Damien Gayle
20 Mar 2026
From black rain to marine pollution, the war in Iran is an environmental disaster
If the first casualty of war is the truth, the environment can’t come far behind
The black rain that fell across Tehran two weekends ago was perhaps the most symbolic symptom of a litany of environmental devastation being wrought on Iran by the US-Israeli war machine since the start of the month. As I reported last week, we already know the conflict will have major long-term environmental repercussions.
Since the beginning of March, thousands of Israeli American bombs and missiles have fallen on Iran’s oil refineries, military bases, industrial areas and nuclear facilities. Iran, in exchange, has launched retaliatory suicide drones and ballistic missiles at similar targets inside Israel and across Gulf states including the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain.
Every impact is a human and environmental catastrophe, which together will add up to a toxic legacy that will blight the whole region – but especially Iran – for decades to come.
With attacks coming thick and fast, environmental monitors have struggled to keep up with incidents. Wim Zwijnenburg, a remote sensing specialist with the Dutch peace advocacy organisation Pax, told me on Wednesday that he has already compiled a database of more than 500 incidents of environmental harm inside Iran and a further 100 outside. Remote sensing is the process of analysing the Earth’s surface from a distance using data such as satellite imagery and aerial photography.
Zwijnenburg said: “What I’m looking at now are high-visibility impacts, like oil depot strikes and marine pollution.” Thousands of targets, mainly military, have been attacked, but there is little public information about what may be in them.
When Tehran’s fuel depots were bombed two weeks ago, authorities and the Iranian Red Crescent Society warned residents of the city to stay at home. Scientists said the fires would have released soot, smoke, oil particles and sulphur compounds, which dissolved in a low-pressure system brewing over the city and fell as black acid rain.
Beyond speculation, however, the impact is more difficult to discern. The Iranian state has not shared environmental data. Normally, Zwijnenburg would gather more data on what is happening on the ground from local observers, often environmental campaigners.
But, he said: “Those are fairly nonexistent in Iran, because of the pushback against any environmental activism, [which was] traditionally associated with espionage.”
With barely protected oil and gas facilities ringing the Gulf, in range of Iran’s missiles, the region is on an ecological knife-edge. Were the conflict to turn seriously towards attacks on fossil-fuel infrastructure in the region – through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies pass, via the strait of Hormuz – the consequences for the local environment, and the climate, could be disastrous.
Iran has consistently warned that attacks on its infrastructure would be met with retaliation in kind. But, so far, strategic restraint appears to have won the day. Then, on Wednesday, Israeli warplanes bombed Iran’s South Pars gas field. What happens next, no one knows. But we will be watching and reporting on the fallout for as long as this war continues.
Iran’s black rain is latest grim example of weather in war zones
By David Hambling
Mar 27, 2026
Black rain fell in Iran earlier this month, a grim phenomenon seen previously in other war zones.
Strikes on oil facilities burned thousands of tons of stored fuel. Unlike the clean controlled combustion inside an engine, uncontrolled burning leaves many particles of unburned fuel, producing a pall of toxic smoke over affected areas.
The particulate matter rises on the hot updraft from the fire and effectively seeds rainclouds, with the particles forming nuclei for raindrops. The resulting dirty rainfall helps clean the air, but potentially harmful pollutants may end up in drinking water.
Similar black rain occurred after oil wells in Kuwait were set ablaze during the 1991 Gulf war.
The most severe form of black rain fell in Hiroshima a few hours after the atomic bombing. This was a mix of radioactive ash and water, with almost the consistency of tar. In some cases the Hiroshima rain was so radioactive it burned exposed skin.
Continue reading at www.theguardian.com
5m tonnes of CO2 emitted in just 14 days of US war on Iran, analysis finds
By Damien Gayle
Mar 21, 2026
The US-Israel war on Iran is a disaster for the climate, according to an analysis that finds it is draining the global carbon budget faster than 84 countries combined.
As warplanes, drones and missiles kill thousands of people, level infrastructure and turn the Middle East into a gigantic environmental sacrifice zone, the first analysis of the climate cost has found the conflict led to 5m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in its first 14 days.
The analysis, shared exclusively with the Guardian, adds another layer on to reporting of the catastrophic environmental harm being caused by attacks on fossil fuel infrastructure, military bases, civilian areas and ships at sea.
“Every missile strike is another downpayment on a hotter, more unstable planet, and none of it makes anyone safer,” said Patrick Bigger, a research director at the Climate and Community Institute and a co-author of the analysis.
Continue reading at www.theguardian.com
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