Latest news with #SvitlanaKrakovska
Euronews
24-02-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Three years of war in Ukraine: ‘Environmental damage knows no borders' as emissions rise to new high
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has emitted nearly 230 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents since it began on 24 February 2022. Rising by 31 per cent over the last 12 months, the total is now the same as the annual emissions of Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia combined. This unique methodology from the Initiative on GHG Accounting of War is endorsed by the Ukrainian government and aims to hold Russia liable for these emissions and the resulting climate-related damage. The study is co-authored by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) member Svitlana Krakovska, who is set to deliver the findings in a speech this Monday morning at the 62nd session of the IPCC in Hangzhou, China. Raging wildfires defined the last 12 months for Ukraine According to data compiled from the European Forest Fire Information System, Ukraine was plagued by wildfires in 2024, which were triggered considerably by the war. The area burned over the last 12 months was more than double the annual average from the previous two years, increasing to 92,100 hectares. Emissions from all landscape fires, including forests, more than doubled to 25.8 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents – a 118 per cent increase compared to the wartime annual average for previous years. Most of these fires occurred at or near the frontlines of the war or in border areas. 'Ignition points during war are, for example, shelling at both sides (explosions), firing ammunition, crashing drones, exploding mines, soldiers making campfires,' lead author of the report Lennard de Klerk explains to Euronews Green. 'Due to the ongoing hostilities and mining, firefighters cannot reach the area, so a starting fire becomes much bigger and intensive and will only stop once all fuel (trees and bushes) has been burnt.' What was different about the last year, de Klerk says, was that the weather was unusually dry on the frontlines in eastern Ukraine. Combined with several heat waves this resulted in a very high Fire Weather Index. 'The probability of such weather has become much higher due to climate change. So you see that climate change creates conditions for forest fires, war is triggering them, causing carbon emissions, which causes more climate change. This is a vicious cycle of destruction,' he adds. Uncontrolled fires – fuelled by weather linked to climate change – led to a massive jump in carbon emissions, as well as the destruction of vegetation and other carbon sinks. The latest analysis says that last year stands out as a 'worrying example' of how climate change and armed conflict mutually reinforce each other, fueling a cycle of destruction from global warming. What are other major sources of Ukraine's increased carbon emissions? As fighting continued, emissions from military activity continued a steady growth in the last 12 months, overtaking the other major category of climate costs: the reconstruction of damaged buildings and infrastructure. Warfare has now become the biggest source of emissions after three years. Fossil fuels burned by vehicles like tanks and fighter jets – major consumers of diesel and kerosene – make up the majority of these emissions at 74 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents. Though the use of drones has become more prominent in the last 12 months, this has not replaced the use of carbon-intensive artillery shells, doing little to reduce emissions from ammunition use. Intensified attacks on energy infrastructure brought a 16 per cent rise in this category of conflict emissions. Oil infrastructure was particularly hard hit, causing emissions to surge to 2.1 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents in the last 12 months, compared to 1.1 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents in the preceding 24 months. Planes continued to avoid or were banned from airspace above Russia and Ukraine, meaning they flew further and so racked up more emissions. This has pushed conflict-related aviation emissions up to 14.4 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents since the invasion began. Emissions tied to fleeing refugees remained largely unchanged. The study's findings for the last 12 months are currently preliminary, with some data yet to be published. Ukraine is seeking damages for the carbon emissions of war Those backing the research say Russia should be held liable for the emissions from the war in Ukraine and the resulting climate-related damage. 'The full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine is entering a fourth year. The analysis published today shows that environmental damage knows no borders, and the war is exacerbating the climate crisis that the whole world is facing today,' says Ukraine's minister of environmental protection and natural resources, Svitlana Grynchuk. 'This report is an important document to hold Russia accountable for the harm it is causing to all of us.' With peace negotiations in the air, de Klerk adds that the climate costs of the war should not be forgotten. 'It is too early to say how the peace talks will impact our work, but we believe Russia should compensate Ukraine for the damage done as decided by the UN General Assembly on the 14th of November 2022,' he says. By applying a 'social cost of carbon' of $185 (€178) per tonne of CO2 equivalent, they put Russia's liability after three years of war at over $42 billion (€40.3 billion).
