When Nations War, the Planet Pays

Missiles over Israel. (Representative Image)

It’s 3:30 in Tehran on Friday, June 13, and strikes have demolished the nuclear programme centre of the Iranian capital. A few hours before, Israel declared a state of emergency because of alleged Iranian drone sightings. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency claims an explosion in the Natanz nuclear facility as a threat to “nuclear safety, security and safeguards, as well as regional and international peace and security.” The Agency has requested caution and de-escalation, for attacks on nuclear facilities bear terrible consequences for the Iranian people and the region, according to Lam and Ferreira Santos for the BBC (2025). 

Operation Rising Lion, as defined by the Israeli military, targeted Iranian nuclear facilities for fear of Iran having obtained the means to enrich enough uranium to be able to build a nuclear weapon. 

As stated by Lam and Ferreira Santos (2025), Iran seems determined to defend its authority. Alia Chughtai explains that in the days following June 13th, Iran has retaliated against Tel Aviv, Haifa, and other Israeli cities, targeting Haifa’s oil refinery. The airstrike exchange between Israel and Iran arrived in Tehran, when Israel sent missiles to the Ministry of Intelligence and Security and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

The targeting of nuclear facilities was not confined to Natanz, but expanded to the top-secret facility in Eshafan and the Fordow Fuel Enrichment plant, as explained by CNN (2025). On the night of June 20, the United States decided to step into the fire exchange. The American air force dropped 30,000-pound (~13 608 kg) bunker-buster bombs and fired missiles from the Arabian Sea onto the three Iranian nuclear bases. 

Nuclear Energy Composition and the Iranian JCPOA 

Nuclear energy can be produced through two processes: fission and fusion. The first, fission, consists of breaking the atom’s nucleus apart to release energy. The second, instead, aims to fuse nuclei under high temperatures and release energy in the process. 

Nuclear fission is a complex and risky process to induce because when an atom’s nucleus splits, it can create a chain reaction that can easily get out of control. All nuclear weapons use fission, but only two elements can undergo this process – Plutonium-239 and Uranium-235.

Uranium can be mined around the world but only a small percentage (approximately 1%) of it is Uranium-235. The rest must be enriched, meaning that different types of Uranium need to be concentrated to reach the status of Uranium-235. Making nuclear weapons is thus risky, costly, and time-consuming according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (2023). 

Today, only Russia, India, China, Pakistan, France, the UK, and the US possess nuclear weapons. According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICANW), North Korea and Israel have not acknowledged their nuclear capabilities despite owning them. However, since the tragedy in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world has attempted to control nuclear expansion, engendering processes of disarmament and non-proliferation treaties. 

One of these accords involved Iran, which in 2015 was convinced by the EU and the US to open its facilities to international control and dismantle its non-civilian nuclear programs. In exchange, the EU and the US would lift the sanctions imposed on the Iranian regime. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action yielded positive results until President Trump withdrew from it in 2018 during his first term. 

What seemed to be a significant step towards enhanced global nuclear control was thrown away by Trump, revealing that these accords are solely part of a grander political arm wrestling match. What the US President and the West in general fail to understand is that there is much more to gain in nuclear non-proliferation other than a defense concern. 

Nuclear production and testing are at the core of climate concern, and civil society organisations such as ICANW have been warning about the environmental calamity that nuclear weaponry brings about.

The Impact of Nuclear Sites and Warfare On the Environment 

The issues at stake with the nuclear energy and military industry are several and grave. Nuclear weapons are profoundly unethical. 

First, they are a threat to human life that only seven countries in the world hold hostage. Questions of ethics and morality surround the choice of non-proliferation, particularly regarding the right of defense of some countries over others, which reveals strong global power imbalances. It is no coincidence that discourses of non-accumulation and non-proliferation come from Western countries that have nuclear power. The question posed by the have-nots is, then, “why do we not have the right to defend ourselves?” Facing this question has always been the end of any diplomatic effort. 

Second, nuclear weapons are profoundly dangerous to the environment. Other than the not-so-remote probability of a nuclear escalation between the warring states, the very production and testing of nuclear weapons are polluting. 

