The war in Iran is sending shockwaves through global energy markets that will be felt for years to come. The conflict is causing the single biggest oil supply disruption in history, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused a nine-day disruption of 20 percent of the world’s oil transports, more-than doubling the previous record set during the Suez crisis of 1956. But the war and its energy market impacts represent much more than just economic chaos – they are also the harbingers of serious and lasting human and environmental impact across the region and the world.
The United States and Israel have been targeting Iran’s energy infrastructure in their ongoing attacks, with disastrous results for local lands and people. Monitors have admitted that they are so overwhelmed by the scale and breadth of environmental impacts from the war that they are “struggling to keep track of the environmental disasters arising from the widening war” according to The Guardian. Explosions at oil storage facilities have left fires burning for days as a black rain has fallen over the capital city of Tehran as it chokes on noxious smoke.
“To me, this black rain indicates toxic pollutants such as hydrocarbons, ultrafine particles known as PM2.5, and carcinogenic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have made their way into the rain,” Gabriel da Silva, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at The University of Melbourne, recently wrote for The Conversation. He added that this rain would also include heavy metals and inorganic compounds from all of the buildings and other materials set ablaze by the strikes. The resulting acid rain could be catastrophic for human, animal, and environmental health, experts warn.
While this rain alone is cause for massive concern for Iranians, it’s likely just the tip of the iceberg. “Oil raining down on Tehran is likely only the first tell of the environmental damage – and the impact that that has on people’s health – that the US and Israel’s war will cause,” Global Witness cautioned in a recent report.
Environmental incidents are already widespread across the country. The Conflict and Environment Observatory has assessed 232 incidents for their level of environmental risk, and has flagged three types of emerging environmental harm: pollution from the destruction of military sites, marine pollution from the destruction of oil infrastructure along the Gulf coast, and the destruction of inland fossil fuel infrastructure.
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There is also cause for concern about potential damage to Iran’s nuclear power infrastructure, and all of the associated environmental and health risks that would come along with such damage. In last year’s 12 days of war between Iran and Israel, there was considerable concern about lasting impacts of irradiation on the lands and soils near attacked nuclear power plants and nuclear enrichment sites.
“I want to make it absolutely and completely clear, [in] case of an attack on [a nuclear power plant], a direct hit could result in a very high release of radioactivity to the environment,” Rafael Mariono Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warned in a June 23 statement about the war between Iran and Israel.
But even the missiles that didn’t hit nuclear sites carry serious environmental and public health hazards, as aerial attacks and the fires they create release huge amounts of toxic pollutants that end up in soil and groundwater. “This has been an issue that is concerning in the Middle East, and some of these impacts are even transboundary and trans generational,” Kaveh Madani, director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, told the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists last year. “So, the war might be over, but these impacts would remain there.”
The Conflict and Environment Observatory also warns that there will be new forms of environmental fallout as the war drags on. In addition to the threat of nuclear irradiation, the watchdog warns that Israel and the United States may also target desalination plants, gravely impacting the availability of freshwater and potentially unleashing sodium hypochlorite, ferric chloride and sulfuric acid into the environment. The organization also warns that Iranian environmental governance, already weak, will all but collapse under this new stress.
In addition to the risks imposed by direct attacks on energy infrastructure, the war also poses a major threat to the climate. Wars are huge contributors to climate change. The greenhouse gas emissions associated with Russia’s war in Ukraine, for example, reached levels comparable with the entire annual emissions of France in just the first two years, according to a report from a Ukrainian watchdog organization.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
