As the US-Israel-Iran war intensifies, the impact on the climate and people increases exponentially. Without diving into the morality or choosing any one side, let’s focus on the impacts and their significance in a changing world.
War leads to Ecocide, decimating various ecosystems, which have far-reaching impacts, some direct and visible consequences in the short term, but it’s the long-term impacts that are deadly. Short-term impacts may include the onset of destruction of local species, air pollution, displacement of flora, fauna and people. In contrast, the long-term impacts may include habitat loss, forest fires, water and soil contamination, biodiversity loss, radiation poisoning, and much more. These impacts enter the food and water supply, leading to malnutrition, deficiency and diseases in children and their consecutive generations. Nuclear winter and chemical warfare also change the dynamics quite significantly. What we fail to account for is the disturbances in the global climate, wind movement and other aspects which might affect faraway regions as well. The radiation from Chornobyl to this date impacts the EU through the onset of solar flares. (Source: The Impact of War on the Environment)
These wars are said to have economic, regional and energy gains, but at what cost?? The genocide in Gaza, the Russia-Ukraine war, and now the US-Israel-Iran war could mark the onset of ecosystem collapse at scale. Targeting Energy infrastructure in the name of Energy Security is quite ironic which has not only led to energy scarcity across the globe, loss of oil and natural gas at scale across the Middle East, but most of all it has lead to chemical rains induced by uncontrolled burning of oil and gas at oil and gas refineries affecting the air, water and soil for years. The impacts on air and water will lead to loss of crop, forests, microorganisms, aquatic life, and destabilise the whole region of Iran and the Middle East, while the cost on human life surmounts.
Targeting Desalination plants is a direct attack on the natural resources of a region, disrupting the supply of clean and drinking water to millions while also disrupting the energy infrastructure specially the green hydrogen energy push. As the world continues to disrupt regions and energy supply in the name of energy security, let’s look at the impact in numbers:
5055000 tonnes CO2eq - emissions in 14 days of US-Israel-Iran conflict (Source: Climate and Community Institute)
i.e. 1.1 million gas-powered cars running on the road each year
$1.3 billion
These wars have disrupted the Global Energy Supply, and many countries are facing rising prices, inflation and energy scarcity.
How do we move ahead in this changing and uncertain world?
Energy security is crucial for the security and stability of any country. As these conflicts have shown that one act can disrupt the whole world, more and more countries will move towards internalising their energy security, prioritising local generation and supply, while safeguarding themselves with technology and military. This would disrupt various supply chains and curb globalisation, having drastic impacts on the global economy and international relations.
This does present us with an opportunity to implement sustainability at scale by first transitioning to renewable sources, integrating nuclear to stabilise the grid and localising oil and gas extraction and refining to meet the country’s needs before exporting it to others to maintain stability and gain influence. Life cycle thinking needs to be implemented while undertaking proper Environmental Impact Assessments and biodiversity analysis, while utilising nature as camouflage and a natural barrier as security to our energy infrastructures.
The world is changing, and we need to become self-reliant and self-sustaining to safeguard ourselves from global disruptions and integrate nature in our development activities and security infrastructure to propagate a prosperous India with energy and regional security.