Businesses can fight war-fed ecocide

Remember climate change? Planetary degradation serious enough for the world to take action - barring the Trump lot, that is, who still thinks it to be as real as Santa? Wars, especially the latest one across West Asia, have been releasing gargantuan quantities of burning oil and gas, making what was anyway a steep task of reducing GHG emissions, now seem downright pointless. According to a 'One Earth' study, Israel's attacks on Gaza alone generated some 33 mn t of CO2-equivalent, an amount comparable to 7.6 mn petrol-powered cars. 'Initiative on GHG Accounting of War' data shows Russia's war against Ukraine has already caused more than 300 mn t of additional emissions, equivalent to France's annual output.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has stated that Israeli strikes on fuel storage facilities in Tehran have caused 'ecocide', causing long-term damage to residents' health and well-being, with possible soil and groundwater pollution affecting future generations. Everyone waging war - and contributing to it, not the least the global weapons industry - is a contributor to a mass ecocide. Wars are, by definition, sites of major fires, toxic smoke and destruction. So, should we now be numbed into inaction? There is a smarter alternative: to let bombed refineries, disrupted shipping lines, sky-rocketing costs of crude, natural gas and LNG push countries to step up pace of clean energy use. Smart businesses should leverage this multi-crisis to provide alternatives - pushing ahead with electrification to compete with fossil fuels. Consumer demand for uninterrupted energy supplies at affordable prices can push government to make regulatory changes - such as revisiting electricity tariff design - earlier thought of as near-impossible.

Transition away from fossil fuels was never going to happen overnight. But with the pendulum now swinging to the extreme end of ecological suicide because of wars, consumer demand and business opportunities can at least push for a shift that is palliative, logical and, indeed, profitable.