CLIMATE concerns have quickly risen following the recent attacks on fuel depots in the Iranian capital which quickly dived into darkness as poisonous black clouds rose from burning oil facilities.
Experts have since warned, particularly Mathilde Jourde from the Institute for International and Strategic Relations, that targeting nuclear, military and energy sites had “extremely polluting” consequences for air, water and soil.
With the never-ending strikes in Iran and elsewhere in the region, experts are pointing to “black rain” and acidic pollution, in which rainwater in Tehran has turned black after interacting with pollutants in the air, a result of high concentrations of soot, hydrocarbons, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides from burning oil depots.
Experts say this “black rain” is highly acidic, with potential to cause skin burns and severe lung damage.
Reports from the Middle East, quoting pollution authorities, say air quality monitoring stations in Tehran, Khuzestan, and Isfahan have registered levels as “unhealthy for all” or “very unhealthy.”
Experts note the pollution is different from standard urban smog, describing it as an extreme mix of heavy metals and hazardous combustion by-products, akin to a massive industrial disaster, and the smoke plumes have blanketed Tehran, a metropolis with nearly 10 million residents, and the surrounding areas.
What does this mean?
Based on the immediate, severe environmental impacts reported as of March 2026, the air pollution caused by the Iran war and attacks on oil infrastructure constitutes a high-level hazard, likely rated 7 to 8 on a 1-10 scale for regional impact, with significant long-term toxic legacy concerns.
While the pollution is highly intense, its immediate, extreme effects are currently centered in the Middle East – affecting millions in Iran, Iraq, and nearby Gulf states – rather than uniformly across the entire global population.
Which means air pollution from Iran is unlikely to have a direct, significant impact on the daily air quality in the the Philippines due to the geographical distance – over 7,000 kilometers – and atmospheric separation between the two regions.
However, as experts argue, air pollution is transboundary, and under certain atmospheric conditions, long-range transport of pollutants can occur.
Fine particles, like those from dust storms in Iran’s dried-out wetlands or pollution from oil infrastructure, can travel hundreds or thousands of kilometers.
While pollutants can travel long distances, the concentration of pollutants decreases significantly over such large distances, and it is highly unlikely that Iranian pollution would directly reach the Philippines in high enough concentrations to break national air quality standards.
As far as climate change is concerned, air pollution affects regional monsoon intensities and trajectories, which can have indirect impacts on agricultural systems across Asia, according to climatologists.
While severe air pollution in Iran is a serious health crisis for its own population, the direct, physical transfer of that poor air to the Philippines is, in the mindset of experts, negligible, although they stress the primary, tangible impact of the Iranian crisis on the Philippines is economic, caused by rising oil prices.
