First and foremost, Putin's attack on Ukraine causes enormous human suffering. But the environment is also affected: Forest areas the size of Hesse have already been destroyed. In addition, the world is arming itself - with dangerous consequences for the climate.
Entire tank columns of Russian troops roll through the Donbass. They shoot at villages like Vodyane or Krasnohorivka and reduce towns and forests to rubble. Meanwhile, Russian warplanes, drones and cruise missiles are bombing the energy supply throughout the country - oil depots are burning again and again, as recently in Cherson. At times, millions of people live without electricity and gas. According to US figures, 200,000 soldiers from both warring parties have already died in the fighting in Ukraine, and thousands of civilians have died or been injured. First and foremost, Russia's war entails gigantic human suffering. Incidentally, Moscow's invasion is also fueling the fire of another - global - crisis.
Because hardly anything is more harmful to the climate than war and the military. According to the German Institute for Economics (IW), while the said Russian T72 tank travels 100 kilometers, it consumes 250 liters of fuel - "on paved roads, significantly more off-road". However, that accounts for only a fraction of the total emissions caused by the war. "The combat itself, for example the constant shelling by artillery or cruise missiles, releases massive emissions," explains Anselm Vogler, a researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, in an interview with ntv.de. Added to this are the emissions from Russian logistics, says Vogler. Not only do tanks, warships and fighter jets cause enormous CO2 emissions, "but also the transport of the many tons of ammunition, fuel and supplies".
This climate damage caused by the war was measured for the first time. On behalf of the Ukrainian government, the "Initiative on GHG Account of War" comes up with 100 million tons of CO2 caused by Russia's invasion in the first seven months. For comparison: "This corresponds to the total greenhouse gas emissions of the Netherlands in the same period." Almost half of this is attributable to the reconstruction of the infrastructure - cement production is particularly high in carbon. The initiative also took into account the displacement of around 20 million people who had to leave their homes and the leaks in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines. The act of sabotage released hundreds of thousands of tons of methane, the most dangerous of all greenhouse gases, into the atmosphere. It is not yet clear who is responsible for this. However, a connection to the war in Ukraine can hardly be dismissed out of hand.
It's not just the direct effects of combat, however. "The war also complicates the framework for truly global cooperation on climate goals," explains Vogler. In this way he increases the ambitions in Europe to switch to renewable energies as quickly as possible. "However, it is also forcing Europe to replace natural gas with even more climate-damaging energies such as coal."
And then there is global rearmament. The West is supplying Ukraine with weapons, Russia has already announced that it will increase its defense budget by 20 percent, NATO wants to increase its rapid reaction forces and the German armed forces will receive 100 billion euros for better equipment. This should significantly increase global CO2 emissions - because the climate footprint of the global military is already frightening.
Global military activities are responsible for 5.5 percent of all CO2 emissions, according to a new study by the British scientific organization Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) and the organization "Conflict and Environment Observatory" (CEOBS). Put another way, if the world's armed forces were one country, it would have the fourth largest carbon footprint - larger than that of Russia. Researchers assume in the journal "Nature" that the actual output of the global military could even be three times as high. Because the study has a catch: it is based on estimates. No one knows exactly what global military emissions are. The national armed forces do not have to account for this, they are explicitly exempt from the reporting obligation of the Paris climate protection agreement. Military superpowers like the USA had tried to do this for reasons of national security.
However, some western countries provide figures. From this, the political scientist Neta Crawford from the University of Oxford calculated that the Pentagon is the world's largest governmental emitter of greenhouse gases. Emissions from the US armed forces account for three quarters of government CO2 emissions. The fuel consumption for US military aircraft alone causes annual emissions "corresponding to those of six million US cars," the researchers calculate in "Nature". In contrast, the climate balance presented by the Bundeswehr is negligible - but without counting the foreign missions. An example shows that the climate balance would otherwise be much higher: During its mission in Afghanistan, the German armed forces burned 55,000 liters of diesel a day. The Ukraine podcast from NDR Info reported on this.
The greenhouse gas emissions of the armed forces are immense. Armed forces should therefore look for ways to reduce their emissions, appeals to Vogler. Because without climate protection there is no security anyway. "The military cannot protect 80 million citizens from heat waves - no matter how much it is upgraded." But one thing is also clear: "It will probably not be possible to operate tanks and combat aircraft in a CO2-neutral manner, even in the medium term."
For Ukraine, considerations like these cannot play a role at the moment. When defending your country, the primary concern is the operational readiness of the systems. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian government is keeping an eye on the climate balance - for good reason. After the war, Russia is to pay for the ecological damage, as the Ukrainian Environment Minister Ruslan Strilets announced at the climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. For this purpose, a database should be set up that systematically records both climate and environmental damage. So far, more than 2200 cases of environmental damage have been documented.
At the top of the list are all the cleared or burned forest areas. Around 20,000 square kilometers have already been destroyed, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj told the United Nations. That corresponds roughly to the area of Hesse. In addition, fields were contaminated or made unusable by mines.
"But there is also a long list of cases of soil, water and air pollution from attacks," explains Krzysztof Michalak, head of the OECD's department for green growth and global relations, in an interview with ntv.de. The expert gives an example: When refineries, chemical plants or steelworks are bombed, toxic substances are released. This not only contaminates the soil in the long term, but is also dangerous for human health for a long time, says Michalak. "By the way, also beyond the national borders." The toxic fuel from weapons also leads to toxic pollution in the country. Military waste also includes military vehicles left behind after they have been destroyed. "But of course also all the bombed out civilian vehicles."
Environmental protection is also hardly possible if the infrastructure no longer works. "If a place is attacked, the garbage trucks stop running," explains Michalak. "Then not only the household waste collects in the streets, but also the medical waste from the clinics." And it pollutes the environment, as does all the asbestos and heavy metals that are released when buildings are destroyed.
The Ukrainian government has added up all of this and comes up with a loss of 34 billion euros - so far. Whether Russia will really pay for the damage remains to be seen. Nevertheless, Ukraine's calculations serve an important purpose: They make it very clear that this war not only causes human suffering, but also damages the environment and the climate. "All the war-related emissions are basically Moscow's emissions," says Vogler. Because it was Russia that started a war and invaded Ukraine with tank columns.
