Talking about health and water can feel heavy, especially when words like “carcinogen” or “cancer” come up. Realising our water might carry health risks can leave us feeling vulnerable and anxious for our family’s well-being. But here’s the good news: knowledge is our best filter. 

This World Water Day, March 22nd, we aren’t just sharing a “scary” study; we’re sharing the science of prevention. When we know the real numbers, we can demand the real solutions. While industrial meat and dairy production is expanding, a massive scientific alarm is sounding from Denmark to New Zealand. It’s called Nitrate (NO₃). But, what is it?

Nitrate is a colourless, odourless, and tasteless chemical compound. In industrial farming, it comes from the gross overuse of synthetic nitrogen fertilisers and the staggering volume of manure and urine from intensive meat and dairy farms. When plants can’t absorb it all, it leaches deep into the earth and into the groundwater, the source of many people’s drinking water.

While Big Ag executives hide behind the claim that they are ‘feeding the world,’ their own run-off is poisoning the very communities they claim to serve. Here are the 5 facts about Nitrate (NO₃) that show our current water laws need an upgrade.

1. The current nitrate limit is a 1950s relic

First, breathe. The global health standard of 50 mg/L of drinking water nitrate isn’t a “danger cliff” you fall off, it’s just a “hopelessly out of date” limit from 1958. Science has simply gotten better at seeing the small details since then. It was set then to prevent “Blue Baby Syndrome” (acute oxygen deprivation in infants), this limit was never designed to protect you from the chronic exposure risks we can now measure in 2026.

Think of it like car safety: in 1958, we didn’t have mandatory seatbelts or airbags. We aren’t in a crisis because the water changed overnight; we’re in a moment of clarity because our scientific “microscopes” got sharper. We’ve traded rotary phones for smartphones; it’s time we traded “1950s basic safety” for modern medical precision.

2. 3.87 mg/L is an “early warning,” a scientific benchmark for precaution

The landmark study from Denmark tracking 2.7 million people over 23 years found that long-term exposure to drinking water nitrate levels above 3.87 mg/L is where we should start paying attention to bowel cancer risks. That is 12 times lower than the current “safe” limit.

Think of this number as a smoke detector for our water. It doesn’t mean there is a fire in every glass; it means we have the ability to detect risk much earlier than we did in the 1950s. By identifying this “Early Warning” level, we can push for source water protection before it does more harm to our communities.

3. Our bodies are natural filters (up to a point)

Your body is an incredible biological system, but even the best filter has a limit. While we naturally process small amounts of nitrate from food, drinking water with high concentrations from industrial runoff can overwhelm our bodies. In the acidic environment of the stomach, this excess is converted into harmful N-nitroso compounds, which are linked to increased cancer risks.

We shouldn’t be forced to be the “unpaid filters” for corporate waste. The latest science shows this biological overload has a real cost. A growing body of scientific evidence is showing health risks from exposure to nitrate at much lower levels than the current legal limits in most countries.

High nitrate levels can also act as an “Oxygen Thief,” making it harder for the blood to carry the vital oxygen a developing baby needs. A massive study of 1.2 million births even linked nitrate-contaminated water above 22.5mg/L NO₃ to a 47% higher risk of preterm birth. We aren’t “falling off a cliff” at the current limit, but we are being “soaked” by a standard that was never designed to take account of long-term health risks. 

4. We already have the map to fix it

The best part about modern science? It gives us a GPS for protection. In Aotearoa (New Zealand), Spain and Denmark, organisations have mapped where nitrate levels are highest. This is incredible news because it means we don’t have to guess. We can start by protecting the “Red Zones”, the specific areas where communities rely on groundwater the most.

Is your tap in a “Red Zone”? Knowledge is your first filter. You can explore the data for your region right now. Explore the Greenpeace Aotearoa: Know Your Nitrate Map Explore the Greenpeace Spain: Nitrate Water Pollution Map Explore the Greenpeace Denmark: Know your Nitrate Map

5. Transitioning is smarter than cleaning

The most encouraging part? We already know how to fix this. In 2024, Danish researchers reviewed the data and concluded that the societal cost of nitrate-linked illness is estimated at $317 million USD annually in Denmark. A similar study in Aotearoa New Zealand calculated health costs of $43 million a year, in New Zealand.

Denmark’s solution wasn’t to panic, but to pivot. The Government commissioned an expert working group to recommend a health-based standard. Their advice? Introduce a 6 mg/L limit on nitrate and convert high-risk farmland back into nature or organic buffer zones. 

The World Water Day goal: A health-based standard

We don’t want you to be afraid of your tap; we want you to be proud of it. 

Imagine a world where “perfectly legal” actually means “perfectly safe.” Where the water flowing into your home isn’t a source of “what-ifs,” but a testament to a food system that respects the Earth and the families it feeds. By calling for a new, science-led assessment of our water standards, we aren’t just moving a number on a page. We are drawing a line in the sand and demanding a precautionary approach that prioritises families over factory farms. We are forcing a long-overdue look at the outdated limits in high-livestock “red zones” to ensure that the water in our taps is truly safe for a lifetime. It is time to force Big Ag to clean up its act so that our communities, and our health, are never the cost of their corporate profit again.

History shows us that the law is often the last thing to change, long after the science has sounded the alarm. We saw it with leaden paint, where children’s health was traded for industrial convenience for decades. We saw it with asbestos, where vested interests spent millions to bury the truth while workers paid with their lives.