In this regard, Remus Prăvălie (2014) estimated that, between 1945 and 2006, approximately 25% of worldwide nuclear tests happened in the atmosphere, while 75% took place underground.

The idea of testing nuclear energy in the atmosphere seems relatively appealing, as the discharge feels less impactful than on land. Yet, it bears significant and tangible consequences, as the radioactive material is not dispersed in the atmosphere and stratosphere as one might imagine. Instead, gases are exchanged with the ocean. Prăvălie explains that in this way radionuclides pollute ocean waters and the terrestrial biosphere, which assimilates radionuclides through the process of photosynthesis, polluting entire ecosystems.

Furthermore, depending on the marine composition—the chemical composition of seawater—of the different oceans, radiocarbon pollution varies in accumulation and storage quantities. Radiocarbon (¹⁴C) is a radioactive isotope of carbon, which is generally produced by the atmosphere and exchanged with plants and living organisms. However, nuclear testing emits large quantities of radiocarbon, which affects the gas composition of the atmosphere, which then impacts processes such as photosynthesis on land and sea.

An example of this is the North Atlantic, which is the most contaminated ocean due to its marine biota. Thus, it affects to varying degrees the radiocarbon transfer to the human body through food chain cycles. In fact, Prăvălie found that the radioactive contamination of the environment and the human body causes increased incidence of cancer. For example, in the nuclear testing zones of China, cancer incidences are 30-35% higher than the national average.

Notably, nuclear endeavours are part of a wider polluting industry – the defense industry. The latter produces CO2 at every stage of its existence. The procurement, exchange, and manufacturing of weapons of war account for billions of dollars. Statista reports that in 2025, the Israeli Ministry of Defense spent 13.8 billion USD only on procurement of military equipment. With such a high market value, the defense industry is also one of the most polluting on earth, both in times of peace and war. Nuclear energy is only a part of the technological innovations employed by the military sector, and contributes, among other processes, to high global carbon emissions.

Parkinson and Cottrell (2022) demonstrated that the supply chain of military goods and services produces 20-30% of the products’ overall carbon footprint while operationalisation and servicing thereof account for 70% of the military life cycle carbon footprint. Military goods and services, from their manufacturing to their use, are highly polluting. 

In 2019, before the war, Israel was responsible for 0.2% of the global carbon emissions. However, as Nina Lakhani reports for The Guardian (2025), since the start of the conflict in 2023, Israel has been responsible for 99% of the 1.89m tCO2e (metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) produced during the confrontation, primarily because of its aerial bombardment and the ground invasion of Gaza.

Aid trucks for Gaza accounted for 817,000 metric tons of CO2e. Furthermore, the long-term prospect of clearing and rebuilding Gaza has been estimated to produce 31m tCO2e. This conflict’s emissions show the trickle-down effect that warfare has on every aspect of life. Other regional conflicts, such as the confrontation between Israel and Iran, have released 5,000m tCO2e. 

Carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions are the primary causes of climate change and its associated consequences. These gases and chemical components affect the atmosphere, yielding a significant impact on global warming and the Earth’s energy overshoot. The International Energy Agency (2025) promotes a Net Zero policy for all commercial uses to be reached by 2030. However, countries are not abiding by these efforts at the pace needed to offset global warming by a regular +1.5 degrees Celsius. That countries go to war, then, does not help the cause. 

Obstacles to Disarmament

Why do we keep on enriching Uranium, testing nuclear weapons, and using nuclear energy? What are the obstacles to true disarmament? 

Mainly, nuclear states focus on non-proliferation policies, while avoiding disarmament actions. The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signed in 1968 targeted especially the have-nots so that they wouldn’t acquire nuclear weapons. This was done in a non-retroactive fashion that would not criminalise the countries which already were in possession of nuclear weapons. 

Also, there are three states outside of the NPT, India, Pakistan and Israel, who are therefore not limited by the non-compliance agreements, but threaten the NPT and the global standing for disarmament. 

