The Environmental Impact of War

Every day we see more devastating news coming out of on the wars in Gaza and the Ukraine. We see photos of cities and towns turned into piles of rubble and people who have lost their loved ones, their homes and their livelihoods.

But there are other insidious ramifications of these wars that we seldom discuss. And those are the effects on the environment. To discuss this, ellie Kinney joins us this week from the UK based organization, conflict and Environment Observatory. This organization was launched in 2018 with the primary goal of increasing awareness and understanding of the environmental and derived humanitarian consequences of conflicts and military activities.

https://ceobs.org/

Transcript

Abigail: 0:05

Welcome to the podcast where we celebrate innovation for a happy planet. I am your host, Abigail Carroll. Every day we see more devastating news coming out of on the wars in Gaza and the Ukraine. We see photos of cities and towns turned into piles of rubble and people who have lost their loved ones, their homes and their livelihoods. But there are other insidious ramifications of these wars that we seldom discuss. And those are the effects on the environment. To discuss this, ellie Kinney joins us this week from the UK based organization, conflict and Environment Observatory. This organization was launched in 2018 with the primary goal of increasing awareness and understanding of the environmental and derived humanitarian consequences of conflicts and military activities. Welcome to the podcast

Ellie: 1:02

and thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here

Abigail: 1:04

I am delighted to have you here. We have conflicts going on all over the world and some are absolutely devastating. And I am delighted to get into this really heavy and under-discussed topic of the climate impacts of these global conflicts. So. Tell me a little bit first about the conflict and environment observatory.

Ellie: 1:31

So we are an NGO a charity based in the UK in a tiny little place called, which is kind of between Manchester and Leeds in the north of England. A really beautiful area. And from our office we aim to provide a voice for the environment and everyone. Who depends on it, all of us when it faces harm from armed conflict and military activity. So basically we look at the way that war or military activity impacts on the environment and then we aim to do something about that.

Abigail: 2:07

We hear about the human toll all the time. We have all those stats from World War I, world War ii, and it, and it's very obvious to us. While we're looking at sort of media coming from Gaza or the Ukraine why is it, that we haven't been talking about the environmental impact? Why are we overlooking this?

Ellie: 2:30

I think, well, I think there's a few, there's a few areas really. I think when it comes to the kind of, there is the real human horror. Of, of a war that is kind of, it's what you see first and foremost. And it's the, you know, it's the pictures that you connect with in the, in the news and things like that that really kind of hammer home the, the atrocities that are going on. And I think it's that, that people naturally connect to first the real kind of immediate humanitarian crisis. But then I think there is, yeah, then there is this hole or the picture going on. And a lot of times it's just not visible. And I think part of that, something being less visible makes it harder for people to connect with and to kind of think about it. And if anything, the environmental damage that is more visible, I think gets more attention. For example, like if you have like.

Abigail: 3:25

Right.

Ellie: 3:26

Huge fires from from walls. That's the kind of stuff that you might think of a bit more, more obviously. Whereas something like, like, like greenhouse gas emissions, it's not particularly visible. You're not really thinking about it. But it's very much part of the impact of a war. And if anything, you know, it really just adds to this long-term humanitarian impact to when you have these, these lasting impacts to the environment and to the climate.

Abigail: 3:56

For sure. So how do you measure this?

Ellie: 3:59

So when we think about the environmental impacts more directly we have, I have a, a, you know, a team of. Hugely intelligent colleagues of mine who are able to, monitor the environmental impact of conflicts from our office in Roy or from wherever they live. They can use. Open source intelligence, satellite imagery, remote sensing technologies. There's all sorts of very clever things that they do that mean that they can monitor the environmental impact of a wall from wherever they are. So that's kind of the, the conflict monitoring side of stuff from an environmental perspective. And then from, I guess like a climate. It's, trickier. So because there is, I mean the kind of core fundamental thing that we struggle with is the fact that there is very little information out there about military and conflict emissions in terms of military emissions. This, this is an issue kind of dates back to. When the Kyoto protocol was being developed the US lobbied for military emissions to be exempt from reporting and successfully got that which meant that

Abigail: 5:15

We're always on the right side of these

Ellie: 5:18

somewhere, somewhere the US is lurking. Yeah, so then that when it, when. Fast forward a little bit to the Paris Agreement, and this wording changes from exempt to voluntary. So governments can, if they want to give information, report their military greenhouse gas emissions. But we know if,

