there was already a war By March 8, the skies over Tehran had darkened. When it started raining, residents said it was thick, smelly and dark in color. Some described it as black rain, coating streets, rooftops and cars with a sooty residue.
That night, Israel attacked more than 30 oil facilities in Iran. The scale of the attack and the ensuing fire was so large that U.S. officials later questioned its strategic rationale.
However, the damage did not stop there. The environmental damage caused by the conflict is spreading across the wider region, from smoke over Fujairah and oil risks in Gulf waters to burned farmland and fears of pollution in southern Lebanon.
A growing body of open source evidence, satellite imagery, social media footage, and official statements shows an ecological crisis unfolding across Iran, the Gulf, and Lebanon. What is emerging is a multi-pronged attack on the land, sea and air environment.
Some of the effects can be seen in smoke, spills, and debris. Others are hard to see. More than 5 million tons of carbon dioxide were released in the first two weeks of the war alone.
Researchers estimate that each missile strike releases approximately 0.14 tons of carbon dioxide, about the same amount as driving 350 miles in a car. This includes emissions from the attack itself and carbon in the body tied to the missile’s production and supply chain.
These emissions do not only come from weapons. It also arises from aircraft sorties, naval operations, fires, fuel consumption, and reconstruction. Some damage counts towards emissions. Much of it is physical, local and difficult to fully measure while the war is still going on.
It is often said that the environment is a silent victim of war. Seven weeks after hostilities began against Iran, as the world marks Earth Day, Iran is once again paying a devastating price.
land
According to Lebanon’s National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS), more than 50,000 homes were destroyed or damaged within about 45 days of the start of the war, of which 17,756 were destroyed and 32,668 were damaged, AFP news agency reported.
According to a satellite damage assessment by Conflict Ecology, a geospatial laboratory at the University of Oregon, 7,645 buildings were destroyed in the war across Iran. In Tehran alone, more than 1,200 buildings, including military installations, were destroyed.
However, the destroyed buildings are only a visible part of the damage. Contamination of soil, water, and debris is often slow to detect and difficult to quantify.
Antoine Karab, a policy advisor and academic who has studied Lebanon’s environmental damage, says conflict reshapes ecosystems. “Active wars that lead to forced displacement, where people are forced to leave their communities and farmland, definitely have an impact on the environment,” he says.
Damage to city infrastructure can cause long-term pollution, and debris and debris remain long after the smoke clears. “When a bomb explodes, it creates smoke that dissipates, but it leaves behind some kind of debris that contains toxic substances, which can get into the soil and change its quality, or get mixed into the water, which is very dangerous.”
The scale is tough. During the last war with Israel in 2024, Lebanon generated 15 million to 20 million tons of debris in just three months, the equivalent of what would be produced in about 20 years in peacetime, Karab said.
Debris is not inert. When buildings are bombed or bulldozed, the debris can release plastics, solvents, insulation fibers, heavy metals, asbestos, and other contaminants into the surrounding soil and water. The damage to the environment becomes even more severe when homes, roads, water networks, and sanitation systems collapse.
