The impacts affect livelihoods, and fuel displacement as well as ongoing instability. Moreover, they can linger even after the fighting has ended.

In Sierra Leone, for example, “when the guns fell silent in 2002 after a decade of conflict, our primary forests and savannahs also fell silent,” deputy foreign minister Francess Piagie Alghali told the UN Security Council on Thursday.

“We witnessed loss of biodiversity, the forced migration of wildlife, and the abandonment of agricultural fields and swamps, all direct consequences of the armed conflict.”

Long-term implications

Sierra Leone holds the rotating Security Council presidency this month and Ms. Alghali presided over a debate on the environmental impact of armed conflict and climate-driven security risks.

It was held as more armed conflicts rage across the planet than at any time since the end of the Second World War, and two billion people – a quarter of the global population – live in conflict-affected areas.

“Environmental damage caused by conflicts continues to push people into hunger, into disease and into displacement and thereby increasing insecurity,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Conflicts lead to pollution, waste, and the destruction of critical ecosystems, with long-term implications for food security, water security, the economy and health, she explained

Meanwhile, climate change “exacerbates tensions” and can even contribute to conflict – over water or land resources, for example.

Crop loss, contamination and flooding

Ms. Andersen highlighted several examples including the destruction of Gaza, where two years of war have caused the loss of 97 per cent of tree crops, 95 per cent of shrubland and more than 80 per cent of annual crops.

“Freshwater and marine ecosystems are polluted by munitions, by untreated sewage and other contaminants,” she said, while “over 61 million tonnes of debris must now be cleared, with sensitivity to avoid further contamination.”

In Ukraine, the June 2023 destruction of the Kakhova Dam “led to the flooding of more than 600 km² of land, resulting in severe loss of natural habitats, plant communities, and species, through prolonged inundation of ecosystems,” she added.

Legal offensive

The debate took place on the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict and amid growing recognition of the need for global action.

“Significant efforts are being made to strengthen the international legal framework to protect the environment,” said law professor Charles C. Jalloh, a member of the International Law Commission (ILC), a UN body.

While no single binding universal treaty yet exists, he pointed to some of the “so-called soft law instruments” that have made contributions to date, including the ILC’s set of 27 draft principles, adopted in 2022.

“The principles, rooted in the law of armed conflict, international environmental law and international human rights law, sought to strengthen the protection of the environment before, during and after armed conflict, including in situations of occupation,” he said.

Strengthening links

Maranatha Dinat of the humanitarian organization World Relief delivered a message from Haiti, “where the combined impacts of environmental degradation, climate change and socio-political instability reinforce one another, undermining peace, security and sustainable development.”

She stressed the need to “strengthen the links between humanitarian action, climate adaptation, and peacebuilding” in order to boost resilience, promote social cohesion and ensure lasting stability.

Ms. Andersen outlined how the international community can assist conflict-affected countries, starting with rebuilding their capacity for environmental management.

Such support “enables governments to manage natural resources for sustainable development, for economic recovery, and for climate adaptation, thus reducing poverty, hunger and aid dependency.”

Climate adaptation and mitigation

She also called for increased investments in climate adaptation. UNEP released its latest Emissions Gap Report this week, which revealed that the world is struggling to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“As we head to Belém, therefore, for COP30, high ambition is needed both on adaptation and on mitigation,” she said.

“Every fraction of a degree matters, and every fraction of a degree avoided means lower losses for people and ecosystems – and greater opportunities for peace and prosperity.”