The Iran War: A Great Carbon Emitter

Truth may well be the first casualty of war, but death, injury and environmental degradation are bound to be keeping up in the hit lists.  Attacks on gas fields, oil refineries and petrochemical plants will always leave an impression once the conflict concludes.  In the case of carbon emissions, the most challenging obstacle in collective efforts to stay the rise of the earth’s temperatures, the Iran War is doing much to throw everything out of kilter.

The gloomy modelling from the Climate and Community Institute shows that the first fortnight of the Iran War, which began on February 28 as a crime against peace pursued by Israel and the United States, produced some 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.  To get a sense of proportion, the carbon pollution exceeded that of Iceland in one year.  The institute, in arriving at such figures, considered the carbon emissions arising from destroyed homes and buildings, destroyed fuel, the fuel used in combat and support operations, equipment embodied carbon (equipment lost) and missiles and drones.

To give a sense of the granular detail, a Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter consumes roughly 5,600 to 6,500 litres of fuel during a single combat sortie lasting one-and-a-half to two hours.  The emission of carbon dioxide during such a mission is approximately that of 14-17 tonnes, the lifespan of a conventional passenger vehicle.  The company behind the production of the F-35 has also admitted that its sold products, in 2024, produced just under 14 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents.

The authors of the Climate and Community Institute report further note that carbon costs will only rise in sharp fashion if the war persists.  Three reasons are postulated, and these do not even include such issues as the re-routing of commercial aviation traffic.  Firstly, as US and Israeli arsenals suffer depletion, “embodied emissions of building new weapons, along with fuel used to deliver them to the region, will rise.”  Secondly, the targeting of oil infrastructure in the region will result in the uncontrollable emission of fossil fuels, as what took place during the Gulf War.  Thirdly, the deployment of more naval vessels by other states to the Middle East, including France and the United Kingdom, ostensibly to protect their interests, will increase “emissions via [a] ‘defensive’ posture.”

Things do not end there.  The current obsession of the Trump administration’s pursuit of “energy dominance” will only see more fossil fuel production for reasons of energy security.  Reconstruction in the aftermath of the war will also cause emissions.  “Reconstructing infrastructure in the impacted region of 14 countries from Cypress to Azerbaijan – including homes, roads, hospitals, schools, oil and transport infrastructure – is not only costly but carbon intensive.”  The authors note with grim awareness that the emissions arising from rebuilding Gaza and Lebanon after the conflict “will produce at least 24 times more than the emissions from the war alone.”

Other conflicts have also been appalling emitters.  The hefty carbon footprint of the first 15 months of Israel’s campaign in Gaza arising from direct war activities, according to a multi-authored study published in April last year, exceeded the annual emissions of 36 individual countries and territories.  The total emissions would increase to 41 lowest emitting countries and territories if Hamas’s tunnel network and Israel’s “Iron Wall” protective fence were also included.  The authors arrive at a staggering figure of 32,275,089 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) when pre-conflict and post-conflict related construction activities are included.  That final figure ranks higher than the annual emissions of 102 countries.

Broadly speaking, the Iran War has revealed how the continued reliance on fossil fuels is not only degrading in terms of environment but precarious in terms of security.  “Fossil fuel dependency is ripping away national security and sovereignty, and replacing it with subservience and rising costs,” explains Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.  To that end, renewable sources of energy must be pursued with greater vigour.  “Meek dependence on fossil fuel imports,” he remarks, referring to European policy makers, “will leave Europe forever lurching from crisis to crisis.”  Renewable energy, however, will “turn the tables.  Sunlight doesn’t depend on narrow and vulnerable shipping straits.”

Brian Lee of Rethink Energy Florida builds on the theme with earnest seriousness, suggesting that “Energy security isclimate security.”  This is not a novel pairing; any serious policy in that sense “would treat accelerating renewable energy development not as an environmental gesture, but as a national imperative.”  Doing so would set “clear limits on the level of sea-level rise our coastal economies can endure as a second metric to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degrees C temperature increase limit – and align policy to stay below both.”

War has a nasty habit of suspending agendas and supplanting them with a murderous lunacy that becomes, for the duration of hostilities, dull and commonplace.  Important, pressing topics get marooned along the way.  When peace breaks out, those neglected topics return with a vengeance.  Along with the staining criminality of those who have soiled the peace, climate change is exactly one of those things, something that will storm back to the fore with menacing consequences.

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