Introduction by Croakey: Projected emissions from the first 120 days of the Israel-Gaza conflict were “greater than the annual emissions of 26 individual countries and territories”, according to a new report from the Queen Mary University of London.
The report and the peer-reviewed publication of the study do not make clear which 26 countries were included in the analysis; however, the researchers estimate the first 120 days of the conflict have emitted between 420,265 and 652,552 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e).
The study goes on to show that total emissions increases when war infrastructure built by both Israel and Hamas are included. Additionally, the authors report on the huge emissions that will accompany reconstruction of Gaza.
By far the largest carbon emission output comes from the reconstruction needs of Gaza, estimated to be between 46.8 million and 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, the authors write.
Highlighting the significant impact that war and conflict have on entire populations, as well as those most immediately and directly affected, the authors points to the need for mandatory reporting of military emissions in war and peacetime through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
“This exercise attempts to offer some glimpses of the wider environmental and climate effects of the conflict, effects that are not separable from the wider humanitarian costs of war,” the researchers write.
“Military operations remain an under-analysed dimension of the climate crisis that will worsen suffering on vulnerable communities and the wider region as the impacts of global warming intensify.”
Dr Kate Wylie, GP and Executive Director of Doctors for the Environment Australia told Croakey: “Anything that increases emissions is going to add further heat to the already-warming planet. That means impacts on health.
“We are already seeing so many terrible health impacts from climate change in Australia and across the globe. Currently we have a heatwave in India with deaths, water shortages and food insecurity. Not to mention, of course, the terrible human rights injustice and suffering that we’re seeing in Palestine.”
Dr Sue Wareham OAM, President of Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia), echoes calls for mandatory reporting of military emissions, an issue she has raised previously at Croakey.
Below, Wareham makes a strong case for promoting peace, preventing wars, and demilitarisation “for the climate that is so critical to the health of all of us”.
See end of article for details about an event in Naarm/Melbourne on 17 July, hosted by the Network of Women in Emergency Medicine (NoWEM) and Women in Intensive Care (WIN), about the healthcare sector’s role in speaking up on unprecedented and tense political events.
Sue Wareham writes:
One’s immediate thought on looking at any of the multitude of photos of the devastation of Gaza is a profound sense of sorrow and grief at the capacity of humans to wreak such destruction and suffering.
There is mind-numbing despair at the plight of children who have lost everything – their parents, other family members, their own health, their education, their fun, their society, their future.
As catastrophic as this is, it is not even the full picture of the harm being wrought in the destruction of Gaza.
One can’t help wondering also: when rebuilding eventually starts, where will whole neighbourhoods of rubble go?
It will need new neighbourhoods of rubble simply to hold it all, or that very useful waste dump – the ocean. Moving it all and starting again will be part of a hidden problem in the war on Gaza – its greenhouse gas emissions.
The carbon costs of war and its preparations are of increasing concern to civil society, as rapid greenhouse gas emissions reductions become increasingly urgent.
Military emissions
The Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) estimates that the world’s militaries may be responsible for 5.5 percent of global emissions, “a proportion so great that it can no longer be ignored”.
A study released on 6 June from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), “A Multitemporal Snapshot of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Israel-Gaza Conflict,” examined the emissions from three phases of the current war on Gaza.
The immediate emissions – from bombing raids, reconnaissance flights, rocket attacks etc – in the four months from October 2023 to February 2024 were estimated to be greater than the annual emissions from 26 individual countries and territories.
The emissions total increased dramatically when those from the construction and fortification of war infrastructure, such as the Hamas tunnel network and Israel’s ‘Iron Wall’, and from rebuilding Gaza, were included.
Despite the significant contribution of military emissions globally to the climate crisis – quite apart from the huge distraction of resources and attention from the climate crisis that conflicts provide – there is much work to be done in getting the issue on national and international agendas.
Although the COP28 meeting in Dubai in December 2023 recognised in its Declaration on Climate, Relief, Recovery and Peace the lack of climate resilience in countries affected by armed conflict, it failed to address the underlying problem of armed conflict itself.
Recognising this gap, an article in the BMJ on 19 January this year, “Disarmament is vital for climate justice and health” called for “collaborative, intergenerational action to raise public awareness on demilitarisation for climate justice and health.”
Civil society organisations at COP28 advocated for this, recognising also that with global military spending in 2023 estimated to be at least US$2.4 trillion, demilitarisation could go an extremely long way to funding climate mitigation and adaptation.
