The three-year-old Russian–Ukrainian conflict is causing enormous environmental damage
The world has been following the shocking developments of the Russian-Ukrainian war on a daily basis since February 2022. We are confronted with terrifying images of human casualties, the development of the front line, destroyed villages, cities, and bombed-out buildings every day. However, the theater of war, i.e. the damage suffered by the environment itself, is rarely mentioned. It is natural that human lives come to the fore in news summaries related to the war. However, let us not forget the indirect, environmental impacts that will make the lives of the affected residents even more difficult after the war ends. Not to mention that the emissions resulting from the war know no geographical boundaries. Therefore, addressing this topic is by no means secondary!
Increased environmental burden – with unpredictable consequences
It is clear that the environmental burden increases during war. And the consequences are almost unpredictable. What we already know for sure: the lives of the local population will be made difficult for a very long time by the enormous damage suffered by the natural environment. The environmental burdens, both the direct (on active battlefields and along the battle lines) and indirect (increased fossil energy consumption of the national economy that has switched to war) show alarming figures.
Surveys conducted by American and Ukrainian researchers in 2024 show that even according to the most modest calculations, the damage to the natural environment can be estimated at more than 50 billion euros per year. If we take greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions alone as a basis, this amount can be estimated at around 230 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e). This figure has increased by around 31% in the past year alone, mainly due to forest fires. As a point of comparison to illustrate the extraordinary scale of the figures, it can be said that this GHG figure is equivalent to the combined annual emissions of Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This huge excess in greenhouse gas emissions is clearly making it even more difficult for humanity to fight climate change. And within this, the European Green Deal, the “rethinking” of which is increasingly being called for.
Ukraine, as a sort of “heir” to the violent industrialization strategy of the Soviet period, has the second largest nuclear power plant complex in Europe. The Chernobyl disaster left deep marks on all of humanity. The explosion caused by a Russian drone on February 14th of this year, therefore, understandably stirred up emotions. In general, attacks on industrial facilities, which are now very old, lead to soil and groundwater pollution. It should also be noted that Ukraine, which accounts for 6% of the total area of the European continent, is home to about 35% of our continent’s biodiversity (150 protected species). Forest and bush fires, as well as the destruction of aging infrastructure, which is increasingly deteriorating, are the main sources of environmental damage. The emissions caused by the migration of the population fleeing the war to other countries can be estimated at another 3 million tons of tCO2e. Let us not forget that the investments needed to rebuild the country will also require significant resource use and emissions. However, we can only expect estimates of this after the actual end of the war.
Environmental prospects of Europe’s armament
The war psychosis prevailing in the wake of the protracted Russian-Ukrainian conflict is clearly putting pressure on the European Union to redefine its security strategy. Donald Trump’s threats regarding NATO seem to be taking shape. On average, EU member states have spent “only” 2% of their GDP on strengthening their armies.
The arms race has taken hold across Europe. The President of the European Commission has recently called on member states to significantly increase their military investments. However, there is much less talk about the environmental consequences of all this. It is clear that individual member states will devote an increasing part of their economic capacity to the military industry. The investments in arms and ammunition production that have already been announced and are suddenly increasing as a result predict the energy surplus required for their production and a significant increase in emissions from these. However, a Europe that has switched to an arms strategy will have great difficulty in meeting the climate-neutrality objective announced by the Green Deal… – if that is even possible. It is therefore worth reflecting on the clear contradictions between war and the combat readiness required for it and environmental protection.
In the Shadow of the Shock Doctrine
According to Naomi Klein’s 2007 revealing work, the omnipresent holders of power profit from chaos, exploiting bloodshed and catastrophes to brutally shape the world in their own image. They are the shock doctors. Human greed, which can also be called the “temptation of capitalism,” the pressure to grow that stems from the system’s essence (along with the imperative to capture markets and obtain cheap labor), and several other factors have led to the “developmental” phase of capitalism that Klein calls disaster capitalism. General chaos is good for the global economy, she writes, and the old theory that prosperity is impossible in times of violence and instability is no longer valid. And for all this, there is no need for some dark conspiracy – as extremists who make political capital out of a difficult situation like to proclaim – the economic system based on constant growth produces military, ecological or even financial crises on its own and on an assembly line. The approximately six hundred-page research work, supported by documents, proves both in terms of form and content that Klein’s argument is not based solely on a “conspiracy theory”. Based on the Canadian author’s shock doctrine theory, we can actually rightly assume that the course of the world will be redirected in a new direction with reference to the Russian-Ukrainian war and along certain economic interests. And it is very unlikely that this trend will be beneficial to the fight against climate change…
The general relegation of green policy aspects to the background
In general, we can state that the issue of environmental protection, especially in the current geopolitical situation, is being relegated to the background even more. The green policy transition necessary to preserve our livable existence on earth has apparently been removed from the emergency agenda. Moreover, questioning the Green Deal is gradually becoming an integral part of the political argumentation of some parties.
Jordan Bardella, the president of the French National Rally and Patriots for Europe faction, recently wrote a letter to the conservative party families urging them to suspend the Green Deal. In the German election campaign that took place in recent weeks, Alice Weidel, the leader of the AFD, strongly attacked climate protection policies, saying that the latter is the main obstacle to the industrialization necessary for economic recovery. The European Green Deal and the climate neutrality ambition it announced by 2050 will certainly be put on hold, or even suspended, in light of the facts and developments presented above.
The Urgent Need to End the War
Regardless of the conduct of the ongoing negotiations and the evaluation of the methods needed to bring them about, everyone now acknowledges that the tide has turned with the inauguration of Donald Trump in January. The end of this war, which has been going on for exactly three years from now, has been brought within a reasonable timeframe. On Monday, February 24th of this week, Emmanuel Macron held talks with Donald Trump in Washington. In light of the outcome of the negotiations, the French President believes that the end of the war is only a matter of weeks.
Let’s hope that he is right!
Source of the opening image: euronews.com