Igniting a regional environmental catastrophe

Another kind of threat

As the world watches the military escalation between US-Israeli forces and Iran with bated breath, the focus remains fixed on geopolitical fallout, oil prices, and the grim human toll. The strikes that began in late February have already claimed hundreds of lives, including the reported deaths of 175 young girls and teachers at the Shajareh Tayyibeh primary school in Iran— a tragedy that underscores the immediate human cost of war. But beneath the surface of this conflict, a slower, more insidious crisis is unfolding: an environmental catastrophe that threatens not only the Persian Gulf region but also carries direct implications for Pakistan's already fragile climate reality.

In an era where Pakistan ranks as the fifth most climate-vulnerable nation on Earth, the fires burning in the Middle East are not a distant concern. They are a preview of what happens when military conflict and ecological collapse intersect— and a warning that the definition of national security must expand to include the very air its citizens breathe and the water they drink.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20 percent of the world's liquefied natural gas and about a quarter of global crude oil shipments pass, has become a battleground .

On March 1, at least three ships were attacked near the Strait. By March 4, the Bahamas-flagged tanker Sonangol Namibe was struck while anchored approximately 30 nautical miles southeast of Mubarak Al Kabeer, Kuwait. The vessel's master reported a massive explosion on the port side, and oil was observed leaking from a damaged cargo tank into the sea. There could be "environmental impact".

This is not a new phenomenon, but the scale of risk is unprecedented. The Persian Gulf is a semi-enclosed, shallow body of water with limited circulation. Any major oil spill here does not disperse into the open ocean; it lingers. 

The historical precedent is chilling. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, an estimated 11 million barrels of crude oil were released into the Gulf, damaging 800 km of coastline. More than a decade later, geochemist Jacqueline Michel discovered that vast amounts of that spilled oil remained, having seeped deep into the seabed sediment. The ecological cost included the death of approximately 30,000 grebes and cormorants, their feathers coated in crude .

"If fighting disrupts shipping lanes or port infrastructure in the Persian Gulf, the risk goes beyond oil exports," environmental analysts have warned. "A single major oil spill can take decades to recover from" .

Beyond oil, the conflict has raised the spectre of a far more toxic threat. If military operations expand to target Iran's uranium enrichment facilities, the danger extends beyond radiation. Industrial chemicals used in production processes could leak, contaminating soil and groundwater for years. International bodies should be aware that structural damage could trigger the spread of hazardous materials across the region .

For Pakistan, situated on the edge of a volatile region and already bearing the brunt of a climate crisis it did little to create, the message is stark. The fires in the Gulf are not separate from the floods in Sindh or the heatwaves in Punjab. They are connected by the same atmosphere, the same ocean currents, and the same global economy. In an era of war, the environment becomes both weapon and casualty— and the damage, once done, outlasts any ceasefire.

The worst-case scenario would be severe damage to a coastal nuclear facility. Contamination in the Gulf would not remain localized. It could directly affect the desalination plants upon which Gulf Cooperation Council countries— and by extension, millions of people— depend for freshwater . In a region already facing acute water stress, the poisoning of desalination infrastructure would constitute a humanitarian disaster.

Modern warfare is fundamentally carbon-intensive. The aircraft carriers, fighter jets, missiles, and support systems deployed in this conflict consume fossil fuels on a staggering scale. This helps explain why the US Department of Defense is the largest institutional emitter of greenhouse gases globally . Taken together, the world's militaries have a bigger annual carbon footprint than all but three countries on Earth .

The emissions from even a short burst of military operations can rival the annual output of smaller nations. Russia's war in Ukraine, for example, has generated emissions equivalent to France's yearly total. If strikes extend to oil depots or refineries— as they already have in Saudi Arabia and Qatar— the atmospheric toll multiplies. Such attacks release carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and PM2.5 particulate matter into the air . For major cities in the region, the consequences are immediate. Tehran, which already struggles with chronic smog, faces the prospect of acute air-quality crises. 

The marine life of the Persian Gulf has evolved in one of the world's most extreme environments, with high salinity and temperature fluctuations. It cannot withstand an assault of this magnitude. Fisheries, which sustain coastal communities across Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and the UAE, face decimation. It can cause long-lasting damage to fragile ecosystems and coastal communities. 

