On June 7, the EcoAction Centre for Environmental Initiatives presented its study of the impact of a year of the full-scale war on the environment and greenhouse gas emissions. They announced the results of this climate damage assessment for the first time at the Bonn Climate Change Conference, and already on June 8 they presented it in Ukraine.
Mykola Shlapak, co-author of the Report on Climate Damage Caused by Russia’s War in Ukraine, Viktoriia Kireieva, Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, Olha Polunina, Executive Director of EcoAction, Yevhenia Zasiadko, Head of the Climate Department of EcoAction, and Maryna Dranichenko, Deputy Head of Management — Head of the Division of Ecology, Energy Saving and Assessments for Energy Carriers of the Finance, Economy and Investments Department of the Sumy City Council, shared key opinions about the results of the study at the presentation.
Watch the presentation on the EcoAction website, and read the summary of the speeches here.
The research was carried out by EcoAction with the support of the Environmental Initiative (EPAIU) of our Foundation and the European Climate Foundation (ECF). Its general purpose is to highlight that Russian aggression affects not only Ukrainian citizens and the Ukrainian environment, but also the rest of the world, by actual destruction of natural ecosystems, pollution of air, water and soil as well as by increasing emissions into the atmosphere of a significant amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
“The war really has a global impact on the climate, because the climate has no borders. It does not stop at the borders of Ukraine or Russia. And the war unleashed by Russia causes additional emissions of greenhouse gases in various sectors,” said Yevhenia Zasiadko, Head of the Climate Department of EcoAction.
This is the second assessment of the damage of the war to the climate conducted by EcoAction. The first one was presented at the UN Climate Change Conference COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh on 9 November 2022. Their study then covered the first seven months of the war over four sections:
- Emissions from the movement of refugees;
- Emissions from hostilities;
- Emissions from uncontrolled fires in forests and urban areas;
- Future emissions due to the recovery of damaged and destroyed buildings, roads and factories.
The second climate damage assessment supplements the data from these four emissions sources, covering the first 12 months of the full-scale war, from 24 February 2022 to 23 February 2023. In addition to the above, EcoAction also considered other areas affected by Russian aggression:
- European energy sector;
- Change of flight routes due to airspace closure;
- Overall impact on emissions in Ukraine.
During the preparation of the analysis, the team of authors relied on information from open sources such as social media, scientific research and open source intelligence (OSINT); interviews with experts, industry reports, official publications, peer-reviewed articles and other available sources of information.
“Climate change is certainly not the most critical problem for Ukraine now, but it is important to account for the damage to the climate from hostilities in order to plan the recovery and hold Russia accountable,” Mykola Shlapak, co-author of the Report, said at the presentation. Read the study in Ukrainian та English on the EcoAction website.
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The Report was created with the support of the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and the Environmental Policy and Advocacy Initiative for Ukraine (EPAIU) implemented by the International Renaissance Foundation (IFV) with the financial support of Sweden.
