LEGACY RISKS

Monika Halkort in conversation with Verena Winiwarter

LEGACY RISKS
How war, oil and weapons are destroying the environment and climate

WAR AND CLIMATE is a new series of dialogues that illustrates the long-term environmental and climate consequences of armed conflicts based on current conflicts in the world. The wars in Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq and Sudan, among others, have turned entire swathes of land, rivers and coastlines into toxic rubbish dumps, where war debris mixes dangerously with toxic chemicals, oil slicks and radioactive weapons material. They not only threaten the groundwater and food supply of the affected populations, but also drive up CO₂ emissions while destroying important natural resources to reduce these emissions. Oil pipelines, power stations and industrial plants are routine targets in the strategic planning of war operations. Possible protective provisions for nature and environmental resources are thus cancelled out from the outset or are brushed aside with reference to the military benefits of such attacks. The financial and moral responsibility for restoring or eliminating the long-term consequences, on the other hand, is neither legally nor geopolitically clear. The Kreisky Forum offers an excellent framework for filling this critical gap in the debate on climate change and for establishing the long-neglected role of war and military conflicts in the public eye.

This discussion is about a historical perspective, about the connection between oil and war, which has proven to be decisive since the First World War.

Verena Winiwarter was Professor of Environmental History at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. She heads the Commission for Interdisciplinary Ecological Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Her current research focusses on the toxic legacy of abandoned mines, weapons depots and military bases, and in particular the unpredictability of biological and chemical processes that can be triggered by industry and military waste. These uncertainties are not taken into account in the UN climate goals or in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Winiwarter approaches the topic from a feminist perspective and draws on interdisciplinary research methods.

Monika Halkort is a social scientist and journalist in Vienna. In addition to her academic work, she regularly produces contributions for the Ö1 programmes Radiokolleg, Hörbilder and Diagonal. She also teaches at the University of Applied Arts as part of the master's programme ‚Applied Human Rights and the Arts', under the direction of Manfred Novak. From 2011 to 2020 she taught and researched at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, Lebanon. The thematic focus of her academic and journalistic work is the historical entanglements of colonialism, technology and knowledge production and how they continue to shape ideas of sustainability, planetary thinking and environmental justice today.