Environmental cost of Russia-Ukraine War

Environmental cost of Russia-Ukraine War

Subject : International Relations / Environment

Concept :

• The conflict in Ukraine has racked up environmental costs that will far outlive the actual fighting.

How the Russia-Ukraine war induced destruction?

• Fighting-induced destruction :
• The conflict has seen many damages with incidents involving nuclear power plants, energy infrastructure, mines and industrial sites.
• It resulted in air pollution and contamination of ground and surface waters.
• More than 2 million hectares of forest have been destroyed putting the rare endemic species at risk.
• According to claims by the Ukraine’s environment ministry, altogether the losses from land, water and air pollution amounted to $51.4 billion.

Carbon footprint :

• Emission from the conflict was estimated to be around 33 mn tonnes of CO2 and 23 mn tonnes of CO2 from fires.
• The reconstruction could emit 49 mn tonnes of CO2.

Leopard 2 Tanks :

• The state-of-the-art Leopard 2 tanks have a fuel capacity of 1200 litres.
• This roughly consumes between 3.5-5.5 litres of fuel per km.

Radioactive exposure :

• Russian troops dug up deep trenches in the protected Chernobyl sanctuary, an area largely untouched since the nuclear disaster in 1986.
• This could have dug up dangerous radioactive material.
• Deforestation:
• More than 2 million hectares of forest have been destroyed, wrecking ecosystems and putting rare endemic species at risk.

What is the way forward?

• Even when the conflict ends, the immediate efforts of reconstruction will focus only on housing and building infrastructure.
• Restoration of environment should not be given priority.
• World Nations should take immediate actions to stop the war and its deleterious impact on environment.
• Restoration of ecosystem should be given equal priority as reconstruction of infrastructure.