Why the Houthi Threat to the Red Sea Is an Environmental Catastrophe Waiting to Happen

Most people are unaware of a ship that is rusting silently five miles off the coast of Yemen in the Red Sea. It is known as the FSO Safer and has a capacity of 1.1 million barrels of crude oil, which is about four times the amount that spilled when the Exxon Valdez ran aground off Alaska in 1989.

Since its abandonment in 2015 due to Yemen’s civil war, which prevented maintenance, the tanker has been deteriorating. It might disintegrate. It might blow up. Environmental scientists are kept up at night by the uncertainty surrounding one of the world’s most ecologically sensitive bodies of water. No one seems to be completely certain which will come first.

When you combine that with the Houthi conflict, the result is not only a geopolitical challenge for Western governments and shipping companies, but also a slow-motion, piece-by-piece environmental disaster that is largely hidden from public view.

Citing solidarity with Gaza as an excuse, Houthi forces in Yemen have targeted over 130 commercial ships traversing the Red Sea since November 2023. Global shipping traffic was drastically rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope and away from the Suez Canal as a result of the attacks, adding about 3,000 nautical miles and ten days to journeys that had previously followed a reliable, effective route.

The cost of freight increased. The cost of insurance increased dramatically. Egypt’s earnings from the Suez Canal decreased. These are the figures that garnered media attention. The environmental ledger, which was being discreetly completed on the opposite side of the ledger, received far less attention.

Ships use a lot more fuel when they reroute around the Cape. Emissions are released when more fuel is burned. At a time when the shipping industry was already under pressure to lessen its environmental impact, studies monitoring the conflict’s maritime impact revealed a startling 30 to 35 percent increase in carbon emissions directly linked to these longer routes.

Some of this might be dismissed as a transient anomaly, a blip brought on by instability in the area. However, there is no set timeline for normalization, and the routes have been changed for more than a year.

What happens when ships are actually struck is another issue. After being attacked, a bulk carrier carrying over 41,000 tons of fertilizer sank in the Red Sea, spilling its contents into the water. Before its cargo could be moved and towed to safety, an oil tanker carrying one million barrels of crude had to be evacuated. That specific crisis was just barely avoided.

However, anyone who believes that these attacks are solely a commercial or political issue should reconsider when they see a million barrels of oil being transported out of a burning tanker in one of the most popular and environmentally significant waterways in the world.

The Red Sea serves as more than just a shipping channel. In contrast to reefs elsewhere, it is home to some of the planet’s most biodiverse coral reef systems, which have, ironically, demonstrated exceptional resilience to rising ocean temperatures. A significant oil spill could completely alter that picture, suffocating coral, wiping out fish populations, and ruining the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people who work in Yemen’s and the region’s fishing industries.

For years, the UN has cautioned about this in relation to the FSO Safer alone. A completely new level of risk is introduced by the Houthi attacks, which come from a different angle, involve different actors, and lack a clear accountability system.

It’s difficult to ignore how infrequently these environmental factors are discussed in public. Operation Prosperity Guardian, the EU’s Operation Aspides, the ceasefire talks mediated through Oman in early 2025, and the US military campaign that began in March of that same year are all examples of the prevailing geopolitical framing.

All valid worries, all truly significant. Ceasefires, however, are irrelevant to the sea. There is still the FSO Safer. Fuel is still being burned by the rerouted ships. Somewhere in those waters, the fertilizer from that submerged bulk carrier is still spreading.

This is especially annoying because the environmental threat was never totally avoidable. The UN had a plan for the FSO Safer, which involved spending $80 million to move the oil to a temporary vessel in order to buy time until a long-term solution could be found. Contributions totaled $70 million by the end of 2022. A memorandum of understanding authorizing the transfer was signed by the Houthi militia, which controls the port of Hodeida nearest to the tanker.

The Houthis had repeatedly prevented UN inspections of the ship, and the document was not legally binding. Ultimately, the oil was saved in 2023 thanks to a remarkable UN-led operation—a true success story. However, there is no real indication that the conflict will be resolved, and the Red Sea’s larger environmental architecture is still dangerously exposed.

It seems like the world is using an outdated framework to address a novel threat as all of this has transpired over the last two years. The Houthi campaign’s economic disruption is evident, quantifiable, and felt right away in insurance rates and freight indices.

The effects on the environment are quieter, slower, and sometimes won’t be fully understood until long after the shooting has stopped. Carbon builds up. Reef systems abruptly and gradually collapse. Before they know why, fishing communities lose their catches.

No other body of water connects Europe, Asia, and Africa as effectively as the Red Sea. In normal times, the Suez route handles about 30% of container shipping volume and 12% of global trade. In the months after the attacks, the daily oil throughput of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the narrow chokepoint at the southern end of the Red Sea that the Houthis have effectively weaponized, fell from 8.8 million barrels to about 4 million barrels.

It’s not a rounding error. The rerouting, the attacks themselves, and the brittle, deteriorating infrastructure left over from a war that never truly ended all have an impact on the environment. This is a fundamental disruption of the architecture of the world’s energy supply.

The fact that a conflict that is being presented as a reaction to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is creating the conditions for a potential environmental catastrophe that could impact millions of people throughout the larger region is somewhat ironic.

The circumstances that gave rise to the FSO Safer—unresolved conflict, international paralysis, and a militia with no incentive to protect shared ecological resources—remain largely unchanged. Waiting for geopolitics to catch up is not an option for the Red Sea.