In both cases, the science was clear, but the policy only shifted when people power finally overcame corporate profit. Today, we are at that same crossroads with our water. The 50 mg/L limit is a more than 60-year-old relic of an era that didn’t foresee the true cost of industrial runoff. This World Water Day, let’s choose evidence over anxiety. Let’s demand a standard that reflects the best of modern science, not the worst of Big Ag’s industrial habits.

The science is clear. The roadmap is ready. Now, we just need the political will.

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Amanda Larsson is the Food and Agriculture Global Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Aotearoa.

Unless you’re studying for a high school science exam, lithium, nickel, copper, and cobalt probably won’t carry much meaning beyond being elements on the periodic table. But if there is a time to pull out those dusty science books, it would be now.

Across various sectors, these minerals are of increasing importance, including – perhaps most prominently – renewable energy generation and storage, and electric vehicles; but also other large and growing sectors such as military and AI (e.g., for datacenters). And around the world, many governments and companies are competing to control who can dig them up.

The global minerals rush

These raw Earth materials are often called “critical minerals” by governments and the mining industry, typically a reflection of national political priorities rather than essential societal or energy transition needs. This risks turning these minerals into the focus of a new neo-colonial resource grab, with powerful countries and corporations racing to control them, and wasting their potential to power a fair and green transition.

Globally – from Chile, Argentina, DRC, Indonesia, Sweden to the deep sea – the extractivist rush for minerals puts vital ecosystems, peoples’ rights and the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples and local communities at risk. The geopolitical scramble over minerals has also been linked to the current US government’s aggressive annexation threats to Greenland.

Minerals have different uses, and there are no guarantees that the minerals mined “in the name of energy transition” are used for wind turbines or energy storage. For example, big tech companies are consuming more and more of these minerals to expand AI infrastructure (such as datacenters). In addition to driving up energy demand and emissions, the vision of ‘progress’ advocated by big tech oligarchs also threatens to worsen extractive pressures on people and nature, and divert minerals away from energy transition. Moreover, mineral use in the expansion of AI-driven warfare systems has been found as a particularly concerning development.  

In light of this, it is more important than ever to demand coordinated action to ensure that minerals are used where they matter most: principally, for a fast fair fossil fuel phase out and a transition to clean, affordable renewable energy and sustainable transport systems. 

So how do we protect people and nature in the energy transition?

Reduce, recycle, restrict for a safeguarded energy transition

In a report commissioned by Greenpeace International, and authored by academics at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) in Australia, we’ve found that an ambitious energy transition can be achieved without mining in vital ecosystems – whether on land or at sea. With visionary leadership, sound policies, and innovative technologies, we can keep global warming within 1.5°C, safeguard vital ecosystems and reduce extractive pressures on people and nature.

Here’s five ways how:

1. Reduce mineral demand with improved public transport, car-sharing, and smaller, more efficient vehicles

Accessibility, efficiency, and reliability in how cities are governed make them great places to live in. Having improved public transport systems is one of the most effective ways to reduce the need for mineral-intensive electric vehicles and the batteries that power them. In addition to expanding high-quality public transport, employing car-sharing schemes, and investing in active mobility (e.g. walking and cycling infrastructure) would significantly decrease reliance on individual car ownership. 

As an added bonus improving our public transport systems is essential not just for climate, but for connecting people to opportunities. Mobility justice is climate justice.

2. Incentivise and substitute battery technology towards alternatives requiring less lithium, cobalt, or nickel

Think about how many items you use that require batteries? Without it, our personal gadgets would be useless; we wouldn’t have advancement in items like electric cars or bikes; and batteries can also help store and use more eco-friendly sources of energy, such as solar and wind. But the production of large batteries is highly mineral-intensive. 

Luckily, over the last decade, technological innovation has transformed the market. Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, now widely commercialised, eliminate the need for cobalt and nickel, reducing pressure on these supply chains. At the same time, sodium-ion (Na-ion) batteries are advancing rapidly, and offer a pathway to significantly reduce mineral demand for lithium, according to the report. It shows that, using innovative battery technologies and energy storage systems that do not require these key minerals would significantly reduce supply gaps for key minerals and ease potential development pressures for new mines targeting them.

3. Design for circularity and scale up recycling 

We all know the drill by now – reduce, reuse, recycle. When it comes to transition minerals, this maxim is of key importance. 

By maximising collection and the recovery of transition minerals from end-of-life transition technologies, recycling can significantly reduce the need for new extraction. Investing in advanced recycling technologies and collection systems, alongside policy incentives that reward high recycled mineral content in new products, ensures that transition minerals re-enter the supply chain. 

Additional circularity measures like extending technologies’ lifespans, improving repairability, incentivising reuse, designing and standardising components for easy disassembly to help with repair and recycling, and enforcing extended producer responsibility (EPR), could also contribute to reducing overall mineral demands. 

4. Prioritise mineral use for essential energy transition needs

Minerals are finite resources, and the practice of mining carries significant social, labour, and environmental risks. Therefore, the use of mineral resources should be prioritised where they matter most – in renewable energy and its storage and in electric mobility to enable a fast fair fossil fuel phase out. 

Governments and industries must prioritise mineral use towards a fast, fair, and just energy transition. Coupled with supply chain transparency, prioritising minerals for energy transition ensures finite minerals are used to advance climate goals that benefit all people and the planet.   

5. Protect key ‘Restricted Areas’ from mining development

Protecting human rights and ecological integrity is a non-negotiable foundation of a just and green transition. Restricted Areas have high environmental, ecological, and natural values, and may include Indigenous Peoples and local community territories. Defining and protecting these Restricted Areas is a crucial step to ensuring that mining of transition minerals respects the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to their territories, and does not destroy biodiversity, critical natural ecosystems, natural carbon storage, freshwater systems and oceans. 

