The war in Ukraine is the first where we are calculating its carbon footprint in real time. A team of experts, The Initiative on GHG Accounting of War, has published this year an estimation of the emissions generated by the Russian invasion. Their findings put the figure at almost 230 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent since 2022 – as much as the combined annual emissions of Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, or even 120 million cars.
This measure marks a turning point. Environmental damage in the context of war has long been seen through the prism of consequences on health, the harmful effects on populations of pollution resulting from toxic chemical attacks. Ukraine, however, is rigorously documenting ‘environmental crimes’ and has even launched a mobile application, EcoZagrova, to signal them. When the Kakhovka dam was destroyed, Zelensky denounced it as a ‘brutal ecocide’. This war may therefore accelerate the legal recognition of ecocide as an international crime, in a similar vein to war crimes.
But beyond the urgency, it is the structural relationship between the environment and security that is changing. Ecological concern is now integrated into military doctrine, for reasons of acceptability and responsibility, of course (protection of the environment on military sites, with 80% of them located in outstanding biodiversity areas (1) in France, for example) but above all for tactical reasons. Doing more with fewer resources, gaining in energy autonomy (solar tents, low-impact logistics), anticipating extreme events: here, ecology and operational efficiency converge in a context of limited planetary resources that are already highly strained.
It is this very convergence that the philosopher Pierre Charbonnier explores in his work Towards War Ecology (2). He proposes a thought-provoking hypothesis: ‘The only thing more dangerous for the planet than war is peace.’ Indeed, the peace that followed the Second World War was built on fossil fuels, oil and coal as the foundation of a new stable world order. This ‘carbon peace’, to use a term coined by the historian Thomas Oatley, has produced growth fuelled by carbon energy, which is now incompatible with climate risk.
To resolve this impasse, Charbonnier advocates for ‘real climate geopolitics’: accepting that the transition can only be achieved through tensions, disruption, even rivalries rather than through consensus. Somewhat paradoxically, the war in Ukraine has thus accelerated European decarbonisation by decoupling its energy links with Russia. Similarly, climatic cooperation with China, far from a traditional historical ally, could prove more effective than 10 COPs (3), he suggests.
Transforming ecology into a lever of power rather than a universal moral discourse: now that is the shift that the century demands.
(1) Zones Naturelles d’Intérêt Ecologique, Faunistique et Floristique (ZNIEFF) – Natural area of ecological, faunal and floristic interest
(2) Vers l’écologie de guerre. Une histoire environnementale de la paix, published by La Découverte, 2024 [in French].
(3) The COP (Conference of the Parties) is an annual summit that brings together the State signatories of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to negotiate and collectively decide upon international actions to take in the face of climate change.
Sophie Chassat, Partner, Accuracy
Accuracy Talks Straight #13 – The cultural corner