreign policy’. History shows that disruptions to fuel supplies intensifies nations’ dependence on oil, leading to increased drilling and stockpiling.
Organisations such as Greenpeace have used the war to suggest that “renewables are a security imperative.” They note the difficulty to bomb or blockade a decentralised network of solar panels or wind farms, and thus keep hospitals, homes and schools functioning when national infrastructure is attacked. These renewable sources are also largely immune to fuel price shock, geopolitics and shipping disruptions. As the world becomes an increasingly volatile place, the climate impact of warfare is becoming increasingly relevant.
Photo by Moslem Daneshzadeh on Unsplash