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Ukraine's unlikely ally against Russian attacks on energy sector — warm weather
Nearly three years into the war, Ukrainians have grown used to bracing for brutal winters with electricity blackouts and heating cuts from Russian attacks on the country's energy infrastructure. This winter was predicted to be one of the toughest ones of the war yet. In a worst-case scenario, blackouts were expected to reach 20 hours a day. Greenpeace warned in November that Ukraine's power grid faced a "heightened risk of catastrophic failure.' But thanks to a combination of unseasonably warm weather, and Ukraine's ability to adapt to a third year of Russian campaigns against its energy system, the worst has not come to pass. Since Russia began targeting Ukraine's energy infrastructure in late 2022, the country has learned to better protect the power grid, figuring out how to make repairs in record time following Russian strikes. Climate change — which has been causing warmer winters each year in Ukraine — has also become Ukraine's unexpected ally in resisting Russia's tactic of freezing Ukrainians into submission. 'The fact that we have such warm weather of +6, +7 degrees Celsius (42-44 degrees Fahrenheit) is fantastically positive for us,' said Oleksandr Kharchenko, managing director of the Energy Industry Research Center, crediting the mild winter as a main factor for the lack of problems with power in Ukraine. In the past, Ukraine had hot summers and cold winters, consistent with its mostly continental climate. Snow and temperatures below zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) characterized every winter, including the one in 2014 when the Euromaidan Revolution unfolded and protesters on Independence Square in Kyiv danced to patriotic chants to warm up. Things are different now. Ukraine's Environment Ministry on Jan.19 went as far as to say in a social media post that, 'Due to global warming, there is no climatic winter in Ukraine (this year).' 'Due to global warming, there is no climatic winter in Ukraine (this year).' 'If the winter used to be a season of frost and snow, then now the weather often reminds of late autumn or early spring,' the ministry wrote. The Central Geophysical Observatory declared 2024 'the warmest year on record' in Kyiv, with the December average at zero degrees Celsius. Temperatures were above zero every day the last week of January, a record for the country, the observatory said. 'Ukraine is one of the regions of the planet where the temperature has been rising at the highest rate over the past decade,' said Svitlana Krakovska, head of the applied climatology laboratory at the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute. 'And the main warming occurs primarily in winter,' she was cited as having said in the ministry's post on social media. Ukraine hasn't yet had to implement any country-wide rolling blackouts in 2025, according to open data collected by the Energy Map. These scheduled limitations of electricity supply for businesses and households were put in place at various times throughout the previous years to cut the consumption in peak hours to avoid the collapse of the country's strained power system. Hours-long blackouts were widely used throughout the country for much of the spring and summer of 2024 following Russia's bombing of power plants and transmission stations, and during scheduled repairs of the nuclear power plants. The power cuts were implemented sporadically throughout December. 'As you can see, electricity is now being supplied without restrictions almost all over the country, apart from the front-line regions, where the situation is difficult in general,' Kharchenko told the Kyiv Independent. 'As you can see, electricity is now being supplied without restrictions almost all over the country, apart from the front-line regions, where the situation is difficult in general.' As the temperature continues to hover at or above zero, the country's energy system hasn't yet entered a red zone where it has to start cutting power. 'Every degree below zero Celsius requires an additional 200 megawatts (MW) of power,' he added. 'With our current operating capacities, we simply don't have enough (to cater) for temperatures of minus three and four degrees Celsius (24-26 degrees Fahrenheit) and below.' Russia has regularly targeted Ukrainian critical infrastructure since it began its campaign in 2022, destroying over half of the country's pre-war power system capacities. 'In 2022-2023, Ukraine's power system lost about 21 gigawatts (GW) of capacity,' out of the 47 GW before the full-on war, wrote Oksana Zueva, a senior expert in open data at Kyiv-based think tank DiXi Group. To take that much capacity out, Moscow carried out at least thirty massive attacks on energy facilities, according to open data gathered by the Energy Map. The attacks evolved over time to use various weapons and tactics, while Russia's goal remained the same: plunging Ukraine into a humanitarian crisis, making regular citizens' lives as difficult as possible, and destabilizing the country before any possible peace talks in the future. Around 10 GW of energy generation was knocked out in 2024 due to Russia's missile and drone attacks, the Energy Ministry told the Kyiv Independent. Since mid-November, six massive attacks were launched by Russia over the two and a half months of this winter season, causing 'much greater damage and destruction than in previous years,' the ministry added. The attacks included anywhere between 70 to 90 cruise or ballistic missiles and 90 to 120 drones each time, as well as internationally banned cluster munitions. 'But they didn't reach their goals,' Kharchenko told the Kyiv Independent. According to Kharchenko, Ukraine has also gotten much better in resisting Russia's attacks on energy in over two years since they began. It improved coordination with air defense protecting the power system and built some fortifications that have already proved effective. Experience also helps when the attacks succeed: at this point, there are reserves of equipment to restore the damaged facilities and clear plans for bypassing them in the grid and restoring them as quickly as possible, Kharchenko said. A lot of that equipment is pledged or financed by international partners, the Energy Ministry told the Kyiv Independent. 'In 2024, Ukrenergo's repair teams set an absolute record by replacing an autotransformer at one of its substations within three weeks,' Ukraine's state grid operator Ukrenergo told the Kyiv Independent. 'This included transportation, installation, and connection. For comparison, in EU countries, such works are carried out in three to four months,' the statement said. Warm weather also contributed to the speed of repairs, Ukrenergo said. However, with temperatures projected to drop in the coming days, Ukraine needs to secure its energy supply for any weather. 'For the Ukrainian power system to operate efficiently and confidently, we need to build about 4-4.5 GW of additional peaking power plants,' Kharchenko said. Peaking power plants are meant to step in during peak periods of consumption to avoid blackouts. They should be able to quickly increase or decrease the energy output, which is impossible for the three Ukrainian-controlled nuclear power plants that currently supply up to 55-60% of the country's energy, according to Kharchenko. Peaking power plants could be coal-based, hydroelectric, or gas-powered, Kharchenko added, as other types of power are either dependent on weather conditions or too long to develop. But so far, it was coal-based thermal plants, hydroelectric plants, and the transmission grid around them that were targeted by Russian attacks the most. Eighty percent of Ukraine's pre-war coal-fired power capacities were destroyed, though some of them were restored, Kharchenko said. Nine Ukrainian hydroelectric plants remaining after Russia's destruction of the Kakhovka dam still generate up to 12% of the country's energy despite Russian attacks. 'Unfortunately, we can't build many of them,' Kharchenko said, referring to the limitations of the country's natural river resources needed to build more hydroelectric generation. We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
