This paper summarises research calculating the carbon emissions created since Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine began three years ago today. It is based on detailed analysis and modelling that pinpoints only those emissions attributable to the war and its impacts in Ukraine and Russia. The underlying methodologies remain largely unchanged since the previous iteration in June 2024, a report that offers the reader a more detailed explanation of the calculations given in this assessment.
Greenhouse gas emissions caused by warfare, buildings reconstruction, landscape fires, damage to energy infrastructure, refugee and civil aviation displacement increased by 30% or 55 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent during the third year of the war to bring the total to 230 MtCO2e since the invasion began on 24 February 2022. The emissions are the equivalent of the annual emissions of Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia combined or the annual emissions of 120 million fossil fuel automobiles.
In the beginning of October we will publish the full assessment with a detailed description of each impact category. Apart from fully updating the numbers for three years, the report will contain:
- Full application of the Guidance on the assessment of conflict-related GHG emissions
- Detailed assessment of rerouting of flights
- A new approach to estimate emissions from fires in buildings
- A consistent time series for each 12-month period was calculated
Please check this page to read the full report in due course.
Download publication: Climate damage caused by russia’s war in Ukraine: 24 February 2022 – 23 February 2025 (PDF)
Previous iterations of the climate damage report you can find here:
Climate damage report: 2 years since the full-scale invasion
Climate damage report: 1,5 years since the full-scale invasion
Climate damage report: 1 year since the full-scale invasion
Climate damage report: 7 months since the full-scale invasion
Contacts:
IGGAW lead author Lennard de Klerk (DE, EN, HU, NL), +36 (0)3 03 66 29 83
Ministry for Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine communications manager Yevheniya Simkova, +380 (97) 710 90 79
IGGAW communications consultant Jack Hunter (EN), +33 (0)7 54 54 35 48
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Guidance on the assessment of conflict-related GHG emissions you can find here:
Methodological guidance to estimate conflict-related GHG emissions
The publication is available in Ukrainian:
Вплив російської війни в Україні на клімат: 24 лютого 2022 – 23 лютого 2025
This assessment was made possible with support by the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and the International Climate Initiative (IKI). The responsibility for the content lies solely with the authors of this report. Published under the Creative Commons ShareAlike Attribution Licence (CC BY-SA 4.0). You are actively encouraged to share and adapt the report, but you must credit the authors and the title, and you must share any material you create under the same licence.