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Gaza conflict's environmental toll: A surge in carbon emissions

The new research calculates that the carbon cost of rebuilding Gaza’s 100,000 damaged buildings using contemporary construction techniques will generate at least 30m metric tonnes of warming gases. This is on a par with New Zealand’s annual CO2 emissions and higher than 135 other countries and territories including Sri Lanka, Lebanon and Uruguay.

Climate consequences including sea level rise, drought and extreme heat were already threatening water supplies and food security in Palestine. The environmental situation in Gaza is now catastrophic, as much of the farmland, energy and water infrastructure has been destroyed or polluted, with devastating health implications probably for decades to come, experts have warned. Between 36% and 45% of Gaza’s buildings – homes, schools, mosques, hospitals, shops – have so far been destroyed or damaged, and construction is a major driver of global heating.

Building Israel’s iron wall, which runs 65km along most of its border with Gaza and features surveillance cameras, underground sensors, razor wire, a 20ft high metal fence and large concrete barriers, contributed almost 274,000 tonnes of CO2. This is almost on par with the entire 2022 emissions by Central African Republic, one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world.

By 4 December, at least 200 American cargo flights were reported to have delivered 10,000 tonnes of military equipment to Israel. The study found that the flights guzzled around 50m litres of aviation fuel, spewing an estimated 133,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – more than the entire island of Grenada last year https://perma.cc/UKE9-M7RP

The carbon footprint of EU military expenditure in 2019 was estimated to be about 24.8 million tCO2e, which is equivalent to the annual emissions of approximately 14 million average cars.

GERMANY: we estimate the total emissions (scopes 1 and 2) to be approximately 711,000 tCO2e. This is less than that in France, but the difference is not as high as would be expected from a sector of about half the size. A key reason for this seems to be that Germany’s electricity sector has a higher GHG emissions intensity than that of France.85

Comparing Germany’s gures with those of the other large EU military sector – in France – we can make two key observations:
• Germany has significantly higher GHG emissions associated with military bases (due to, for example, it’s much more carbon intensive electricity supply).
• France has considerably higher emissions associated with its ‘mobile activities’ – especially its air force and navy – due to its larger size and levels of overseas deployment.

POLAND: By multiplying this by the number of employees in the sector, we estimate the total emissions (scopes 1 and 2) to be approximately 972,000 tCO2e. This is higher than the total figures for either France or Germany, despite their much larger arms industries.

Large fractions of the military technology industry did not publicly declare GHG emissions data (Germany, Netherlands, Poland).

France was found to contribute approximately one-third of the total carbon footprint for the EU military. This was due to its large armed forces and military technology industrial sector. Other major contributors to the total were Germany (18%), Spain (11%), and Italy (9%). We were unable to make an estimate for Poland because we could not access country-specific data on the GHG emissions of its armed forces.

Poland’s military technology industry was estimated to have the highest GHG emissions and was responsible for about 18% of the EU total. France (13%), Germany (10%), and Italy (9%).