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Islamic Republic of Iran: “Lack of public policy worsens the impact of climate change”
Global warming, water stress, pollution, Iran is facing various environmental challenges. What are they ? How does the regime, which will celebrate its 45th anniversary this Sunday, February 11, manage these issues? Jonathan Piron, historian specializing in Iran and environmental issues at the Brussels research center Etopia, responds to RFI.
A thick layer of pollution hangs in the sky over Tehran in December 2023. © Vahid Salemi / AP
By: Pauline Gleize Follow
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RFI: What are the consequences of global warming in Iran?
Jonathan Piron:
The impact of climate change is significant in
Iran
. It is a country which is threatened by a whole series of phenomena which tend to increase. There is already rising temperatures which means that the country is facing increasingly severe and increasingly severe periods of drought. The drought cycle is shortening. There was usually a gap of ten years between the different cycles
.
We now see that these cycles are approaching each other over a period of three or four years. These different tensions accumulate on others: increasingly significant dust storms, a reduction in water tables. The country is therefore increasingly facing environmental and climatic stress. This produces a whole series of tensions, from a social, economic and political point of view.
What tensions does this cause?
The lack of public policy aggravates and reinforces the impact of climate and environmental consequences. We are in a policy, inherited from the imperial era, which is that of a surge of modernity, but also of autonomy, of power, which must be manifested by food autonomy and also by energy production in the aim of ensuring that Iran does not depend on anyone. It is also a policy that was pursued in the 1990s by the regime in place today in Iran, since the idea was to escape any external constraint exerted by enemies of the country.
We see, for example, that Iran wants to pursue food sovereignty. It began to produce a whole series of basic resources, such as rice and watermelons, which are very water-intensive. This production is carried out in places which sometimes lack adequate water resources. There is therefore a desire for unbridled productivism on the part of the political regime to establish its power.
To this must be added a whole series of policies which have disastrous effects such as the construction of large dams. And this is part of a system that is deeply corrupt, which means that resource governance is not well exercised. So, we find ourselves in the situation where today many farmers in Iran no longer have proper access to water because the water tables are exhausted, because the State cannot fight against corruption, because that there is also more and more illegal abstraction, because there is also competition between different farmers, and even with industry. So, this begins to trigger environmental protests, like those that appeared two years ago
in Khouseztan
and
the Isfahan region
.
Anger protest in Iran over the drying up of a vital river due to drought and diversion of the watercourse. Isfahan, November 19, 2021. © Fatmeh Nasr / ISNA / AFP
Do environmental defenders have room to express their concerns
?
Environmental protests are subject to repression, but at different levels. As long as you do not challenge the regime's policies, you are not prosecuted in the same way. We saw in particular that demonstrations in Isfahan, which were supported by unions, were authorized by the power in place, while those which were carried out in Khuzestan around the same period [in 2021, Editor's note] and which were organized by NGOs and by environmental activists,
were harshly repressed.
And, like most other activists, environmental activists are subject to brutalization and arbitrary imprisonment. We even have the example of certain environmental activists who died in suspicious circumstances in prison.
They come to challenge the power that is occupied in environmental policies by certain key players such as the Revolutionary Guards who, in addition to being a paramilitary power, are a major economic power. They are notably the ones who build the large hydraulic dams. We see, for example, that certain environmental groups are demanding that there be decentralization in decision-making, that there be, among other things, citizen assemblies for decision-making on water. All of this is seen by the regime as a danger because it calls into question the way in which power is exercised.
Also read: Water shortage in Iran, an impossible challenge?
Is the environment an issue taken into account by the regime itself?
During the environmental demonstrations which recently broke out in Iran, we saw that a whole series of positions were taken by the regime in place, in particular local elected officials, but also the supreme leader Khamenei, who insisted on the need to have answers to droughts and their impacts. That said, it has very little effect.
We can also mention the position of the Iranian regime in relation to the Paris agreements which were concluded in 2015. The Iranian regime claimed that as long as the embargoes against Iran were not lifted, it was not in a position of power. carry out different adaptation policies. There are certain projects that are being undertaken around certain lakes, particularly in the north of the country, to try to achieve sustainable development that respects resources. But we see that macro policies still remain based on extractivist policies. So there is no real desire to try to change things. There is also a belief that technology can save the country, that it is by building more dams that Iran will succeed. Politics remains very wait-and-see.
► Also read:
The Islamic Republic of Iran, 45 years of a permanent state of war
Iran: 45 years after the Islamic Revolution, Iranians are losing faith in the state religion
Iran: the main protest movements against the regime since 1979
Iran: the major dates of the Islamic Republic
Islamic Republic of Iran: 45 years of human rights violations
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