Effects of War on the Environment
In the early hours of the morning of 24th Feb, President of Russia Vladimir Putin announced war on Ukraine. After months of conflicts Russian troops are now headed towards the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. President of Ukraine has appealed to the citizens of Ukraine to be inside of their houses & apartments. But many reports of civilian damage are already coming. This is one of the most worrying time for the people of Ukraine and for the rest of the world.
War comes with many problems from destruction of buildings to food and water shortage which has to be dealt with in a very big scale but today I want to discuss about the problem that arises before, during and after the war — Carbon Emission.
Environmental damage before conflicts
The environmental impact of wars begins long before they do. Building and sustaining military forces consumes vast quantities of resources. These might be common metals or rare earth elements, water or hydrocarbons. Maintaining military readiness means training, and training consumes resources. Military vehicles, aircraft, vessels, buildings and infrastructure all require energy, and more often than not that energy is oil, and energy efficiency is low. The CO2 emissions of the largest militaries are greater than many of the world’s countries combined.Militaries also need large areas of land and sea, whether for bases and facilities, or for testing and training. Military lands are believed to cover between 1–6% of the global land surface.Military training creates emissions, disruption to landscapes and terrestrial and marine habitats. A recent study from Brown University’s Costs of War project surfaced this startling fact: The U.S. Department of Defense has a larger annual carbon footprint than most countries on earth. Since the present era of American conflicts began with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the U.S. military is estimated to have emitted a staggering 1.2 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. For comparison, the entire annual carbon emissions of the United Kingdom is roughly 360 million tons.
With military vehicles such as warships, fighter planes, tanks etc being major consumers of fossil fuels — see the table below which shows us that this leaves a significant hole in the control of greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmental damage during conflicts
As a conflict becomes protracted or frozen, some significant sources of anthropogenic emissions can become locked in. Under-development, a lack of external investment and weak governance can result in old polluting technologies remaining in use, where they might otherwise have been replaced.
An example of this is the practice of flaring — burning excess petroleum gas as a by-product of oil production, which releases it as CO2. Flaring releases significant greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere and doesn’t produce any work (useful energy) as a result. The volumes involved are huge. These graphs shows how flaring intensity has risen substantially in Libya, Syria and Yemen during the conflicts there, despite overall declines in total output as oil production has stalled. The same trend was seen during the conflict in Iraq and, critically, has continued post-conflict. This is a noted trend for countries facing instability or conflict.The environmental impact of conflicts themselves vary greatly. Some international armed conflicts may be brief but highly destructive. Some civil wars may last for decades but be fought at low intensity.
High intensity conflicts require and consume vast quantities of fuel, leading to massive CO2 emissions and contributing to climate change. Large scale vehicle movements can lead to widespread physical damage to sensitive landscapes and geo-diversity, as can the intensive use of explosive ordnance. The use of explosive weapons in urban areas creates vast quantities of debris and rubble, which can cause air and soil pollution. Weapons and military materiel used during conflicts also leave environmental legacies. Land mines, cluster munitions and other explosive remnants of war can restrict access to agricultural land and pollute soils and water sources with metals and toxic energetic materials. In major conflicts, large volumes of military scrap may be produced or abandoned, this can contain a range of polluting materials, contaminating soils and groundwater, whilst exposing those who work on it to acute and chronic health risks. Wrecked or damaged ships, submarines and offshore oil infrastructure can cause marine pollution. Many conventional weapons have toxic constituents, others such as depleted uranium are also radioactive. Incendiary weapons such as white phosphorous are not only toxic but can also damage habitats through fire. While now restricted, the widespread use of chemical defoliants damaged public and ecological health across large areas of Vietnam.
Environmental damage after conflicts
It is rare these days for conflicts to conclude cleanly with a peace agreement and a ceasefire. Low level conflict and insecurity can continue for long periods. In the immediate aftermath of conflicts, states and international actors may be faced with immediate legacies, such as vast quantities of rubble and debris. If managed poorly, for example through informal dumping, disposal can create new environmental risks. There have been instances where the looting of industrial sites has exposed communities to pollutants. In conflicts with high levels of displacement, land rights and ownership issues are common, particularly when returnees move home. Influxes of people can increase environmental pressures in areas from which they have been absent, particularly through agricultural conversion or expansion. This can lead to increased rates of deforestation. Research has shown a sharp increase in deforestation rates in many post-conflict countries. The damage that conflicts do to environmental governance can have implications for environmental protection for years. This can set back progress on issues as diverse as pollution control, resource and protected area management, climate change adaptation and biodiversity protection. Finally, the environmental costs of recovery may be significant. Massive urban rebuilding projects can require huge volumes of resources.
A history of weak environmental oversight has left many countries with serious environmental legacies linked to military pollution, with impacts on public health and vast costs for environmental remediation. These continue to grow as emerging pollutants. These legacies are also a problem around overseas bases where one-sided agreements with host nations can reduce environmental oversight. Indirectly, high levels of military spending diverts resources away from solving environmental problems and away from sustainable development. International tensions stoked by high levels of military spending also reduce opportunities for international cooperation on global environmental threats, such as the climate change.
At last I would like to pray and wish for the safety of the innocent lives suffering these conflicts all around the world. Hopefully situations like wars should not arise in the future which does more harm than good.
