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Abstract:

The catastrophic impacts of war on Afghanistan’s environment are profound, a country suffering from decades of conflict and violence, thus making the state one of the most vulnerable in the world in terms of climate change and environmental degradation. According to the INFORM Climate Risk Index of the European Commission, Afghanistan was ranked fourth among countries most affected by the impacts of climate change in the year 2023. Despite being one of the lowest emitters of greenhouse gases, Afghanistan is one of the worst sufferers of the looming crisis of climate change. It is projected that the temperatures in Afghanistan will increase by more than the global average and there will be an increase in drought and flood risks in the country in the coming years. Along with the physical damage, the Afghan wars have also created gradual environmental violence in ways not immediately visible which in the long run have made the war-induced environmental degradation deadlier than the actual wars in Afghanistan. This paper intends to highlight how war and climate change are somehow interlinked. The use of military hardware as a part of warfare, the years of intensive bombings, and the extensive use of depleted uranium-laced ammunitions caused unimaginable destruction to the life-sustaining natural resources of the country whose impacts are beyond human comprehension. Reports suggested that from its first post-9/11 airstrikes to its withdrawal in mid-2021, the U.S. military dropped over 85,000 bombs on Afghanistan along with the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used by the U.S. in a conflict zone known as "the Mother of All Bombs" in the Achin district of Nangarhar in 2017. The paper will try to analyze the problem surrounding the toxic military burn pits, the issue of lethal landmines, the war-induced deforestation, loss of biodiversity, air pollution, and war-generated destruction of the agricultural and traditional irrigation system in Afghanistan known as the Qanat/Karez system —all are disastrous legacies of war. An attempt will be made in the paper to address the issue of climate-induced migration in the country and its regional implications as well. Therefore, the paper will be a novel initiative in highlighting the consequences of war on Afghanistan from an interdisciplinary perspective involving environmental studies, military/strategic and migration studies at its core.