Wars are affecting the environment

One of the worst environmental disasters Tehran experienced recently was when its oil refineries and depots were hit by US and Israeli jets. Thick black smoke billowed into the sky, making day seem more like night. Toxic rain mixed with oil fell from the air, while a central boulevard was lined by a wall of flame. The explosion released large quantity of toxic hydrocarbon and sulfur and nitrogen oxides.

While residents were confined inside their homes, they could barely breathe. Highly acidic rainfall could further cause chemical burns to the skin and has the potential to damage the lungs severely. Despite rain dispersing much of the pollutants, the smell of the smoke was quite intense. The intensifying war in the middle East has sent energy prices soaring and led to global economic uncertainty. It is a repeat of what the region had experienced in the 1990s. Iraq’s then president Saddam Hussain had blown up 700 Kuwaiti oil wells during the first Gulf war. It took more than ten months to extinguish the fire, that too after using sea water. This was the third biggest environmental disaster after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the Bhopal gas tragedy.

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The fire in Kuwaiti oil wells that burned for ten months and threw pollutants across the region had also caused black snow in the distant Himalayas. It impacted the Indian monsoon in that period. Turkey, Bulgaria and Pakistan, too, experienced black rains. Environmental damage in Kuwait was severe and experts estimated that it would take at least hundred years to recover. Ninety per cent of Kuwaiti soil was contaminated. Use of sea water to extinguish the fire added salinity to the soil. The firefighters engaged in putting out the fire suffered from severe health issues.

Medical experts, who examined the lungs of firefighters, said that each of them had smoked for three years at the rate of three packs of cigarettes a day. It was a huge environmental and health cost to the nation. The recent hits by the US and Israel on one side and Iran on the other on energy infrastructure, oil refineries, oil-stocks and ships transporting oil in Iran, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel and UAE ensures that the environmental damage is aggravated. The recovery of Kuwaiti soil certainly gets postponed by another century. The black rains that followed in Tehran in the recent conflict contain all atmospheric pollutants.

The environment is choked with the pollutants released from the burning of heavy fuel – a low quality byproduct of oil refining, and these are methylene chloride, benzene and acetone. We should be aware that benzene causes cancer. Whenever there is a fire in huge quantity of oil, the combustion is incomplete and unburnt particles are released in the atmosphere to trigger human health risks. In contrast, combustion inside a car engine is always complete. Oil also contains sulphur and nitrogen, which are oxidized in burning and result in formation of oxides.

The oxides reacting with moisture bring acid rains. The sulphuric, sulphurous, nitrous and nitric acids come along with rains, which can immediately cause irritation in human eyes and throat. The water finding its way into the drainage system makes surface and underground water hazardous for aquatic and human life. ‘Scientists for Global Responsibility’, a UK-based organization have estimated that 5 per cent of annual global emission, equivalent to 520 Mega tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, is caused by burning of fossil fuel in defense sectors across the globe.

The emissions arise from intensive fossil fuel reliance in military operations, transport and supply chains. The US military is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. In addition to this, wars cause massive emissions through direct combustion, infrastructure destruction, land and sea mines and fire in the landscape. The Strait of Hormuz connecting the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman is identified as an energy choke point, through which one-fifth of global requirement of crude-oil and gas pass. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps along with the country’s traditional navy control movement of ships through this strait, and have capability to deploy a ‘gauntlet’ of dispersed mine laying craft, explosive laden boats, and shore-based missile batteries.

The laying of mines in the sea can damage the environment and remains as a threat to aquatic life. The missiles and drones that are intercepted generate chemical laden debris, which fall on the agriculture lands on the outskirts of military and oil infrastructure locations. Aided by the fire on the land, the chemicals remain in the soil and bring down agriculture productivity considerably. In Russia’s war in Ukraine’s Donbass region, forests have been destroyed and set on fire for facilitating operations. It has considerable environmental consequences.

Trees are known to use carbon dioxide in ‘photosynthesis’ and when burned/ destroyed, the gas is emitted back in the atmosphere – a double whammy. Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was hit leading to power outage, when the population faced severe winter at minus 20 degree Celsius. They had no option but to burn coal and wood to keep themselves warm. This too caused environmental degradation. ‘Scientists for Global Responsibility’ have estimated that 254 Mega tons of carbon dioxide equivalent was emitted in US’s aggression in Iraq, 32 Megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent was emitted in Israel’s 15-month long Gaza war and 340 Megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent has been emitted in four years of Russian aggression in Ukraine.

To put it in prospective, the greenhouse gases emitted in the Russia-Ukraine war so far has been equal to the annual emission from France. The warming planet has been the cause of climatic catastrophes and disrupts the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable populations. Some island nations located between the tropic of Cancer and tropic of Capricorn face existential threats and may disappear under the sea if the planet warms by 2 degrees Celsius with reference to average global temperature since industrialization begun. World leaders have a responsibility to follow the advice from scientists and to transition away from fossil fuel burning by developing renewable energy at peed and scale. They should also understand the contribution of war in global emission and avoid targeting oil/ energy infrastructures.

(The writer is former Head of Forest Force, Karnataka.)