After all, what is “critical” here is not a minerals scramble largely driven by geopolitical rivalry. Neither the AI race, nor the power and profit chased by States and corporations.

Critical are the ecosystems that all living beings on the planet depend on. 

Critical are the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. 

Critical is meeting peoples’ needs and ensuring that current and future generations can live in a safe climate. 

For this, it’s essential for our world leaders to take courageous and coordinated action to protect people and the planet, and ensure our Earth’s minerals help create a green and just future, rather than being exploited for short-term profit. 

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We need a global moratorium to stop the launch of this destructive new extractive industry. Join the Campaign.

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Elsa Lee is the Co-Head of Biodiversity at Greenpeace International

The geopolitical tremor in the Strait of Hormuz has sent fertiliser prices into the stratosphere. But amid the devastating loss of life and destruction already unfolding, farmers and families are also being forced to worry about the cost of the next harvest, a different kind of machinery is whirring into motion in Washington and Brussels: the lobbying machine. Now is the time to break free from their playbook and implement just solutions that feed people, not corporate pockets.

History shows that for big agribusiness, a global crisis is less of a disaster and more of a strategic opportunity. We are about to witness a masterclass in how to parlay “food security” fears into corporate welfare and the gutting of environmental protections.

But we know their playbook!

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1. Weaponising “food security” 

Expect the term “food security” to be hollowed out and weaponised. Large-scale industrial players are already positioning themselves as the only thing standing between the public and empty shelves. In truth, it is this highly consolidated, chemical-dependent model of industrial farming that is making our global food system so fragile in the first place.

Their narrative is calculated: The world is in chaos, so the government must stop “burdening” agribusiness with regulations. They will attempt to use a temporary supply chain shock to permanently dismantle hard-won environmental standards.

2. The demand for deregulation

Their immediate targets are always environmental and community safeguards. Under the guise of “unleashing production,” lobbyists are likely to push for:

• Suspending rules to allow the spreading of animal manure, sacrificing groundwater safety and community health. 
• Stalling pesticide reduction laws with false claims that they threaten food security, despite scientists proving that long-term security is impossible without healthy soil and pollinators. 
• Forcing legal bypasses to destroy millions of hectares of land previously set aside for bees, birds and soil recovery. 

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this script. During the 2022 supply chain shock that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the same type of lobbyists leveraged geopolitical instability to wrangle these concessions out of the European Commission. History is repeating itself as the European farmers’ lobby (Copa-Cogeca) is seizing this crisis to demand even more environmental rollbacks.

We’re also seeing lobbyists coming out in force in the UK and the US where, in a letter to President Donald Trump, the American Farm Bureau Federation took a predictable “emergency” stance, stating:

“The current volatility requires an immediate suspension of regulatory hurdles… We cannot prioritise administrative red tape over the ability of American farmers to feed a world in crisis.”

What this statement obscures is how farming has shifted from locally-owned, resilient family businesses to massive industrial “factory” operations run by some of the world’s wealthiest corporations. The factory farming model is inherently fragile – as soon as one gear in the global supply chain snaps, the entire machine breaks down.

3. The great public-to-private wealth transfer

While big business demands less “interference” from the state in the form of rules, they are simultaneously demanding more “interference” in the form of cash. Agribusiness is archetypal of a system that socialises the risk and privatises the profit. 

When prices are low, they dominate the market; when input prices spike, they demand “bridge payments” to keep their fragile model afloat.

Meanwhile the rest of us pay the price. The cost of cleaning up polluted drinking water, for example, generally isn’t paid by Big Ag. It’s paid by everyday families, through taxes and rates.

The predictable outcome?

• Taxpayers ultimately foot the bill for emergency fertiliser subsidies, effectively bailing out the super rich Big Ag executives.
• Farmers remain trapped in a cycle of chemical addiction, lining the pockets of fertiliser giants like Nutrien and The Mosaic Company. During the 2022 crisis, these two companies saw their profits reach staggering record highs while farmers struggled to break even.
• Agribusinesses announce record windfall profits, fuelled by the very volatility they claimed would ruin them. In 2022, Cargill reportedly raked in a record US $165 billion in revenue – a 23% increase, during a global food crisis.
  

Real food security comes from your local farmer

If we want true independence, we have to stop propping up chemical-addicted industrial farming. Local, ecological farming is the only real path to food sovereignty. By working with nature to fix nutrients in the soil naturally, farmers can break the cycle of dependence.

This does four amazing things at once:

• Saves money: Farmers slash their costs, protecting your food prices.
• Cleans our water: It stops toxic chemical run-off from polluting our rivers and drinking water.
• Protects wildlife: It restores space for bees, birds, and biodiversity.
• Fights climate change: It cuts the massive emissions of the industrial food system.

Real food security isn’t something we can buy from a chemical factory in another country. It doesn’t come from trading off clean drinking water for more polluting production. And it certainly doesn’t come from handing over more cash to the already-wealthy.

Here’s what should happen instead

Short Term: Stop bailing out the corporate middleman. If emergency funds are deployed, they should go directly to regular people to offset food costs, rather than into the bank accounts of chemical suppliers and millionaire shareholders.

Long Term: Fund the transition, not the status quo. Food security is grown from the ground up through healthy soil and local resilience.

