How Russia’s War on Ukraine Is Threatening Climate Security

Mar 2, 2023 | Oli Brown
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The war is an existential threat for Ukraine, but its impacts go well beyond the immediate devastation that it’s causing, particularly with regard to the climate. Over the course of the past year, Russia has weaponized energy supplies – and the climate itself – as never before.

Meanwhile, the war is raising tensions in places where climate change is threatening regional security. The Arctic is one example. Warming temperatures are already reshaping the region where countries vie for control over valuable resources and strategic shipping lanes in the once ice-bound seas. Since 1996, the Arctic Council has worked to encourage cooperation across the eight nations bordering the Arctic. Now, seven of its eight members are either NATO members or – as in the case of Sweden and Finland – applying to join NATO as a direct result of the war.

But the effects on the climate have been indirect as well. The war has caused widespread deforestation across Ukraine while also damaging the country’s renewable energy systems: 90 per cent of the country’s wind power and 50 per cent of its solar energy capacity taken off-line since the war began. Indeed, military operations and a lack of firefighters led to 25 times more forest fires in 2022 than the previous year which has both released vast amounts of CO2 and stopped, or radically slowed, future carbon sequestration.

In the meantime, climate action is getting tangled in a politicized stand-off between the West and Russia, which is putting climate action on the backburner according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.