Abigail: 5:40

But then that adds up to that, that's added to their general greenhouse emissions. And then of course. That could put them over the line or, you know, that could make them non-compliant. So why would

Ellie: 5:52

And if so, yeah, if it's voluntary. They don't have to do it. Or if they do do it, they don't have to do it very well.'cause no one's gonna tell them off otherwise. So yeah, if you can hide a little bit of something from, from your reporting, you know, you would do, or that's definitely what happens. The issue is it's not a little bit of something, it's quite a big bit of something. So by our estimations, global militaries are responsible for 5.5% of. Global emissions, which is, I mean, to put that into perspective, like civil aviation is what, like two and a half to 3%. And we all kind of associate flying with being bad for the environment and bad for the climate. We don't necessarily have this association with militaries because there is this data gap. So. Yeah. When it comes to counting the climate impact of conflicts and militaries, but kind of conflicts in particular, being a little bit more creative about it is kind of, yeah, how we go about it.

Abigail: 6:59

Well, it's fascinating. You know, we're looking, you know, I get to see these pictures of, of. From the Ukraine and Gaza and, you know, just fields and fields of rubble. And I think about the, the impact. Well, what was the CO2 emissions to build all of that? What is the CO2 emission of destroying all of that? And what are, what are, what are the impacts of having to

Ellie: 7:26

Complete. Yeah, completely. That is so much the,

Abigail: 7:29

it just seems unfathomable.

Ellie: 7:33

yeah, I mean, if we look at in particular, it's say. Ukraine, so Russia's invasion of Ukraine. I think this was kind of the first time that researchers had set about estimating the climate impact of a conflict in kind of like, like a live ongoing conflict. So. The initiative of the greenhouse gas accounting of war was set up. And they publish reports kind of every year, I think on the anniversary. So the last one there, by their estimations, three years of Russia's invasion of Ukraine has resulted in the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as having 120 million fossil fuel cars on the road every year. These are huge and yeah, you're also, you're looking at what the costs are of destroying places and then the necessary rebuilding eventually, as well as things like. Fuel use for tanks and, and jets and, and the kind of the things that you might think of more obviously. And then, you think of places like Gaza and huge amounts of destruction that's going on there at the moment, which feel this again, this kind of like, I think with conflict missions in particular, it's just this real, like needless amount of emissions. There's no need to destroy these areas.

Abigail: 8:56

Hmm.

Ellie: 8:56

To then, you know, have to rebuild them again. So then you're grappling with really large quantities of emissions that realistically aren't the best way that we should be spending our limited carbon budget at the moment.

Abigail: 9:13

So you create incredible data, incredible research projects. You, are demonstrating a real massive global problem here. Are there, are there tools in your toolbox that you can use to help remedy, help make change?

Ellie: 9:30

I think one of the. Really key things I think about what we do is having this real direct link from the research that we do and the research of the partners that we work closely with, and feeding this directly into the advocacy that we work on. So for example, our project, the Military Emissions Gap, we work with a whole network of academics and experts in different ways who pull together. Bits of data and pull together estimations about militaries, about conflicts, about training exercises, and they fill these data gaps and then that directly feeds what I do. Going to things like cop and climate talks and talking to policy policymakers about the changes that need to happen. Yeah. And that's like, yeah, from the climate side of things. And you can apply a similar thing across all of Sea Os that we see the destruction that is going on, and then specifically try to change it to change the situation. So for example, we've been involved in initiatives like the Para Act principles, the protection of the environment and relations, armed conflicts, and the development of of. Initiatives like that, that are directly fueled by the research that, and the partners that we work with have been feeding in

Abigail: 10:59

can you tell me a little bit more about that? What's

Ellie: 11:01

the peric principles, the protection of the environment in relation to armed conflict. Just basically, a set of principles which aim to change the conduct of wars in relation to how militaries operate during wartime in a way that doesn't necessarily need to be as destructive to the environment as it currently is.

Abigail: 11:25

So you know, if armies would already apply the other rules, that would be good. So is it the UN that is that is accepted the, the principles of the,

Ellie: 11:37

Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's, it's a, it's a UN initiative which has Yeah. Been fed into by all sorts of sort of civil society and ourselves. Yeah. But yeah. Then you do, oh, gone.

