Wars and other armed conflicts destroy the environment

In 2024, the world devoted a record amount of $2.7 trillion to military expenditures, with an increase in spending every year over the past decade.

From Ukraine to Sudan, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and Venezuela, as populations suffer from war, bombs, occupation, militarization, and political violence, it is clear that the damages extend far beyond the frontlines: homes, hospitals, electrical networks, water supply systems, agricultural lands, and coastlines also bear the brunt of destruction. Armed conflicts are not just a human tragedy. They are also environmental disasters, with short and long-term consequences for public health, ecosystems, and the climate.

War not only kills people and destroys their homes but also damages the systems that make life possible, including water supply networks, purification stations, farmlands, ports, fuel depots, and electrical infrastructures. It leaves behind polluted air, contaminated soil, and unsafe water long after hostilities cease. Research demonstrates a common pattern across recent conflicts, involving fires, toxic debris, damaged sanitation systems, collapsing public health systems, and ecosystems pushed beyond the point of no return.

These damages are not accidental. It is one of the ways in which war disrupts daily life.

Just a few days after the first American-Israeli strikes in Iran, energy itself became a battleground, with attacks and counterattacks targeting fossil fuel-related infrastructure. The Strait of Hormuz became a hotspot, with dozens of oil tankers carrying billions of liters of oil blocked in the Persian Gulf. Greenpeace Germany warned that a single oil spill in the region could irreversibly damage this fragile marine habitat, with devastating consequences for the local populations, animals, and flora, on top of the human toll the war has already taken among local communities.

In Gaza, Greenpeace MENA’s analysis highlighted serious damages to water, sanitation, farmlands, and fishing, alongside estimates indicating that the first 120 days of the war resulted in over half a million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This combination of bombardments, infrastructure collapse, and pollution makes a place harder to inhabit, less healthy, and less resilient to climate change.

The war in Sudan provides another striking example: research from the Conflict and Environment Observatory showed that war led to increased deforestation, agricultural decline, industrial pollution, and the collapse of health and sanitation systems, compromising people’s access to food, water, and energy.

The environmental cost of war goes beyond the battlefield. Researchers cited by the Conflict and Environment Observatory estimate that armed forces account for about 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, while conflicts add to it through fires, fuel consumption, reconstruction, and destruction of public infrastructures.

War destroys ecosystems and weakens our ability to cope with heat, drought, floods, and crop losses of the future.

History shows that the damages persist

This is not new. During the Vietnam War, American forces sprayed nearly 80 million liters of herbicides, including Agent Orange, affecting about 2.9 million hectares of land and leaving dioxin in the soil, water, and food chains for decades. In Iraq, the United Nations Environment Programme, followed by field investigations, warned of the long-term risks to the environment and health related to contamination by depleted uranium and other war residues. These past conflicts are important because they show that environmental damages do not end with a ceasefire.

The lesson from Vietnam, as well as Iraq, Gaza, and Ukraine, is clear: war poisons life itself. It degrades the soil, water, air, and health in a way that can resonate across multiple generations, especially when conflicts involve chemicals and oil, release radiation, or destroy public infrastructures.

Ukraine assesses the environmental cost of war

Ukraine has made these damages particularly visible. Greenpeace’s office in Central and Eastern Europe, in collaboration with the Ukrainian organization Ecoaction, released a map of environmental damages based on over 900 documented cases, with the 30 most serious ones verified by satellite imagery, to show how Russia’s invasion damaged lands, habitats, water, and air. Documenting these damages is essential not only for establishing responsibilities but also for planning the concurrent reconstruction and nature restoration.

Missile strikes trigger forest fires, industrial sites release toxic substances, bombings contaminate soil and water, and mined or occupied lands become hazardous to cultivate, restore, or even traverse. This raises a broader question: how can countries affected by war rebuild better, in a way that restores nature and reduces their dependence on vulnerable, fossil-fuel-dependent energy systems that are a prime target in wars?

Continue to read the full article in its complete form in the original source Greenpeace International.