The Iran war affects the environment in invisible ways

It was already war The skies in Tehran had darkened by March 8. When the rain started, residents said it was heavy, foul-smelling and dark in colour. Some described it as a black rain that covered streets, rooftops and cars with soot-like residue.

That night, Israel bombed more than 30 oil facilities in Iran. The scale of the attacks and the fires that followed were so large that American officials later questioned their strategic justifications.

But the damage did not stop there. From smoke over Fujairah and the dangers of oil in Gulf waters to scorched farmland and pollution fears in southern Lebanon, the environmental toll from the conflict is rippling across the wider region.

A growing body of open source evidence, satellite images, social media footage, and official statements point to an environmental crisis unfolding across Iran, the Gulf, and Lebanon. The emerging picture is a multi-front attack on the environment: on land, at sea, and in the air.

Some effects are visible in smoke, spills and debris. Others are difficult to see. The first two weeks of the war alone released more than 5 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Researchers estimate that each missile strike releases approximately 0.14 tons of carbon dioxide₂ That’s roughly equivalent to driving a car 350 miles. This includes emissions from the strike itself and the embodied carbon associated with the missile’s production and supply chain.

These emissions do not come only from weapons. It also comes from aircraft sorties, naval operations, fires, fuel consumption and reconstruction. Some damage can be calculated in emissions. Most of it is physical, local, and difficult to fully measure while the war is still unfolding.

It is often said that the environment is the silent victim of war. Seven weeks after the start of hostilities against Iran, as the world celebrates Earth Day, Iran is once again paying a heavy price.

land

According to the National Council for Scientific Research in Lebanon, more than 50,000 housing units were destroyed or damaged during about 45 days of war, including 17,756 destroyed units and 32,668 damaged units, Agence France-Presse reported.

Across Iran, 7,645 buildings have been destroyed in the war, according to satellite damage assessments conducted by the Center for Conflict Ecology, a geospatial research laboratory at the University of Oregon. In Tehran alone, more than 1,200 buildings were destroyed, including military facilities.

But the destroyed buildings are only the visible part of the losses. Contamination in soil, water and debris is often slower to detect and difficult to quantify.

Antoine Kallab, a policy consultant and academic who has studied environmental damage in Lebanon, says the conflict is reshaping ecosystems. “Any active war that leads to displacement, where people are forced to leave their communities and farmland, definitely has an impact on the environment,” he says.

Damage to urban infrastructure can lead to long-term pollution, while debris and debris remain long after the smoke has disappeared. “Once a bomb explodes, it produces smoke that dissipates, but something remains as debris that contains toxic materials, and it can be very dangerous because it can mix with the soil, change its quality, or mix with the water.”

The scale is extreme. Lebanon produced between 15 and 20 million tons of rubble in just three months during the previous war with Israel in 2024, which is what the country will produce in about 20 years in peacetime, Kallab says.

The ruins are not inert. When buildings are bombed or bulldozed, debris can release plastics, solvents, insulating fibers, heavy metals, asbestos and other pollutants into the surrounding soil and water. Environmental losses are exacerbated when homes, roads, water networks and sewage systems collapse.