Abigail: 11:47

And are they different? No. Are they different if you're defending yourself than they are if you're on the attack? Or is it basically everybody's meant to follow the same,

Ellie: 11:58

That's a good question. I dunno to what extent it does separate defense and attack, but I think it, it's just kind of largely like the best practice things that, that we follow. But yeah, I suppose if you look at the way that wars are kind of a few key large scale wars at the moment. You might have set out things in international humanitarian law that are aimed to keep conflicts. With limited interruption of limited harm to civilians, but that really does require states to follow those initiatives.

Abigail: 13:04

Yeah. Yeah. So. We've got the immediate toll of these conflicts, but they have long lasting ramifications. So you've got a big, a big, you know, upset. But are there, are there things that we should be keeping in mind about the longer term implications other than just having to rebuild the longer term environmental. Implications of a conflict like Gaza or the

Ellie: 13:34

Yeah, I think part of the, the kind of research we gather and yeah, others who, who work on this sort of thing is really key in being able to facilitate, you know, environmental remediation and facilitate, kind of what happens next. Environmental damage doesn't stop the, the second that the fighting stops there are, like you say, lasting implications. Those processes have to be facilitated by information. You have to have people kind of looking and knowing what's going on there. And I think that comes from a real mix of, of academics, of on the ground expertise and of like civil society organizations like ourselves.

Abigail: 14:14

Yeah. And then there's sort of the problem of we've got the buildings and everything fall apart, but there is a real toll on just the destruction of wildlife and, and ecosystems.

Ellie: 14:28

Yeah, massively. I think, habitats that get to start destroyed during wartime the way that habitats are changing because of climate damage. There's a whole chain of events and it's the things that aren't always necessarily as that visible to us. I mean, we've done this, colleagues of mine have done research into the way that. Excuse my cat. She's, she's also very passionate about this. She is definitely the wild part of wildlife. Yeah. Colleagues of mine who've looked at the way that conflicts impact on, you know, like marine life. There's all sorts of things that we might not think of just'cause it's, it's not the kind of visible side of things.

Abigail: 15:10

Yeah. Yeah. So how did you get interested in this subject?

Ellie: 15:15

My background was had been more around kind of nuclear disarmament. When I was a student, I was kind of just. Began thinking about yeah, nuclear disarmament. I've been thinking about the fact that so based in the uk we are one of the very few countries in the UK that in the world that have nuclear weapons. And kind of, it's that thing. You start to pull at a thread and, and you start to challenge policies like that and you kind of just feel like it doesn't really hold up against the ethics and the morals that we claim to have as a country. And that kind of got me quite curious about. Yeah, I think the fact that defense policy does kind of get a free pass because people aren't particularly comfortable challenging it, you kind of just, you assume that the higher powers than the government are doing what, what's in your best interest there? But I think definitely looking in UK history of the past sort of 10, 20 years, I, I think that that hasn't always been the case. And I think it's that kind of military exceptionalism that lends itself to situations like we're in now where militaries do not have to report their emissions, and as a result, you kind of have this whole sector operating kind of untracked. Whilst in theory all the sectors are really trying to, you know, push forward. Decarbonization climate action is seen as a global thing, but yet you have this sector that's just. Doing its own thing.

Abigail: 16:45

mm.

Ellie: 16:45

And I think it's important that we're able to kind of question and challenge, and that's how, you know, that's how we make change.

Abigail: 16:56

So how long has this organization

Ellie: 16:58

So, yeah, the Conflicts Environment Observatory was set up around 20 17 20 18. So we are relatively, relatively new. But we are kind of built on projects before roles like the toxic remnants of war project and things like that. So it's not an entirely new area, but it's definitely a kind of really increasingly snowballing area. I think the invasion of Ukraine in particular marked a real milestone in the, the way that people started thinking and talking about the environmental and climate impacts of of wars. And then that as I think, set a precedent for how we talk about other conflicts. Yeah, that it's that we do take these factors into consideration still, maybe not as much as we should, but still way more than we did for other conflicts.

Abigail: 17:51

So. You're in it, you have this agenda, you're trying to push it. Where do you hope this ends? What's the big dream if your work were having, if your organization's work were having the impact that you hoped, what would the end game of that be?

