In March 2011, pro-democracy protests flared up in the Syrian city Deraa. According to the BBC, they started after some teenagers were arrested and tortured for painting revolutionary slogans on a school wall. Security forces opened fire, killing three protestors.
Since then, more than 200,000 Syrians have perished in the civil war. Many have fled the country, and the conflict has brought the attention and support of outside countries. President Bashar al-Assad and the government have received support from Iran and Russia. The opposition has gained support from the U.S., U.K., France, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, among other Arab states.
Amid the violence, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry have unveiled a climate trend in the area. Since 2011, nitrogen dioxide values have decreased by 40 to 50% over Damascus and Aleppo.
More broadly, the team found armed conflict and social upheaval in the Middle East correlated with a decrease in pollution.
“It is tragic that the negative trends we observe in nitrogen oxide emissions accompany humanitarian catastrophes,” said Jos Lelieveld, the team’s lead and a director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry.
Using data gathered from NASA’s Ozone Monitoring Instrument, the team followed atmospheric trends in the Middle East from 2005 to 2014. Emissions increased in most major Middle East cities between 2005 and 2010. But afterwards, they dropped in many areas.
Some areas increased emissions by inheriting populations from nearby countries. Lebanon experienced nitrogen dioxide emission increases by 3 to 4% between 2005 and 2013, specifically in large areas near Beirut and Tripoli. Then in 2014, a huge jump occurred, with increases between 20 and 30%. According to researchers, of the 4 million refugees fleeing Syria, 1.2 million fled to Lebanon, leading to strong impacts on society and accompanied by changes in nitrogen dioxide emissions.
“The invasion of Iraq in 2003 has caused dramatic changes in the country,” the researchers write. “However, since 2005, the GDP (gross domestic product) has increased again by 6 to 7%, accompanied by energy consumption and CO2 emission increases of 4 to 5%/yr. NO2 over Baghdad increased more than 10%/yr until 2011, after which a decline started at nearly the same rate.”
The researchers note areas in Iraq with large decreases following 2011 are occupied by the Islamic State.
However, sanctions played a role in decreased emissions in Iran. The sanctions, imposed by the United Nations Security Council in 2006, and extended in 2010, resulted in a 6% fall in GDP in 2013 and 2014. Since 2010, nitrogen dioxide emissions fell by 4%/yr.
Expanding the study’s scope, researchers found the economic and financial crisis in Greece correlated with decreased emissions. Since 2008, nitrogen dioxide decreased by 40% over Athens.
According to the researchers, the emissions decrease in areas fraught with conflict and changes in economic performance isn’t surprising. “After all, nitrogen oxides are primarily released by the combustion of coal, oil and gas by industry, power production and traffic,” according to the Max Planck Institute.
However, models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assumes such emissions increase by 2% in the Middle East between 2005 and 2030, need to be rethought.
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