We cannot allow the greed of the agribusiness lobby to use this crisis as a mandate for deregulation. It is time to fund a model that serves our communities and our planet, not just the billionaires at the top of the food chain.

Stop Big Meat and Dairy

It’s time to cut through corporate lies, cut agriculture emissions and shift towards sustainable agroecology.

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Amanda Larsson is the Food and Agriculture Global Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Aotearoa.

Brussels – Activists have projected a golden facade and the words “TRUMP TOWER” onto the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, mimicking one of President Trump’s skyscrapers, with a Greenpeace message urging EU leaders meeting today to stop capitulating to his demands. The Greenpeace Belgium activists are protesting the EU’s continued dependence on the US for oil and gas imports, the removal of protections for the environment, public health and privacy, and the lack of resistance to the US’s breaches of international law.

Greenpeace EU political campaigner Ariadna Rodrigo said: “Trump wants to dominate Europe, and so far most European politicians seem to let him have his way, so we’re helping them redecorate. Trump flouts international law, and instead of resisting him EU leaders are ripping up protections for our health and environment, and hooking Europe to US oil and gas, to please him and his billionaire friends. 

“When EU politicians say they want to ‘simplify rules for competitiveness’, what they mean is letting companies use more toxic chemicals in our clothes and food, or letting tech bros invade our privacy. Moving to 100% renewable energy and ecological agriculture would break our fossil fuel dependence, and Trump’s stranglehold, while shielding people’s bills from geopolitical turmoil. The EU must resist Trump’s agenda of chaos and cruelty, and start defending ordinary people instead of corporations and the super rich.”

The EU’s 27 heads of government are meeting to discuss Europe’s reaction to the US and Israeli attacks on Iran and the related increase in energy prices, the ongoing war in Ukraine, the next EU budget, as well as their own efforts to deregulate the EU’s protections for the environment, public health and digital privacy.

The US government and its corporate lobbyists have been putting pressure on the EU to dismantle some of its environmental and social protections, such as the EU’s anti-deforestation law, the methane regulation, and the digital tax.

EU leaders have mostly been hesitant to condemn, or been openly supportive of, President Trump’s recent threats and attacks on Venezuela, Cuba and Iran, despite concerns that these breach international law. Greenpeace is calling for all governments to uphold international law and to protect civilians, and for the EU to push for an immediate end to military hostilities and blockades of humanitarian aid.

As part of a proposed EU-US trade deal to lower tariffs on the trade of goods between the EU and US, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged that the EU would import $750 billion of US energy by the end of 2028, mostly oil and gas. By 2025, the US already provided 27% of EU gas imports, which could grow to 40% by 2030.

The European Parliament’s trade committee is scheduled to vote on the deal’s approval, which would then send it to the whole Parliament for a vote in its plenary session, possibly on 25-26 March. Greenpeace is warning that the EU’s dependence on fossil fuel imports, as well as accelerating the climate crisis, gives leverage to authoritarian governments over the EU, and puts European households at risk of volatile prices. Greenpeace is calling on Members of the European Parliament to reject the EU-US trade deal. 

ENDS

Photos and video from the activity available via to download the Greenpeace Media Library

Notes:

[1] Greenpeace EU media briefing on US pressure to deregulate EU rules protecting people and nature

Contacts:

Ariadna Rodrigo, Greenpeace EU political campaigner: +32 (0)479 99 69 22, ariadna.rodrigo@greenpeace.org 

Greenpeace EU press desk: +32 (0)2 274 1911, pressdesk.eu@greenpeace.org

The world has poured a record US$ 2.7 trillion into military spending in 2024, with global spending rising every year for the past decade.

From Ukraine to Sudan, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and Venezuela, people are living through war, bombardment, occupation, militarisation or political violence, while the damage reaches far beyond the frontlines. Homes, hospitals, power grids, water systems, farmland and coastlines are all drawn into the same cycle of destruction, showing that conflict is not only a human tragedy but also an environmental one, with consequences for public health, ecosystems and climate that can last for decades.

Like all wars, the current war in the Middle East will leave a toxic legacy

War does not only kill people and destroy homes. It also damages the systems that make life possible, including water networks, sewage plants, farmland, ports, fuel depots and electricity infrastructure, often leaving polluted air, contaminated soil and unsafe water long after the fighting slows. Across recent conflicts, research points to the same pattern: fires, toxic debris, damaged sanitation, collapsing public health systems and ecosystems pushed beyond recovery.

This environmental harm is not incidental. It is one of the ways war reshapes daily life.

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In Iran, within days of the first US-Israel strikes, energy itself became a direct battleground as attacks and counter attacks targeted fossil fuel infrastructure. The Strait of Hormuz became a flashpoint with dozens of tankers carrying billions of litres of oil trapped in the Persian Gulf. Greenpeace Germany warned that a single oil spill in the Gulf could damage this fragile marine habitat beyond repair with devastating consequences for people, animals, and plants in the region, adding to the terrible human toll this illegal war has already taken on local communities.

In Gaza, Greenpeace MENA analysis has highlighted severe damage to water, sanitation, cropland and fisheries, alongside estimates that the first 120 days of the war generated more than half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide. That combination of bombardment, infrastructure collapse and pollution makes a place harder to inhabit, less healthy and less resilient to climate breakdown.

Sudan offers another stark example: research from the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS) shows how war is driving deforestation, agricultural decline, industrial pollution, and the collapse of health and sanitation systems, undermining people’s access to food, water and energy.