Ellie: 18:08

I think we kind of work on a few levels, I think. So the military emissions gap, which is the project that I coordinate, our kind of main aim with that is that militaries the. Across the world should be transparent about the emissions that they produce and that that should facilitate emissions reductions in line with the Paris Agreement, bringing militaries into the scope as of every other sector where you report your emissions and. You reduce them in line with the Paris Agreement in order for us to secure this livable future for all in order for us to limit warming to 1.5 degrees and, and not go over that. This is kind of, yeah, that's the, the, the aim of. The military emissions gap. But I think also what what you have in the kind of broader picture as well is the more that you recognize quite how destructive wars are on a climate and an environmental level, the more that this hopefully facilitates and like adds to the argument for conflict prevention as much as possible, and the fact that there are so many reasons why. Walls are damaging and beyond the things that we might just initially think of, and therefore we, yeah, we just need to have as much investment in, in conflict prevention, in peace building as you know, a green form of defense to protect our futures.

Abigail: 19:44

Yeah. Well, I hope I hope that works. Are you, so on the, like, get back to the Ukraine, will you continue to monitor the, you know. Should these wars ever end, would you, will you continue to monitor the, the reconstruction and that global impact?

Ellie: 20:06

Yeah, I think it's an interesting one because we are a relatively new organization. And the invasion of Ukraine is kind of the first sort of time that we seem to be following a war throughout its entirety that for us it's, you know, where are we, where are we useful? At what point it's, you know, how are we supporting this? Process of gathering information that's necessary. So I think for as long as that information continues to be useful to facilitate green recovery in Ukraine then I will continue to, to be here doing that kind of thing. It doesn't stop with, with Ukraine, every war looks different and has different impacts we don't, we don't have the,

Abigail: 20:54

just wondering if it's like,

Ellie: 20:56

We would aim in an, in an ideal world where, I mean, we're, we're a small team, we're a small organization. Ideal world, we would have the resources to be able to, to do this with, with every, you know, lots of different conflicts and the different forms that they take.

Abigail: 21:11

Yeah.

Ellie: 21:12

So we'll see to what extent we,

Abigail: 21:13

But I think

Ellie: 21:14

huge organization and, and, and take over the world. We'll see.

Abigail: 21:18

well, I certainly hope that's true. But no, but I feel like it, it kind of. Rings home that may be part of reconstruction is rewilding. You know, it's like reforestation. Like there are, there are so many different parts of you know, just looking at it through the lens of climate and the environment just makes it so clear, not just the devastation, but the other actions that really need to be taken to restore. This,

Ellie: 21:52

Yeah, definitely. And I think there are, you know, there are examples where. Conflicts have led to land being used for purposes that are more damaging to the environment than they may have been before. Where land that maybe pri previously had been kind of agricultural or something like that then gets turned into other things. And I think that's, yeah, there's a whole, there's a lot that you have to be careful with around, around that. And there is, you know, I think if this, it's a long term. Process of managing the environment and af after a conflict. If you think of, for example, to use Ukraine again, but there's lots of different countries where this is applicable. The presence of landmines and unexploded ordinance after conflict and the way that that impacts communities. And it's an environmental risk that has a real human risk. So things like that and the amount of Ukraine that's mined, but similarly across lots of other conflicts where you've had that real lasting impact.

Abigail: 23:02

And you're probably not gonna use that land for agricultural purposes if there's hidden landmines.

Ellie: 23:07

Then it's a matter of, I know in Ukraine at the moment, there's a lot of talk of how you clear, because Ukraine had such a, an agricultural based economy, how you clear landmines you know, effectively to then be able to return that land back to the communities. And that kind of process is, is really important, but it's also really important that we do that in a way that is protecting of the environment and the climate. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that would be the ideal. Wouldn't but I think this is it's the importance of, of working within multilateral processes. Like I work on, on COP and, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. And, you know, different colleagues work on, you know, the UN General Assembly. And it's important that, I think that the kind of, yeah, the, the presence of. People like Putin and other current war mongers around Netanyahu the importance of really bolstering multilateral systems and really kind of bolstering these international norms is, is so crucial to, yeah, to ensure these other, you know, these are anomalies rather than the norm.

Abigail: 24:22

I mean, can you have an eco-friendly war?

