Explosions, fires and destroyed infrastructure: wars cause a great deal of human suffering. However, fighting also has a negative impact on the environment and climate – often for many decades.
When Vladimir Putin’s troops launched their attack on Ukraine in the early hours of February 24, 2022 attack on Ukraine they also launched a major offensive against the climate. As the Dutch scientist Lennard de Klerk calculated, Russia’s war of aggression caused about as many climate-damaging emissions in the first year alone as a country the size of Belgium at the same time. Together with an international team, de Klerk systematically determined the direct and indirect emissions of the war. In doing so, they also took into account supposed side issues such as the leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines and the emissions from cargo and passenger planes that have had to fly around the war zone since the outbreak of fighting. https://militaeraktuell.at/bundesheer-bevoelkerung-befuerwortet-budgeterhoehung/ According to their calculations, 120 million tons of CO2 emission equivalents were emitted during the fighting in the first year alone. Surprisingly, the experts estimated the proportion of emissions caused by direct combat operations at “only” 19 percent of total emissions – and even a large part of this was due to the fuel consumption of the two armies. However, CO2 emissions from burning vehicles and buildings (15 percent) are also directly linked to combat operations. Incidentally, at around 50 million tons, the largest share of emissions is attributable to post-war reconstruction, when houses, industrial buildings and infrastructure have to be rebuilt. “War is first and foremost a human tragedy, of course,” says climate researcher de Klerk. “But there is also major environmental damage.”
“War is first and foremost a human tragedy, of course. But there is also great environmental damage.
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Klimaforscher Lennard de Klerk
As wars of the past have shown, much of this environmental damage can still be measured decades later. For example, an investigation in 2019 still found residues of the defoliant “Agent Orange” in the soil of Vietnam. Between 1962 and 1971, the US rained down between 45 and 80 million liters of the herbicide on the country’s forests during the Vietnam War to defoliate the trees and make it more difficult for the Viet Cong to camouflage themselves. In Syria, Iran and Iraq, too, many soils and groundwater are still contaminated by oil spills, and large areas of forest are being destroyed in practically all conflicts – including in Ukraine. At the end of last year, Kiev reported the destruction of 280,000 hectares of forest – this figure must now be significantly higher.