War also carries a climate cost beyond the battlefield. Researchers cited by the CEOBS estimate that militaries account for around 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, while conflict adds more through fires, fuel use, reconstruction and the loss of resilient public infrastructure. The environmental cost of war is therefore both immediate and cumulative, destroying ecosystems today and weakening societies’ ability to cope with heat, drought, floods and crop loss tomorrow.

History shows the damage lasts for decades

This is not new. During the Vietnam war, US forces sprayed almost 80 million litres of herbicides, including Agent Orange, affecting roughly 2.9 million hectares of land and leaving dioxin in soils, water and food chains for decades. In Iraq, UNEP and later field investigations warned of long-term environmental and health risks linked to depleted uranium contamination and other toxic remnants of war. These older conflicts matter because they show that the environmental damage of war does not end with a ceasefire.

The lesson running from Vietnam and Iraq to Gaza and Ukraine is simple. War contaminates the conditions for life itself. It degrades land, water, air and health in ways that can shape people’s lives for generations, especially where the fighting meshes with chemicals, oil, radiation risks and damaged public infrastructure.

Ukraine maps the environmental cost of war

Ukraine has made this damage unusually visible. Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe, together with the Ukrainian organisation Ecoaction, launched an environmental damage map built from almost 900 collected cases, with 30 of the most serious verified by satellite imagery to show how Russia’s illegal invasion has damaged land, habitats, water and air. Documenting this destruction is essential not only for accountability, but also for planning reconstruction and nature restoration in parallel.

The map matters because it shows the breadth of environmental damage that modern war causes. Missile strikes trigger wildfires, industrial sites leak toxins, shelling pollutes soil and water, and mined or occupied land becomes dangerous to farm, restore or even enter. This points to a larger argument about how war-affected countries can build back better in ways that restore nature and reduce dependence on the same vulnerable energy systems that war keeps targeting

Ukraine also shows how war magnifies and weaponises the environmental risk of  nuclear infrastructure. Greenpeace Ukraine and Greenpeace Central & Eastern Europe have repeatedly warned that the Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (Europe’s largest nuclear power plant) has created an ongoing nuclear safety and security crisis. There is no credible nuclear safety, security or legal basis for restarting reactors at Zaporizhzhia while the site remains under Russian military and Rosatom control, and it has warned that any restart would sharply increase the risk of a nuclear disaster.

That warning reaches beyond Ukraine. Nuclear plants are designed for stable operating conditions, not occupation, militarisation and repeated threats to cooling, staffing and external power supply. The example of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant shows how war can turn critical infrastructure into a potential regional environmental catastrophe, with consequences that would not stop at any front line.

The environmental damage caused by war is not only a consequence of conflict.  It is also shaped by the fossil-based energy systems that power modern economies.

Oil and gas fuel war and intensify its environmental impact

Oil and gas are not just caught up in war. They often sit near its centre. Oil and gas revenues bankroll war machines, while control of pipelines, ports, tankers and shipping chokepoints helps drive geopolitical confrontation in the first place. When the global economy depends on centralised, combustible resources, attacks on depots, refineries, tankers or shipping routes do more than disrupt trade. They threaten marine ecosystems, public health and economic stability at the same time.

This dynamic helps explain why conflicts around fossil fuel infrastructure so often become ecological emergencies. During the 1991 Gulf war, burning Kuwaiti oil wells blackened skies and polluted land and water on a massive scale. More recently, Greenpeace Germany warned that the US-Israel war on Iran, and the retaliatory strikes that followed across the Gulf, left more than 85 large oil tankers trapped in the Persian Gulf and sharply increased the risk of an oil spill. Local communities would pay that long-term price first, with any spill threatening livelihoods as well as fragile marine ecosystems, including coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass meadows, for decades. The environmental threat is built into an energy system that concentrates risk in a handful of highly flammable, highly polluting sites.

Fossil fuels do not only worsen the damage once fighting begins. They can also shape the motives, incentives and power struggles that make conflict more likely in the first place. President Donald Trump’s illegal military action against Venezuela was tied to control of its oil industry, after he said the US would be “very strongly involved” in Venezuela’s oil sector. Venezuela holds the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world and warned that the crisis must not be exploited for short-term oil profiteering or extractive gain by foreign governments or corporations.

A world organised around oil and gas makes communities and ecosystems expendable in the pursuit of strategic control and profit. That is why the environmental consequences of war cannot be separated from the political economy of fossil fuel extraction itself.

Yemen’s FSO Safer became one of the clearest examples of that intersection between fossil fuels, humanitarian crisis and conflict. The abandoned tanker, carrying roughly 1.1 million barrels of oil, threatened a major Red Sea spill for years while war blocked proper maintenance and response. That immediate catastrophe has now been averted because a UN-led operation removed the oil and transferred it to safer long-term storage. But the Safer crisis showed how a single neglected piece of fossil fuel infrastructure in a war zone can endanger fisheries, food deliveries, coastal livelihoods and marine biodiversity across an entire region.

Renewables are a security imperative

There is no sunlight stuck in the Strait of Hormuz, no wind held hostage by a tanker route. Distributed renewables are harder to bomb or blockade than giant oil fields, pipelines and centralised thermal plants because they remove single points of failure from the energy system. A decentralised network of rooftop solar, batteries, local grids and efficiency measures can help keep hospitals, schools and homes functioning even when national infrastructure is attacked or fuel imports are disrupted.

That is why the energy transition should also be understood as a security and resilience strategy. Countries generating power from their own sun and wind are less vulnerable to shipping disruptions, fuel price shocks and political blackmail tied to oil and gas imports. Local renewables cannot stop a war, but they can reduce the leverage of fossil fuel cartels, keep essential services running and lower the environmental damage that comes from defending centralised, combustible infrastructure.

