SHAFAQNA- According to recent research, the planet-warming emissions created throughout the first two months of the war in Gaza were higher than the annual carbon footprint of more than 20 of the most vulnerable nations to climate in the world.
According to Shafaqna, this study includes CO2 from aircraft missions, tanks and fuel from other vehicles and also emissions created by making and exploding the bombs, artillery and rockets. Other planet-warming gases such as methane are not included. Nearly half the overall CO2 emissions were attributable to USA’s freight airplanes flying military equipment to Israel.
The data presents the first, though conservative estimate of the carbon cost of the current conflict in Gaza, which is bringing about unrivalled human suffering, infrastructure damage and environmental catastrophe.
The recent research calculates that the carbon cost of reconstructing 100,000 damaged buildings in Gaza by means of contemporary construction techniques will create at least 30m metric tonnes of warming gases. This is comparable with New Zealand’s annual CO2 emissions and higher than 135 other countries and territories including Sri Lanka, Lebanon and Uruguay.
Climate consequences such as sea level rise, drought and extreme heat were already threatening water supplies and food security in Palestine. Now the environmental situation in Gaza is catastrophic, since much of the farmland, energy and water infrastructure has been demolished or polluted, with destructive health implications probably for next decades , experts have notified.
A recent study realized that militaries constitute nearly 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions per year – beyond the aviation and shipping industries combined. This constitutes the global military carbon footprint the fourth largest after just the USA, China and India.
The USA plays an immerse role in military carbon emissions – and provides billions of dollars of military aid, weapons and other equipment for Israel that uses them in Gaza and the West Bank. “The role of the US in the human and environmental destruction of Gaza cannot be exaggerated,” said co-author Patrick Bigger, research director at the thinktank CCP.
According to Neta Crawford, author of The Pentagon, Climate Change and War, about 20% of the USA military’s annual operational emissions move towards protection of fossil fuel interests in the Gulf region – a climate change hotspot, warming twice as fast as the remainder of the inhabited world. However, the US – like other Nato countries – is principally concentrated on the climate crisis as a national security risk instead of its contribution to it.
Climate change is the most immediate and certain problem facing the state of Palestine in the future decades which has been intensified by the occupation and war on Gaza since the 7 October,” said Ikhmais, the Palestinian Climate Director.
Source: theguardian
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