The damage extends beyond visible oil slicks. When crude oil spills, it has an unusual capacity to penetrate deep into seabed sediment, as seen after the 1991 disaster. That means recovery is measured not in years, but in decades. The current conflict threatens to repeat that history, with one critical difference: the region's environmental baseline is already degraded by climate change, overfishing, and coastal development.

While environmentalists focus on oil spills, another crisis is building in the holds of cargo ships. Approximately 33 percent of the world's fertilizers— including sulfur and ammonia— transit through the Strait of Hormuz . Loaded onto vessels in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, these fertilizers are destined for farms in India, China, Brazil, and across Africa. There are no viable alternatives to shipping through the Gulf; land routes are limited by pipeline and trucking capacity .

The implications for global food security are profound. Fertilizer prices are already sensitive to hydrocarbon costs, since production requires massive amounts of gas and oil. With energy prices surging and shipping routes paralyzed, the cost of growing food will rise— and Pakistan, which imports significant quantities of fertilizer, will not be insulated.

The region also produces up to 23 million tons of polyethylene annually— 15 percent of global production— much of it exported through the UAE . Plastic manufacturing, essential to countless industries, faces disruption. Meanwhile, the Emirati port of Jebel Ali, a central hub for petroleum derivatives, caught fire on Sunday . Shipping giants Maersk and CMA CGM have suspended transits through both the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal, forcing vessels to circumnavigate Africa— a detour of several thousand km that burns more fuel and emits more carbon .

For Pakistan, this conflict is not a distant geopolitical drama. It is a stress test on systems that directly affect national stability. The country's economy remains tethered to global oil prices, and any sustained disruption in the Gulf translates into higher import bills, currency pressure, and inflation. But the environmental linkages run deeper.

Pakistan's coastline along the Arabian Sea is downstream from the Persian Gulf. Ocean currents do not respect conflict zones. A major oil spill in the Gulf could, over time, affect marine life in Pakistani waters, impacting the fishing communities of Sindh and Balochistan. 

Moreover, the conflict underscores a truth that Pakistani policymakers have been slow to internalize: national security can no longer be defined solely by military threats. The  climate disruption and biodiversity loss, if unchecked, will cause "crop failures, intensified natural disasters, and infectious disease outbreaks… exacerbating existing conflicts, starting new ones, and threatening global security and prosperity" . The Middle East war is a case study in how quickly environmental risk mutates into security crisis.

The conflict is also casting a shadow over the global transition to renewable energy. Higher energy prices may push some countries back toward coal as a cheaper alternative, while supply chains for solar panels, batteries, and clean-energy equipment that rely on Middle East shipping routes face delays . Together, these factors could make the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C harder to achieve.

Paradoxically, the war may also accelerate interest in alternatives. With nearly half of all US homes heated by natural gas and prices rising, renewable technologies like solar panels and heat pumps are gaining allure. In the days following the outbreak of hostilities, Invesco's WilderHill Clean Energy ETF rose 2.3 percent, outperforming the broader S&P 500 . But for developing countries like Pakistan, where the upfront costs of renewable infrastructure remain prohibitive, the short-term reality is higher fossil fuel prices and greater energy insecurity.

Under international law, the destruction of environmentally significant infrastructure during war may raise questions under principles reflected in the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions. But proving environmental harm in conflict zones is notoriously difficult . By the time the damage is documented— through satellite imagery and field investigations— the conflict may have moved on, and the world's attention with it.

"The real damage may not show up on commodities screens,". It shows up years later, in fisheries that no longer yield catches, in communities that can no longer drink their water, in coastlines that remain oiled long after peace treaties are signed. The core question facing the region— and by extension, the world— is how long an already water-stressed region can absorb these shocks, and what economic security rests on if ecosystems begin to fail .

As the US-Israeli campaign against Iran enters its second week, the environmental dimensions of this conflict remain underreported. The media is event-driven, prioritizing breaking developments and dramatic images. Climate change, by contrast, unfolds over longer timescales—except during acute disasters . But to overlook the climate consequences of three of the deadliest militaries on Earth going to war would be a grave oversight.

For Pakistan, situated on the edge of a volatile region and already bearing the brunt of a climate crisis it did little to create, the message is stark. The fires in the Gulf are not separate from the floods in Sindh or the heatwaves in Punjab. They are connected by the same atmosphere, the same ocean currents, and the same global economy. In an era of war, the environment becomes both weapon and casualty— and the damage, once done, outlasts any ceasefire.