War and conflict do not only kill people. They also poison water, damage soil, foul the air and destroy the systems that make everyday life possible. Naming that devastation matters, because peace is not only the absence of bombs but the possibility of living on safe, healthy and habitable land, something now recognised in the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. 

Moving away from fossil fuels can help make that future more possible by reducing both environmental harm and the dangerous dependencies that so often intensify conflict.

Greenpeace International strongly condemns the ongoing and escalating invasion of Lebanon by Israeli forces, and calls for an immediate and unconditional cessation of hostilities by all parties to prevent further loss of life and avert an irreversible environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.

Since the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon came into effect in November 2024, reports indicate that Israel has violated its terms over 15,000 times.[1] This was conducted through both air and land attacks, undermining the diplomatic framework intended to protect civilians. 

On top of the death toll caused by the US-Israel attack on Iran and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the humanitarian toll of this recent escalation in Lebanon is horrific. Official reports cite around one million people displaced, with more than 900 killed, including over 100 children, and more than 2,200 injured to date.[2][3] The large-scale forced displacement of over one million people, combined with illegal mass evacuation orders that fail to ensure adequate protection for civilians, violates international humanitarian law.[4]

Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has expressed deep concern about the threats from Israeli officials of Gaza-level destruction in Lebanon.[5] Similar patterns are already emerging, including strikes on medical facilities and personnel, the targeting of academic and civilian infrastructure, threats to UNESCO world heritage sites and widespread environmental destruction.[6] The documented use of white phosphorus over civilian areas in southern Lebanon violates international bans on the indiscriminate use of incendiary weapons in populated zones.[7] 

Greenpeace MENA warns that this massive scale of forced displacement and explicit threat of widespread destruction goes beyond military strategy and may amount to war crimes, endangering the fundamental fabric of Lebanese society.[8] 

As scorched earth tactics and prohibited weapons devastate residential heartlands, the international community must break its silence to demand the protection of all civilian lives, an immediate ceasefire, and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the entirety of Lebanese territory.

ENDS

Notes:

[1] MSF update: Southern Lebanon – where is the ceasefire?

[2] IOM: Nearly One Million Displaced in Lebanon 

[3] Republic of Lebanon Ministry of Heath, daily report 17/03/2026: Death toll rises to 912

[4] OHCHR: Amid protection crisis in Lebanon, UN experts warn bombing civilians to force displacement is unlawful

[5] Escalation of hostilities in Lebanon, as of 16 March 2026 – ReliefWeb

[6] Destruction like Gaza or civil war? Netanyahu’s warning adds to questions over Israel’s goals in Lebanon – NBC

[7] Human Rights Watch: Israel unlawfully using white phosphorus over residential areas in southern Lebanon
[8] Situation in Lebanon | OHCHR 

Contact:

Hiam Mardini, Communications and Media Manager, Greenpeace MENA, +961 71 553 232,  hmardini@greenpeace.org 

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org 

In the Middle East in general, and especially in Lebanon, we do not experience war only through breaking news headlines or the sounds of shelling, but we also experience it in the details of daily life: in the anxiety about power outages, the fear of fuel shortages, the high cost of transportation, and even in the price of bread.

How the war in the Middle East impacts daily life

War does not remain confined to the front lines; rather, it quickly seeps into homes, kitchens, transportation, generator bills, and the ability of families to secure their basic needs and feel safe and stable.

With each new escalation, it’s not just politics that is affected; the repercussions extend to the daily lives of millions, especially when those lives depend on fragile and centralised energy systems linked to fossil fuels and supply chains that can be disrupted at any moment. This is clearly what we are witnessing today amidst the war raging in our region. 

When shipping lanes are disrupted, oil and gas prices rise, or fears of supply shortages increase, it is no longer a purely economic matter, but quickly becomes a direct burden on people: transportation becomes more difficult, running businesses more expensive, and securing electricity more challenging and precarious, while families find themselves once again facing a new crisis.

Fossil fuels are unsafe and unstable

While some face the full force of airstrikes and attacks, others experience economic contraction and a growing fear of worse to come. But one reality unites us all: the risks facing a global economy overly reliant on fossil fuels, known for its extreme volatility and its close ties to conflict, which makes our societies more vulnerable with each crisis.

The repercussions are not limited to the countries directly affected by the conflict, but extend to the economies of the region, such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco, where the cost of fuel, transportation, electricity, and basic commodities has risen significantly. 

The war quickly impacted markets, with oil prices exceeding US$100 per barrel in the early days of the escalation, while the Egyptian pound fell to around 53 pounds to the dollar, and domestic fuel prices increased, further driving up the costs of transportation, electricity, and food. In Tunisia, the rising average exchange rate of the dollar, coupled with soaring global oil prices, threatens to exacerbate pressure on the 2026 budget and the cost of living in an economy heavily reliant on energy imports. In Morocco, which also imports most of its oil needs, domestic prices are under increasing pressure, impacting vital sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing.

Energy is a hostage in the war in the Middle East and people are paying the price

Within days of US-Israel strikes on Iran, energy itself became a direct battleground. As the conflict rapidly escalated across the Middle East, fossil fuel infrastructure quickly became a direct target. The Strait of Hormuz became a flashpoint threatening global supplies. Israel cut off gas deliveries to Egypt and Jordan. And gas prices soared by nearly 50% after production was disrupted at a major facility in Qatar. This clearly demonstrates how fossil fuels can be transformed into a geopolitical tool that directly impacts people’s lives.

