The war was already there the skies of Tehran darkened on March 8. When the rain began to fall, residents said it was thick, smelly and black in color. Some describe it as black rain, streets covered in debris, roofs and cars in ash-like remains.
That night, Israel had hit more than 30 oil facilities in Iran. The scale of the attack and the fires that followed were so remarkable that US officials later questioned their reasoning.
But the damage did not end there. From smog over Fujairah and oil spills in the Gulf waters to scorched farms and pollution fears in southern Lebanon, environmental conflicts are spreading across the wider region.
A growing body of open source evidence, satellite images, social media images, and official statements point to an ongoing environmental crisis across Iran, the Gulf, and Lebanon. The picture that emerges is a multifaceted attack on nature: on land, at sea, and in the air.
Other impacts are seen in smoke, spills and debris. Some are hard to see. In the first two weeks of the war alone they released more than 5 million tons of carbon equivalent.
Researchers estimate that each missile strike emits about 0.14 tons of CO2 equivalent, which is about the same as driving a car 350 kilometers. That includes the carbon emissions themselves and the carbon emissions associated with the production and supply chain of missiles.
That emission is not only from weapons. They also appear in aircraft types, ship operations, fires, fuel consumption, and reconstruction. Some damage can be calculated from the production. Much of it is physical, local, and difficult to measure fully while the war is still going on.
It is often said that the environment is a silent victim of war. In seven weeks the war with Iran began, and as the world marks Earth Day, it is once again paying a heavy price.
The world
According to a report by the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) of Lebanon, more than 50,000 houses were destroyed or damaged during the 45 days of the war, including 17,756 destroyed and 32,668 damaged, reported AFP.
Across Iran, 7,645 buildings have been destroyed in the war, according to a satellite damage assessment by Conflict Ecology, a geospatial research lab at the University of Oregon. In Tehran alone, more than 1,200 buildings were destroyed, including military buildings.
But the destroyed buildings are a visible part of the bill. Contamination of land, water, and waste is often slow to detect and difficult to quantify.
Antoine Kallab, a policy consultant and academic who has studied environmental damage in Lebanon, says that conflict is reshaping the environment. “Any active war that leads to displacement, where people are forced to leave their communities and farming areas, inevitably has an impact on the environment,” he said.
Damage to urban infrastructure can cause long-term pollution, while debris and debris persist long after the smoke has cleared. “Once the bomb explodes, it creates a dispersive smoke, but something like debris that contains toxic substances remains, and it can be very dangerous as it can mix with the soil, change its level, or mix with water.”
The scale is difficult. Kallab says Lebanon generated between 15 and 20 million tons of waste in just three months during the last war with Israel by 2024—what the country will produce in about 20 years during peacetime.
Garbage doesn’t work. When buildings are bombed or breached, the debris can release plastics, solvents, insulation fibers, heavy metals, asbestos, and other contaminants into the surrounding soil and water. Environmental costs increase when homes, roads, waterways, and sewage systems collapse around them.
