Conflict and climate change

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Conflict is messy, and it can occur in various forms. Conflicts range from outright declarations of war between states to lingering forms of inter-state violence caused by civil war, insurgencies, or contestations between state and non-state actors. Conflicts also occur at the community level, with marginalised groups, including ethnic and religious minorities, often bearing the brunt of violence.

Conflicts invariably cause havoc in the lives of ordinary people, and they compound major socio-economic adversities. In addition to their human impacts, conflicts also have significant environmental implications. Conflicts cause pollution, hasten habitat loss, lead to resource depletion, and worsen climate change.

Yet the environmental implications of conflict remain unacknowledged. Military emissions also go unreported in most countries, and scant attention is paid to the environmental cost of engaging in conflicts and maintaining readiness to engage in conflict. However, just because the environmental damage caused by conflict is ignored does not mean that this damage does not occur.

According to assessment by the Initiative on Greenhouse Gas Accounting of War, only the first two years of Russia's war with Ukraine led to a spike of millions of tons of carbon emissions. Billions of litres of fuel are being used by military vehicles on both sides, hundreds of oil and gas structures have been blown up, and many fields and forests have been set ablaze resulting in more greenhouse gases as well as habitat loss for varied species.

The cost of cleaning up the damage caused by conflicts is also significant. Consider, for instance, estimation by Queen Mary University affiliated researchers in London, who have calculated that the environmental implications of cleaning up debris caused by the destruction of Gaza and rebuilding its damaged infrastructure will exceed the annual emissions of over 135 countries.

While negotiators are still struggling to end the Israeli assault on Palestinian, and figure out how to rebuild Gaza, the entire world will eventually have to shoulder the cost of carbon emissions resulting from this devastating conflict, which will exacerbate climate threats much beyond the Middle East itself.

Conflicts also create a lot of other toxic pollutants, besides causing global warming, which have lingering impacts for both humans and the environment at large. Scholars have pointed to the haunting legacy of using Agent Orange by US troops in Vietnam, which in addition to causing millions of people to suffer from major illnesses, also led to large-scale soil degradation and ecological damage.

The environmental impact of ongoing wars is no less troubling. The destruction of wastewater treatment plants in Gaza has led to severe contamination of its coastal waters, which is spreading further afield. The civil war in Sudan has triggered major deforestation, which is taking a severe toll on local communities dependent on these natural resources, as well as on the local wildlife.

Despite the US Department of Defense recognising the ability of climate change to act as a threat multiplier, powerful militaries, including that of the US, are more concerned with bolstering the resilience of their warfighting infrastructure, instead of lessening their military's ecological footprint, or becoming more accountable for the environmental damage caused by their military campaigns.

Given the current surge of climate denialism, it is unlikely that more states will begin paying heed to what is already a largely ignored problem. Instead, we are seeing world leaders moving away from their pledges to invest in global efforts to curb and address climate change and biodiversity loss, be they caused by conflict, or due to other human activities supposedly aimed at securing prosperity and growth. Ironically, the dearth of funding available to deal with climate threats will increase the chances of more conflicts which will, in turn, exacerbate the already severe problem of climate change.