Renewable energy in the Middle East and North Africa region is no longer merely a postponed environmental or climate issue. For us today, it is a matter of daily resilience, sustainability, and the dignity of our societies. It is a matter of sovereignty, not only in its abstract political sense, but also in the sense of our societies’ ability to secure a greater portion of their basic needs locally and reduce their dependence on market fluctuations, wars, and geopolitical tensions.

A just transition to renewable energy is key

Energy sovereignty is not simply a matter of replacing one energy source with another; it requires a fundamental rethinking of the entire energy system structure. The more decentralised energy production becomes, the closer it is to people, and the more accessible it is to homes, schools, hospitals, farms, and small businesses, the more resilient our communities will be during times of crisis. Decentralised systems, such as rooftop solar power or small community projects, do not eliminate risks entirely, but they reduce vulnerability and empower people to take greater control of their lives and build resilience.

We have witnessed this clearly in Lebanon. With the ongoing collapse of the electricity sector in recent years, thousands of families and businesses have turned to solar energy, not as a luxury or a green option, but as a means of survival. Many have not turned to these solutions to address the climate crisis, but to obtain electricity that enables them to live with dignity, work, and study.

This reality applies to the entire region. The Middle East and North Africa are among the richest in solar energy, yet our societies remain vulnerable to an energy system that exacerbates their fragility with every war or market disruption. Paradoxically, we have the resources to build a more independent and secure energy future, yet we remain trapped in the same old fossil fuel model. However, it is encouraging that some countries in the region are beginning to chart a transformation. Morocco aims to generate more than half of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, while the UAE seeks to triple its renewable energy contribution by the same year.

What we need is system change

But what we need today is not just more large-scale renewable energy projects, important as they are, but also a deeper shift toward a more equitable and people-centered energy model. We need policies that enable households, communities, institutions, and farmers to access affordable, decentralised renewable energy within clear regulatory frameworks and with equitable financing, viewing energy as part of social and economic protection, not just a technical sector.

In times of war, all illusions crumble: energy security is not a matter of technology or figures in market reports, but a matter of daily life, social stability, and human dignity. When electricity, transportation, food preservation, and the operation of schools and hospitals become hostage to conflicts beyond the control of the people, the problem lies at the very heart of the entire system, not just in the supply chain.

Therefore, a just transition to decentralised renewable energy is no longer a luxury, but a fundamental necessity for strengthening communities’ resilience to crises. When these communities possess more stable and sovereign energy systems, they are better equipped to protect their livelihoods and withstand shocks to the economy and daily life.

In our region, energy sovereignty is measured not only by what we produce, but also by our ability to ensure that people’s lives are not held hostage by every new war or crisis.

Ghiwa Nakat is the Executive Director of Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa

This story was originally posted in Arabic exclusively on CNN Economics.

On 16 March 2026, Greenpeace USA held a mobile protest at the opening day of Nvidia’s flagship GTC conference. The message, delivered in the heart of Silicon Valley to expose the semiconductor giant for powering the “AI Revolution” with fossil fuels, demanded that the world’s most valuable company decarbonise its global supply chain through renewable energy.

Shortly before Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote address, a triple-billboard truck began circulating around the SAP Center in San Jose, sending a direct message to the CEO: “Hey Jensen, your GPUs powering the AI boom are overheating. So is the planet.” The installation presented two clear paths for the tech giant: “Powering the Apocalypse” through fossil-fuel reliance, or “Powering the Future” through a transition to wind and solar.

Katrin Wu, Supply Chain Project Lead, Greenpeace East Asia, said: “While Nvidia promises to ‘surprise the world’ with its new AI chips at GTC, the true surprise Jensen Huang left unsaid is the staggering scale of Nvidia’s supply chain emissions. Its supply chain emissions now rival the carbon footprints of some nations, while the company has yet to take meaningful action to address them. A world-class new-generation chip should be produced using wind and solar, not fossil fuels. Nvidia must take action to mitigate the environmental dilemma its business has created.”

This activity follows the release of Greenpeace East Asia’s analysis, “Nvidia’s Green Illusion,” which concludes that the company’s supply chain emissions more than doubled in just three years. The environmental burden is concentrated in manufacturing hubs such as South Korea and Taiwan, where power grids remain heavily reliant on fossil fuels.[1] Despite reporting record-breaking revenue in its earnings report last month, Nvidia received an “F” grade in Greenpeace East Asia’s 2025 ranking of 10 global AI giants for lagging behind its peers in decarbonisation and renewable energy adoption.[2]

The San Jose protest is part of a global wave of resistance by Greenpeace organisations around the world against billionaires who prioritise uncontrolled business expansion over ecological limits and people’s well-being.

Susannah Compton, Civic Resistance and Freedoms Campaigner, Greenpeace International, said:“We can all share a dream for a peaceful, abundant future empowered by technological advancements, but profit-hungry Big Tech companies cannot be blindly trusted to get us there. Nvidia’s chips power the AI boom, but the company’s innovation obsession clearly doesn’t extend to a livable planet because its supply chain is still built on fossil fuels. While Big Tech billionaires like Jensen Huang cash in, people and the planet pay the cost of surging emissions in rising bills and extreme weather. Technology must make our collective future better, not worse.”

Greenpeace urges Nvidia to slash its global supply chain emissions by transitioning to renewable energy, invest directly in new wind and solar projects globally, especially in manufacturing regions, and publish transparent annual supplier electricity and emissions data.

