The Hidden Climate Toll of the U.S.–Israel–Iran War 2026
Research Brief · Arjavkumar Azad · March 20, 2026
The Hidden Climate Toll of the U.S.–Israel–Iran War
Three weeks of strikes on Gulf energy infrastructure have generated an estimated half a million tonnes of greenhouse gases. A new independent whitepaper quantifies the cost — and finds the answer isn't what most people expect.
On February 28, 2026, the world's most oil-dense region became a war zone. U.S. and Israeli forces launched coordinated strikes on Iran, and within days, refineries were burning, gas fields were ablaze, and the Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of global oil flows every day — was effectively shut. The human toll has dominated headlines. But another toll has been accumulating silently in the atmosphere above the Persian Gulf: carbon.
A new independent research paper, Carbon Emissions from the U.S.–Israel–Iran War (Feb–Mar 2026), published today, attempts what no government has done: put a number on the greenhouse gas cost of this conflict, using published IPCC, EPA, and EIA emission factors, satellite imagery, and fully transparent assumptions.
The findings are sobering — and carry implications that reach far beyond the region.
The Numbers at a Glance
- ~500,000 tonnes CO₂e — central estimate, February 28 to March 20
- 0.1 to 2.0 Mt CO₂e — full lower-to-upper uncertainty range
- 7,000+ targets struck by U.S. forces in Iran alone (Reuters)
- 20% of global oil supply transits the Strait of Hormuz, now severely disrupted
- 0 tonnes of this will appear in any official national climate report
Four Ways a War Emits Carbon
The paper identifies four distinct channels:
1. Military fuel combustion. Jet fuel for sorties, kerosene for cruise missiles, diesel for tanks and trucks. One thousand U.S.–Israeli sorties averaging 5,000 litres of jet fuel each produce around 13,000 tonnes of CO₂. Substantial — but almost a rounding error compared to what comes next.
2. Oil and gas infrastructure fires. The Saudi Ras Tanura refinery, two Iraqi oil tankers ablaze off Basra, and Iran's South Pars gas field, set alight by Israeli airstrikes on March 18. Uncontrolled fires burn far less efficiently than turbines — the emission intensity per unit of energy is dramatically higher.
3. Fugitive methane. The silent multiplier. When gas infrastructure ruptures and methane escapes unburned into the atmosphere, each tonne of CH₄ carries the warming equivalent of 29 tonnes of CO₂ over 100 years (IPCC AR5). The South Pars fire alone is estimated to have produced the equivalent of over 520,000 tonnes of CO₂.
4. Shipping disruption. With the Strait of Hormuz largely closed to normal traffic, around 100 large tankers have rerouted via the Cape of Good Hope — burning an estimated 155,000 extra tonnes of CO₂ worth of fuel. A quiet but measurable cost of closed sea lanes.
The Finding That Surprises Everyone: It's Not the Jets
Here are the central-estimate CO₂e figures side by side:
| Source | CO₂e (tonnes) |
|---|---|
| South Pars gas field fire | ~522,000 |
| Shipping reroute (Hormuz → Cape) | ~155,000 |
| Pipeline CH₄ leak (estimated) | ~145,000 |
| Basra tanker fires | ~25,000 |
| All air sorties (US & Israel) | ~13,000 |
| Ras Tanura refinery fire | ~5,000 |
| Tehran oil depot fires | ~3,000 |
| Missiles, drones & ground vehicles | <300 |
| TOTAL (Central estimate) | ~865,000 |
All figures ±50–100% uncertainty. Central estimates only. Source: Climate & Conflict Research Group (2026), using IPCC/EPA/EIA factors.
The table makes the core finding impossible to ignore: the South Pars gas fire alone produces more CO₂e than every military flight, missile, drone, tank, and truck in this conflict combined — by a factor of 40. The jets, the most visible symbol of military emissions, are practically invisible in the ledger.
The reason is methane's potency. When an airstrike ignites a gas field, the escaping molecules aren't CO₂ — they're CH₄. Multiply by 29 and you have your answer. The 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage released ~485,000 tonnes of methane in a few days, equivalent to roughly 12 million tonnes of CO₂. Even a small fraction of that dynamic, applied to South Pars, rewrites the entire emissions story.
How It Compares to Other Conflicts
A peer-reviewed study of Israel's war in Gaza (2023–24) estimated approximately 0.5 Mt CO₂e in the first four months of operations — broadly similar to our central estimate here, but over a much longer period. The key difference is composition: Gaza's toll was dominated by ground operations, rubble, and diesel-heavy machinery. This conflict's toll is dominated by what was struck — gas infrastructure.
That distinction matters. It means that in conflicts involving energy-dense regions, the climate calculus shifts entirely. You don't need a long ground war to produce a large atmospheric footprint. One well-targeted gas field strike can do it in an afternoon.
The Accountability Gap
Perhaps the most important finding in the paper isn't a number at all. It's a gap.
Military emissions are systematically excluded from mandatory national GHG reporting under UNFCCC frameworks. This carve-out dates to the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in the 1990s and has never been meaningfully challenged. Countries may voluntarily disclose military emissions — none are required to. In practice, almost none do.
The practical consequence: every tonne of CO₂e generated by this conflict — from every airstrike, every tanker fire, every vented gas field — simply vanishes from the global climate ledger. It goes into the atmosphere and out of accountability simultaneously.
What the paper recommends: A mandatory conflict-emissions reporting protocol under the UNFCCC; deployment of real-time satellite methane monitoring (TROPOMI and MethaneSAT are both technically capable) during active conflicts; and explicit inclusion of energy infrastructure methane releases in post-conflict climate assessments.
Read the Full Paper
The complete whitepaper includes:
- A full incident-by-incident emissions table with all assumptions stated
- Four data visualisations (pie chart, cumulative timeline, bar comparison, sensitivity tornado)
- Sensitivity analysis showing which assumptions drive the most uncertainty
- 15 cited sources including Reuters, UNEP, EPA, IATA, and IPCC
- Lower, central, and upper bound estimates throughout
→ Download the full whitepaper (PDF, 12 pages)
The numbers will be revised as better data emerges — uncertainty bounds are wide and the authors say so explicitly. But the core message is unlikely to change: protecting gas infrastructure is, from a climate standpoint, as important as protecting civilian lives. Both are destroyed by the same strike. Only one makes it onto a climate spreadsheet.
Comments
Post a Comment