It may have taken place 35 years ago, but the sight of hundreds of burning Kuwaiti oil wells are among the defining images of the 1991 Gulf War. The environmental damage caused by retreating Iraqi troops at the time revealed the broader consequences of armed conflict as communities across the region were confronted by the threat of contaminated land, polluted air and poisoned waters.
Although not at the levels seen in 1991, the fallout from the current Iran-US-Israeli conflict once again threatens the Arabian Gulf’s intricate ecosystem.
While the authorities in several Gulf countries have been quick to tackle fires caused by Iranian attacks on oil facilities as far apart as Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia, Ruwais in Abu Dhabi and Salalah in southern Oman, there is little doubt we are facing a perilous moment.
As tankers full of oil are attacked by Iranian forces and the US threatens more air strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island – the country’s main oil-export hub – experts are growing fearful. Last week, the UN Environment Programme warned that the fight is already driving widespread environmental damage and World Health Organisation spokesman Christian Lindmeier recently said that the so-called black rain falling on Tehran after US and Israeli strikes poses a danger to Iranians’ health.
As if this were not bad enough, the disruption to oil exports from the Gulf could have environmental consequences globally. Faced with supply problems, some countries may revert to using more polluting fuels such as coal to meet their energy needs. In addition, long diversions in shipping and aviation routes increases the amount of fuel being burned, something that has wide-ranging environmental repercussions.
The Gulf has seen and tackled pollution before but it is a complex, technical and expensive job. Bechtel, an American engineering company, was involved in the 1991 clean-up in Kuwait. It says it took an international team of 16,000 workers nine months to extinguish and cap 650 burning or damaged oil wells. The work to clean up the millions of barrels of oil dumped into the Gulf by Saddam Hussein’s forces took much longer.
There are plenty of engineering solutions to containing environmental damage; for example, booms and skimmers can be used to contain oil spills at sea. However, as with the challenging and laborious process of demining important maritime routes, it is unlikely that any international efforts to mitigate the current environmental damage can take place while drones, missiles and air strikes are endangering lives across the region.
All this makes an immediate halt to hostilities even more crucial, a position that is gaining wider global support. The UN Environment Programme has backed UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s call for a ceasefire and in an interview on Friday, UAE Minister of State Lana Nusseibeh said that Tehran must abide by UN Security Council Resolution 2817 that condemned Iran’s actions over the past two weeks.
In addition to the loss of human life and destruction of infrastructure taking place, environmental degradation is a major concern. A polluted region with global ramifications underlines the reality that this is a conflict in which nobody wins.