ENDS

Notes:

[1] Nvidia’s Green Illusion, Greenpeace East Asia, March 2026[2] Supply Change: Tracking AI Giants’ Decarbonization Progress, Greenpeace East Asia, October 2025

Photos and videos are available in the Greenpeace Media Library.

Contacts:

Yujie Xue, International Communications Officer, Greenpeace East Asia, +852 5127 3416, yujie.xue@greenpeace.org

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org 

Amsterdam, Netherlands – Public transportation, improved recycling programmes, and advanced battery technologies are shown as crucial solutions to limit mineral demand for a green transition according to a new report.

‘Beyond Extraction: Pathways for a 1.5°C-aligned Energy Transition with Less Minerals’, was commissioned by Greenpeace International, and authored by academics at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) in Australia. Using different 1.5°C-compatible energy scenarios to explore pathways toward mineral sufficiency and efficiency, the report shows how Earth’s minerals can be administered for a clean renewable energy transformation that protects vital Earth support systems from terrestrial or deep sea mining of so-called ‘critical minerals’.

“Mining often brings environmental destruction and social harm. It is reportedly linked to child labour, workers’ rights violations, land grabs from Indigenous Peoples, ecosystem damage, and threats to communities. Around the world, the minerals ‘rush’ repeats extractivist and colonial patterns, disregards the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and threatens to undermine the very possibility of a just and green energy transition,” says Elsa Lee, Co-Head of Biodiversity at Greenpeace International.

“We all want a just world where energy is clean, affordable and available to everyone, rights are respected, peoples’ land access and livelihoods are protected, and our planet has a stable climate and rich biodiversity. With this report we underline that it is incumbent upon our governments who regulate the extractive industry to power an ambitious energy transition without mining critical ecosystems on land or at sea,” added Lee.

A key recommendation of the report is that decision makers must prioritise mineral use for essential energy transition purposes. In an era of eroding international cooperation and intensifying conflict, this underscores the importance of coordinated action to protect people and nature, and achieve climate objectives. 

Greenpeace International deep sea mining campaigner Ruth Ramos said: “Lines have been crossed on the land that need never be crossed in the deep ocean. Now we know: not only does deep sea mining run against science, ethics, people and the planet, it’s not even needed for a renewable transition. What is needed is for the nations of the world to unite against rogue actors like The Metals Company and Donald Trump and their affronts to international law and cooperation, and instead keep moving towards a moratorium on deep sea mining. Imagine if humans could have protected the world from the harms of the fossil fuel industry before it even started – that is the opportunity when it comes to deep sea mining: it is a historic privilege, and one we must now embrace wholeheartedly.”

As part of the report, potential mineral reserves areas were compared with areas that – due to their exceptional environmental, ecological, and social importance – must be off-limits to mining. The analysis finds that there is no need to mine these off-limits areas—including, amongst others, the global ocean and protected areas on land —for an ambitious energy transition.

Report author Professor Sven Teske said: “This research highlights how sound policies and innovative technologies can limit mineral demand in a 1.5°C-aligned energy transition. Realising this potential, however, requires responsible political leadership and decisive action today.”

ENDS

Notes:

Report: Beyond Extraction: Pathways for a 1.5°C-aligned Energy Transition with Less Minerals

Research briefing for Beyond Extraction report

Photos available in the Greenpeace Media Library

Contacts:

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org 

Lithium, nickel, copper, and cobalt are often framed by States and industries as “critical minerals” – a reflection of political priorities rather than actual societal needs. As the demand for these minerals is predicted to grow for energy transition technologies as well as other sectors, such as big tech and the military sector, its supply chains have become a geopolitical battleground. This has governments scrambling to control supply chains, while companies opportunistically pursue extraction, which can infringe on the ancestral lands of Indigenous Peoples, and risk the destruction of vital ecosystems. 

We must achieve an ambitious, Paris Agreement-aligned energy transition that safeguards critical ecosystems and centers the rights of Indigenous Peoples and those of local communities. But it requires the right political choices and moral leadership.

“Beyond Extraction: Pathways for a 1.5°C-aligned Energy Transition with Less Minerals”, is a collaboration between Greenpeace International and the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney.

The study focuses on nine key energy transition minerals: cobalt, copper, dysprosium, graphite, lithium, manganese, neodymium, nickel, and vanadium. 

Scenario analysis was used in this study to explore how different technological and policy pathways can shape future mineral demand from 2024-2050. 

The scenarios are: 

1) One Earth Climate Model Net Zero (OECM), aligned with the Paris climate goals and set as a base case for the study;

2) Progressive (PRO), and 

3) Progressive Accelerated Sodium-ion Battery (PRO-Na-ion). 

This global research – the first of its kind – shows that we can power an ambitious energy transition without sacrificing crucial ecosystems – whether on land or at sea. More public transportation, ambitious recycling programmes, and battery technology choices all contribute to reducing the mineral demand for energy transition. 

In an era of fraying international cooperation and intensifying conflict, this research underscores the importance of coordinated action to protect people and nature from the minerals “rush”, and achieve climate objectives. Responsible political leadership must prioritise mineral use for essential energy transition purposes and ensure that rights are respected, and peoples’ land access and livelihoods are protected.

Download the report and other materials: 

Download the research briefing. 

Download the report “Beyond Extraction: Pathways for a 1.5°C-aligned Energy Transition with less Minerals”. 

Download supplementary documents:
1) development of a restricted areas map and

2) minerals mapping approach and integration (reserve Proxy Area analysis)