Alarms sounded around the globe on March 3, when an altercation broke out just outside the largest nuclear plant in Ukraine.
After intense bombing, the Russian military seized the power facility and took control of it. This could have caused instability in six of the nuclear reactors at Zaporizhzhia.
A few days earlier, the conflict over Chernobyl had resulted in an increase in radiation levels in the security area around the old nuclear site near the outskirts the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
Reckless behavior President Vladimir PutinThere are concerns about contamination and even a wider war with nukes. The potential for a nuclear catastrophe is just one of the many consequences that the invasion of Ukraine could have on the environment.
Add to that the rising emissions from military activity, the release of toxic clouds and pollutant clouds from the destruction industrial and fuel storage areas, contamination of water, soil, and water with heavy metals and chemicals resulting from bombs and weapons, as well as the destruction or destruction of crops, wildlife, and you can see the impact is quite staggering.
It could take decades for Ukraine, and the entire world, to recover from its impact.
“You can look at some areas in Northern France and Belgium affected by World War I where you still can’t farm because there’s unexploded ordnance in the ground – or the soil is contaminated by heavy metals and residues from chemical weapons,” says Doug Weir, Research and Policy Director of the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS).
“You can see disruptions in the landscape, where trenches or shells set off… So damage can last for 100 years.”
“I think the wider question is what level are you recovering to? Because when you damage the environment and you destroy ecosystems, it never returns to what it was before,” Weir continues.
“It’s always going to be degraded. Trees and grass might grow again, but the ecosystem that has built up is going to be different, in a lot of cases.”
Bombing residential and industrial areas has real consequences
The Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), a non-profit organisation based in the UK, has been closely monitoring the situation in Ukraine and the impact of the Russian invasion on the environment.
As most of the online monitoring stations have been eliminated, researchers have been trying to assess the situation at the ground using satellite images and eye witness testimony.
“What we are most concerned about is the Russian strategy of bombarding urban areas, which have industrial sites close to where people live, work and where children play. This is very concerning because we’ve seen it in Chechnya, and this creates environmental health risks for people that are still there or when they return,” the organisation tells Euronews Green.
“In Ukraine, the scale of the destruction that we are seeing… it is likely that we’ll see permanent pollution issues being caused as a result of this conflict. Some of these will be temporary like smoke or fires, while others will last for a long time. Some will be rained out to the rivers and the soil.”
An atmospheric plume was formed during the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York. It contained ground up cement, glass fibres and asbestos.
Air quality may be affected by the destruction of entire cities and the bombardment of industrial areas across Ukraine.
Already, the consequences of war in Ukraine can be seen as the conflict continues in the Eastern provinces since 2014. According to a report from recently, Action on Armed Violence, cited by the UNEP, in Ukraine’s Donbas 36 mines have now flooded and are likely to have released methane gases and toxic heavy metals into local groundwater pools. This could pollute water supplies.
The Mariupol is under siegeIt is a place of great concern, as it is the site of heavy fighting.
Two large iron and steelworks are located in the city, along with more than 50 industrial enterprises. If they are damaged, this could cause serious damage to the environment.
“Whatever is being fired, shells, rockets, missiles, all of them contain metals. Some are very persistent in their environment. When they blast, this stuff is being pulverised, and can it also be mixed in with the stuff that it’s hitting, whether that is an industrial site or a residential building.”
According to CEOBS researchers, war is more likely in Ukraine because of its large nuclear power system.
“To us it was wild to see a fire fight next to a nuclear power plant. And while there was a lot of focus on nuclear reactors, people tend to ignore that there were thousands of spent fuel rods stored in the open air in pretty weak concrete gaskets.”
“And if the power plants get contaminated because the fuel storage area has been hit, where is your access to the plant to monitor and manage the activities?” Weir adds.
Ukraine: Climate governance restored
The extent of environmental damage in Ukraine remains unknown.
Previous conflicts, like the Russian war against Chechnya, left 30 per cent of Chechen territory contaminated and now “does not meet environmental conditions for life”, according to research by the Central Asia-Caucasus InstituteProgram for Studies on the Silk Road.
Due to the 20,000 tonnes of oil pollutants that have been leaked into groundwater since 1994, almost half of the country’s agricultural land is now unusable.
But once the bombs become silent, that’s when restoring the environment turns into a greater challenge, Weir tells Euronews Green. “Environment remediation is very expensive and often technically quite challenging, and we find that often after conflicts, this isn’t done. There is no capacity, or money, or resources to remediate the environment.”
Regardless of the direct impact of carbon emissions, it’s the shift in certain nations’ priorities around economic growth and reconstruction, as well as a breach in mutual trust, that poses the biggest risk in the fight against climate change.
“Something that has a long-term impact is the collapse of environmental governance.”
National, regional, and local governments can become very distracted when conflict is occurring. Green projects are halted, activists and researchers may have to flee “and these effects can last for a very long time”, he adds.
“Tomorrow and next week, space in the media will compete between speaking on novel findings and measures to adapt and build a climate-resilient future – and news on war against Ukraine. But it was not our choice,” Head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Svetlana Krakovska, said in a statement.
“Let me assure you that this human-induced climate crisis and the war against Ukraine have direct connections and the same roots,” she concluded.