Finally, the NATO discourse on defense remains tied to nuclear power, which has proved to be an important deterrent, especially when supported by the richest defense coalition of the West. 

From non-proliferation strategies to low-carbon emission strategies, it is crucial to overcome the decoupling of warfare and non-civilian energy programs from pollution and climate impact. In other words, warfare has an environmental impact that the world cannot ignore or continue to compartmentalise. 

Ultimately, disarmament being difficult to achieve given its deterrence function does not exonerate the defense industry from its destructive impact. The entire life cycle of the arms industry, from manufacturing to use, bears unimaginable costs to all types of life. Although the defense industry, along with its technology, employment numbers, and supply chain routes, is worth billions of dollars, human and non-human life cannot be reduced to a countable and collateral risk. Warfare kills everything surrounding it and does not warrant space for ethics, evolution, and life.

Edited by Tatenda Dlali

Arianna Feola (she/her) is a student of International Relations based in the Netherlands and a writer at Political Pandora. Born and raised in Italy, she has a deep curiosity for cultural diversity, languages, and migratory movements. Her academic focus lies in the Middle East and North Africa region, where she explores the intersections of politics, economics, culture, religion, and identity.

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References:

• Chughtai, Alia. “Visuallising 12 Days of the Israel-Iran Conflict.” Al-Jazeera, 26 June 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/26/visualising-12-days-of-the-israel-iran-conflict.

• “Carbon Footprint of Israel’s War on Gaza Exceeds That of Many Entire Countries.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 30 May 2025, www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/30/carbon-footprint-of-israels-war-on-gaza-exceeds-that-of-many-entire-countries.

• Estimating the Military’s Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions, www.sgr.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-11/SGR+CEOBS-Estimating_Global_MIlitary_GHG_Emissions_Nov22_rev.pdf. Accessed 5 July 2025.

• “How Do Nuclear Weapons Work?” Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucs.org/resources/how-nuclear-weapons-work. Accessed 5 July 2025.

• Lana Lam and Sofia Ferreira Santos. “What We Know about Israel’s Attacks on Iran’s Nuclear Sites and Military Commanders.” BBC News, BBC, 13 June 2025, www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdj9vj8glg2o. 

• Liptak, Kevin, et al. “How Trump Quietly Made the Historic Decision to Launch Strikes in Iran | CNN Politics.” CNN, Cable News Network, 23 June 2025, edition.cnn.com/2025/06/22/politics/trump-iran-strike-decision-inside. 

• Net Zero by 2050 Scenario - Commercial Usage - Data Product - IEA, www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-product/net-zero-by-2050-scenario-commercial-usage. Accessed 5 July 2025. 

• “Nuclear Agreement – JCPOA.” EEAS, www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/nuclear-agreement-%E2%80%93-jcpoa_en. Accessed 5 July 2025.

• Prăvălie, Remus. “Nuclear weapons tests and environmental consequences: a global perspective.” Ambio vol. 43,6 (2014): 729-44. doi:10.1007/s13280-014-0491-1

•  “Surmounting the Obstacles to Nuclear Disarmament.” Centre for International Governance Innovation, www.cigionline.org/articles/surmounting-obstacles-nuclear-disarmament/. Accessed 13 June 2025. 

• “Topic: Defense Industry in Israel.” Statista, www.statista.com/topics/13520/defense-industry-in-israel/#topicOverview. Accessed 5 July 2025. 

• Which Countries Have Nuclear Weapons?, www.icanw.org/nuclear_arsenals. Accessed 5 July 2025.

Keywords: Iran Israel Conflict 2025, Operation Rising Lion, Iran Nuclear Facilities Attack, Natanz Nuclear Explosion, IAEA Nuclear Safety Concerns, US Involvement Iran Israel War, Iran Retaliation Tel Aviv Haifa, Nuclear Weapons Environmental Impact, Climate Change and Warfare, Defense Industry Carbon Emissions, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran JCPOA Withdrawal Impact, Military Carbon Footprint Statistics, Radiocarbon Pollution Oceans, Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War.