War, Emissions, and Accountability: The Missing Link in Global Climate Governance

War, Emissions, and Accountability: The Missing Link in Global Climate Governance

Rudrani Garg

On 7th March, 2026, the sky over Tehran was turned to ash as the Israeli defense forces attacked the oil storage facilities in Iran. As refineries released hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and other wartime emissions, the city transformed into a laboratory of slow violence, turning rain acidic, air lethal, and life toxic. As wartime emissions engulf the city, they confront us with a harsh truth: should environmental destruction during war be considered collateral or deliberate? Moreover, as Tehran’s sky turns ash, rain becomes poisonous, and victims suffer in silence, who will be made to answer for it?

Immediate and Long-Term Environmental Impacts

The immediate impacts of the attacks have become visible. Residents have reported headaches, throat irritation, and difficulty breathing. They reported a burning fuel smell in the air, while the sun remained obscured by the haze. The Iranian authorities advised residents to remain indoors as toxic substances spread across the capital. However, these temporary measures are unable to shield the population from the long-term consequences of environmental contamination.

These toxic substances released from the attacks remain in the atmosphere for days to weeks before returning to the ground as acid rain. It can settle into soil and water flows, potentially contaminating scarce groundwater and agricultural land. This may persist for years, undermining reconstruction and development. Exposure to contaminated air, water, and soil containing chemical and carcinogenic compounds may trigger a public health crisis.

Moreover, it may spill over into neighbouring countries, exposing people and ecosystems to the consequences of a conflict they are not part of. In times when the  cost of rerouting the ships through the Cape of Good Hope already produces 70 percent more carbon emissions than the Suez Canal route, who will take into account these extra costs of pollution?

Environmental Law and the Accountability Gap

Despite these consequences, environmental harm in warfare continues to occupy a grey zone in international accountability. Existing legal frameworks, such as the Geneva Conventions and the 1976 Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD), are poorly equipped to handle wartime emissions. They are limited to “widespread, long-term, and severe” environmental damage threshold.

However, these thresholds are vague, making enforcement difficult. Climate conventions such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement have exempted military emissions from international climate reporting frameworks, creating a major gap in climate governance. In 2022, the International Law Commission adopted the Draft Principles on Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflicts. It acknowledged that armed conflicts cause serious environmental damage and recognised the need to mitigate environmental harm before, during, and after war. Yet these principles remain largely aspirational and depend on the state’s willingness.

This exposes a clear contradiction: states demand climate responsibility in peacetime but overlook the environmental damage caused during war. By treating them as exceptional or unavoidable, the international community risks normalizing environmental destruction during conflict. As the climate crisis deepens, the costs of ignoring wartime emissions will only grow. Armed conflict not only devastates societies but also undermines global climate goals, erasing years of environmental progress in a matter of days.

In the absence of binding, responsible legal frameworks, ecological destruction is tolerated as unavoidable collateral damage of military strategy. It is not considered environmental wrongdoing warranting international accountability. Modernwarfare targets critical infrastructure such as energy depots, refineries, pipelines, and transportation hubs, to disrupt supply chains and weaken a state’s capacity.

Designing frameworks that consider environmental harm during war becomes necessary. Without such legal frameworks, ecological harms remain unmeasured, undocumented, and therefore unaccounted for. Additionally, reliable real-time monitoring systems for wartime emissions and transparency regarding emissions are necessary to bridge the accountability gap.

An equally pressing question is who is responsible for environmental restoration after the fighting ends. Polluted soil, contaminated groundwater, and toxic air can take decades to repair, requiring enormous financial and technical resources. For civilians, the war does not end when the bombing stops. It continues in the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the land they depend on for food. International law continues to struggle with determining who should bear the burden of repairing such damage.

Ascertaining which states responsible for, or victims of, environmental destruction becomes especially challenging when they are not parties to certain environmental conventions. Most international environmental and climate conventions remain unevenly adopted. A few countries have also withdrawn from these conventions, particularly the USA. Under these circumstances, mechanisms for reparations and accountability become difficult to enforce. In addition, determining whether victims of wartime environmental harm may receive reparations for environmental spillovers remains a contested area.

The Limits of Reparations and Geopolitical Realities

In the past, several attacks at oil refineries have taken place, such as the 1991 Kuwait oilfields during the Gulf War, the 2016 Qayyarah oil fields in Iraq, etc. However, only Kuwait received reparations from Iraq for damages caused, including environmental destruction. However, similar mechanisms have rarely been applied in other conflicts. This reveals that reparations are subject to unique geopolitical circumstances. This leaves many affected communities without justice.

These limitations suggest that wartime environmental destruction cannot remain confined within the narrow framework of conflict parties alone. The environment is a shared concern worldwide. The international community has a special role in ensuring responsibility for safeguarding shared ecosystems.

The Way Forward

In times when rising temperatures, desertification, drought dying wetlands etc have already caused Tehran much misery. This new factor of war, threatens to deepen an already fragile environmental and humanitarian crisis. This may also trigger regional and cross border consequences  triggering health, environmental and post-war recovery crisis.

Therefore, urgent international action, especially from non-participants in the war, is needed, as part of global responsibility to safeguard shared ecosystems. Designing mechanisms to investigate, hold accountable, and treat environmental damage during war as a serious international offence remains necessary. It must promote greater transparency regarding military emissions and propose mechanisms to monitor the environmental consequences of armed conflict in real-time. Strengthening environmental reparations and ecological restoration in post-war recovery processes remains equally essential.

Despite the ongoing geopolitical tensions and contested world order, addressing environmental concerns requires some level of international dialogue and cooperation, even among rivals. It raises concerns that make pragmatic cooperation necessary. This is not because geopolitical rivalries have disappeared, but because the ecological consequences of ignoring the problem are too severe to overlook.

Thus, the Tehran episode remains a wake-up call for countries to address environmental damage caused by war. It reminds us that, to protect both human security and the planet, we must treat environmental destruction in war not as an unfortunate side effect.

Rudrani Garg: Emerging Scholar in International Relations | Focused on Refugee Policy, Polar Geopolitics, Maritime Security & South-South Cooperation | Research Intern

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