Environmental opportunities.




While armed conflicts and military activities can cause or facilitate many different forms of environmental harm, addressing the environment during and after conflicts can also create opportunities for building and sustaining peace, and for helping to transform societies through sustainable recovery.

Shared natural resources can provide the basis for dialogue between warring parties, as can common environmental threats that extend across human boundaries and borders. Unpredictable energy supplies during conflicts can encourage a transition to solar power, while the devastation conflicts cause can be an opportunity to build back greener, or to create new domestic legal frameworks to sustainably manage resources.

However, these opportunities are dependent on more attention being paid to the environment before, during and after conflicts. Public interest is far greater than it has been historically, thanks in part to improved documentation of harm. This is creating expectations around green recovery from conflicts. Moreover recent strengthening of the legal frameworks protecting the environment in relation to armed conflicts is underpinning calls for greater accountability for damage, for example through the development of an ecocide regime under the Rome Statute and the revision of guidance for environmental war crimes, or for clearer standards for data collection. If we fail to call for greater protection before and during conflicts, damage will be seen as acceptable. And if we ignore the environment after conflicts, we will not only miss out on opportunities to encourage sustainable recovery, we may also be setting states up for future resource conflicts.
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