CEOBS’ account of the COP28 meeting, “Always Money for War”, reminded us also of the inequitable fact that military emissions are exempt from mandatory reporting under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), following US lobbying at COP3 in 1997. Because such reporting is voluntary, most nations choose not to do it.
Mandatory reporting needed
The Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia) has reported on the opacity surrounding Australia’s military emissions, finding that the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has not published complete energy use or emissions data since 2012.
In the years for which data has been made public, the ADF was responsible for 66 percent of the Australian Government’s emissions.
As stated by the authors of the recent QMUL study, there is “an urgent need for mandatory military emissions reporting through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to better understand and mitigate the climate impact of conflicts.”
Advocacy from the climate health movement, and the health professions generally, about this need would be valuable.
As we strive for rapid emissions reductions across the board it makes no sense to ignore a sector that contributes significantly to the climate crisis and yet escapes accountability for its role. At the very least, we need far greater transparency and mandatory reporting of military emissions.
But we need more than mandatory reporting, which will just tell us how big the problem is.
We need action in the form of demilitarisation – for the people of Gaza, Israel, Sudan, Ukraine and many other places, and for the climate that is so critical to the health of all of us.
Event
On Wednesday, 17 July an expert panel will be convened, in real life and via livestream, by the Network of Women in Emergency Medicine (NoWEM), teaming with Women in Intensive Care (WIN), and joining Dr Natalie Thurtle in Melbourne, broadcasting her controversially cancelled talk which referenced working as the medical coordinator for MSF in Palestine. The panel will address how healthcare providers and organisations can and must be able to speak in an unprecedented and tense political climate, without harming and cancelling each other. This discussion will build on the previous event held in Sydney.
The panel moderated by Dr Ruth Mitchell, neurosurgeon and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, includes Dr Natalie Thurtle, previous medical coordinator for MSF in Palestine; Mary Freer, CEO Compassion Revolution; Dr Sarah Abdo, physician and activist; Dr Kristin Boyle, emergency physician; others TBC.
Register here.
Previously at Croakey
- Protecting healthcare from the violence of war must become a public health priority
- From Gaza: “We did not have time to bury them”
- Urgent calls for Gaza aid crossings to reopen as humanitarian access disintegrates
- Doctors call for greater pressure on Israel over Gaza
- Calls to stop the siege of Gaza, halt the arms supply, and end the health sector’s silence
- Gaza medical staff working under ‘profound psychological strain’ as further threats loom
- World medical leaders call for Gaza ceasefire amid mass graves horror
- New publication documents the terrible toll on women in Gaza
- “Silence becomes complicity”: MPs and other health professionals urged to take stand on Gaza
- “The question is no longer whether Palestinians will starve to death in a famine, but how many will do so”
- World leaders put on notice over Gaza, amid “war on children”
- As children starve to death in Gaza, health and medical academics urge colleagues to speak up
- Australian academics call on their universities to demand ceasefire, amid fears about famine, disease and scholasticide in Gaza
- “To those speaking out for the people of Gaza – thank you for not looking the other way”: Dr Sophie Scamps
- As Australia and other countries put pressure on Israel, health and medical organisations describe horrific conditions in Gaza
- As humanitarian nightmare escalates in Gaza, and the world enters “an age of chaos”, we must work harder for peace
- As global leaders and aid groups speak up about “catastrophic crisis” in Gaza, health professionals are under pressure to remain silent
- Health workers and agencies document the war’s wide-ranging impacts on people in Gaza
- From Gaza: finding words for the unimaginable
- Health leaders join growing calls for permanent ceasefire in Gaza and Israel
- As the people in Gaza experience a “living hell”, medical and humanitarian leaders step up pressure for a permanent ceasefire
- This doctor is urging medical leadership on ceasefire in Gaza and Israel, as United Nations warns of threat to global security
- Amid catastrophic health threats in Gaza, health leaders urge a permanent ceasefire
- Amid ongoing health catastrophe in Gaza, why the silence?
- As Gaza hospitals become “scenes of death, devastation, and despair”, global community urged to act for peace
- Doctors who work with refugees urge medical organisations to speak up for a ceasefire in Gaza
- “Worse every day”: toll mounts in Gaza, including for children and health workers
- “This cannot go on” – a cry for an end to intolerable suffering
- Medical organisation publishes open letter expressing “extreme concern” at Australia’s failure to support ceasefire in Gaza
- Health sector urged to speak out for ceasefire in Gaza
- Calls for ceasefire amid catastrophe in Gaza – “every child everywhere deserves peace”