Ellie: 24:25

I think wars are inherently destructive. They will always be destructive and there will never be a thing such a thing as an eco-friendly war. But there are definitely. Things that you can do within wars that limit the destruction both to, to people and to the environment. I think if you look at things like the O EPA declaration, the explosive weapons and populated areas declaration you can kind of, you see the. It does what it says on the tint. It's a bad idea to use explosive weapons in populated areas because of the damage, the, the risk to civilians, but also on an environmental level. And you have these kind of declarations and treaties that have been brought in through UN systems kind of some and treaties, whether that's cluster munitions and things like that, where we have stopped or reduced using things because we know that they have. They come at a greater risk to people, to the environment. And there are those kind of processes that can and should continue to go. We can change the conduct of wars to make it slightly better, well, that's the wrong word, potentially less damaging to people and the environment. But with the huge kind of overarching theme that. The best case scenario for people and environment is less wars and more investment in peace building and conflict prevention and diplomacy.

Abigail: 25:59

But if we can at least hold people accountable to the emissions, that's,

Ellie: 26:04

Yeah. Yeah, and that's a whole other question of, of accountability of what happens now that we are starting to talk about the environmental impacts within the context of war you have. In the same way there, there are legal frameworks around war crimes. On a kind of personal level, what does that look like in the future from an environmental perspective? We have people talking about eco side in the context of, of war and that kind of thing, and yeah. What does that look like? Legally moving forward is a big question. Okay.

Abigail: 26:37

They have to plant a lot of trees.

Ellie: 26:39

I think we might need more than that.

Abigail: 26:41

Maybe that's the punishment.

Ellie: 26:43

Might need more than a few trees for some of these, I think. But yeah, there's, yeah. Big questions of accountability and, and big questions of reparations and things like that. And yeah. What is, what's the next step? There's a lot of big questions to grapple with.

Abigail: 26:57

well it is because it's happening over there, but as we know, like, you know, what happens across the planet impacts everybody. So we all suffer

Ellie: 27:08

yeah, definitely. I mean, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the emissions will be felt by small island states and rising sea levels. Like these, these things are all connected.

Abigail: 27:22

Of course. Well that's fascinating. Well are you, are you optimistic about. The planet just generally with respect to climate change.

Ellie: 27:34

I think it's a, it's a yes and no answer. I think we, we know what to do. Science scientists know what to do. The paths are there. The IPCC has laid out. The path of what needs to happen. What is important now is that we do it, I think, which feels, much easier said than done. I think things like diplomacy and countries coming together to work through these problems has reverberating benefits we're able to pull together around climate change. At a point when multilateralism kind of seems to be struggling, each goes to show what, what kind of intergovernmental coordination we're able to do. And that kind of would make me optimistic about, about the future. But I think importantly, I am also just really optimistic about the, it's the cliche, but the younger generations, I think. People are kind of being raised to challenge and question because they're being brought into this world that looks so different to the world that anyone really wants to be, to be operating in at the moment. And we've really seen the way that young people have risen to the really unfortunate challenge that's been set to them by the older older decision makers through, for example, it was there. The recent case that was brought to the ICJ around establishing state's responsibility and response to the climate. Crisis and really like, fun, like cementing in this, this big case, genuinely what it is that governments have to do. Clear cut. So they don't have to, they can't escape their responsibilities. And it was young people who brought that to the, to the ICJ. So it's things like that where I think young people are, breaking out the mold and being like, actually things need to change. And that, that makes me optimistic. I always come back from cop with a real mixed. Sort of feeling of like, oh, it's such a difficult process to watch this slow progress, but every time I just meet the most amazing activist yeah, that, that gives me hope.

Abigail: 29:53

great. Well, that's, that's wonderful. And you can't fix a problem unless you identify it. So you're at least getting the word out there. And then hopefully it will become part of our generalized thinking about or, and the environment. Thank you so much Ellie, for coming on this podcast. It's such an important subject and I know that listeners are gonna be really interested to hear what you've

Ellie: 30:19

Thank you so much for having me.

Abigail: 30:21

and

Ellie: 30:21

Thank you so much. And yeah, if anyone does want to yeah, hear more about what we do they can follow the Military Emissions Gap project. Or the Conflict Environment Observatory.

Abigail: 30:33

Wonderful.