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6. The climate crisis
Published: November, 2023 · Categories: Publications, Ukraine
![A war damaged solar panel in the town of Yampil, in Ukraine's Donetsk oblast.](https://ceobs.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/11258381_1920.jpg)
This is the sixth in a series of thematic briefings on the environmental consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, jointly prepared by the Conflict and Environment Observatory and Zoï Environment Network. This work is supported by the United Nations Environment Programme as part of its efforts to monitor the environmental situation in Ukraine.
Situation
The armed conflict in Ukraine has seen unprecedented attention on its impact on the global climate. This has included its influence on global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, both domestically and through reverberating international pathways, and on Ukraine’s ongoing efforts to decarbonise its economy and adapt to a changing climate. In bringing long-overdue attention to the carbon cost of warfare, the conflict has highlighted the absence of methods for tracking wartime emissions, the extent of global fossil fuel insecurity, and generated expectations over how Ukraine’s post-war recovery should accelerate its climate action.
Contents
Overview and key themes
The armed conflict is occurring at a time of growing global concern over the accelerating climate crisis, but several factors have served to boost international attention on its climatic dimensions. These have included the role that fossil fuels are playing in financing the conflict, the impact that their weaponisation has had on regional and international energy security, high level political advocacy by the Ukrainian government in global climate fora, and the work of researchers determined to track the invasion’s GHG emissions.
This is the first time that an effort has been made to comprehensively track the emissions from any conflict. As such, it has required the development of methodologies that are continuing to evolve. This reflects the historic lack of attention that conflict emissions have enjoyed in the long-standing debates over climate change and security. Elsewhere, the government of Ukraine and the World Bank have sought to place a financial value on the emissions generated for the purposes of reparations, and a damage estimate, respectively, with each arriving at very different sums.
The geopolitical ramifications of the armed conflict have undermined the international cooperation necessary to address the climate crisis. However, fears over energy security have encouraged a policy environment favourable to the expansion of renewable energy, particularly in the EU. Yet fossil fuel consumption remains high globally. This includes from sanctioned Russian sources thanks to some of its reduced exports finding new markets. Nevertheless, increased awareness of the relationship between emissions and armed conflicts in the context of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is welcome.
Also welcome are the vocal calls for Ukraine’s recovery to be sustainable. Ukraine and the international community face an historic opportunity to use its early recovery and post-war periods to accelerate the country’s green transition, in terms of both mitigation and adaptation to climate change. However, the challenges are substantial, and success will require major legislative, regulatory and governance changes, substantial investments, as well as a starkly different security environment.
Climate policy prior to 2022
Prior to 2022, Ukraine’s economy was highly carbon intensive, with its energy, industry and agricultural sectors accounting for 74% of its emissions in 2021. A decline in Ukraine’s GDP after the collapse of the Soviet economy, and later due to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine, reduced its GHG emissions from 942.8 MT-CO2 in 1990, to 327.3 in 2021. As an Annex 1 party to the UNFCCC, Ukraine has met its obligations on emissions reporting and reductions. although this target was achieved due to economic decline rather than climate mitigation measures. It also maintains systems for evaluating anthropogenic emissions and GHG absorption, and an electronic register of carbon units.
In 2016, Ukraine ratified the Paris Agreement, establishing a 40% reduction target against 1990 levels, which allowed its emissions to grow significantly. It subsequently developed a package of climate policies and regulations during the five years prior to 2022.1 The updated 2030 climate target under the Paris Agreement, which Ukraine submitted to the UNFCCC in 2021, aimed to slightly reduce emissions compared to 2019, while pursuing economic growth. Ukraine announced its readiness to align itself with the European Green New Deal in mid-2020, and consideration was being given as to how this might be achieved prior to February 2022.
Ukraine is highly vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis, including through increasing aridisation in its southern regions, floods, wildfires and heatwaves, and over the longer-term, sea level rise. Its adaptation efforts began a decade ago, with national actions, as well as with piecemeal projects in its river basins. Ukraine has developed a national adaptation strategy and action plan until 2030, advancing both countrywide and sectoral adaptation planning, and has been working on its first National Adaptation Communication to the UNFCCC.
Public awareness around climate change was relatively well developed prior to 2022. A UNDP study undertaken in 2020 found that 82.5% of respondents agreed that it was a serious problem in Ukraine. This view varied little between genders, and across age and educational groups, although was most prominent among 18-24 year olds. A 2022 study found that this had grown to 91%.
Climate policy under fire
The armed conflict has not significantly altered the Ukrainian government’s position on climate change, and it has continued to play a part in international climate processes, this has included submitting emissions inventories. As there is a two year delay in UNFCCC reporting, 2023’s submission deals with emissions in 2021, and thus conditions prior to the current armed conflict. Ukraine’s national environmental security and adaptation strategy appears to still be active.
One substantial change has been Ukraine’s use of environmental fora and processes to highlight the impact of the armed conflict. This was perhaps most notable at the UNFCCC’s COP27 meeting, bringing overdue attention to the relationship between conflict, occupation and emissions. A further result of the conflict has been its impact on the regional dimensions of climate action, making exchanges on climate policy, disaster risk reduction and water cooperation, more difficult.
Emissions reporting under occupation and annexationSince 2016, Russia has reported the emissions from annexed Crimea as part of its own national emissions reporting to the UNFCCC. There is a two year delay in national inventory reporting under the convention, and it is currently unclear whether Russia’s submission in 2024 will include emissions from other areas of Ukraine that it has occupied since 2022. As Ukraine also continues to report emissions from Crimea, this leads to double counting. States often seek to use UN reporting as a means to legitimise territorial claims, and the situation with Crimea is not unique. Moldova scrutinises and reports the emissions for its breakaway region of Transnistria; the UK and Argentina have clashed over who should report the emissions of the Falkland Islands/Malvinas; while China simply excludes the emissions of Taiwan from its national reporting, in spite of a territorial claim. The tensions over reporting obligations in these circumstances are attracting increasing legal attention. The International Law Commission’s principles on the Protection of the environment in relation to armed conflicts (PERAC) reimagined the environmental obligations of occupying powers. It found that during the temporary circumstances of a belligerent occupation, the occupying power is obliged to take environmental considerations into account in the administration of the territory, this should include existing reporting obligations. These reporting issues continue to create tensions at UNFCCC meetings but appear no closer to being resolved by states, or by the convention. As with military and conflict emissions, emissions reporting from occupied, annexed or breakaway regions remains a challenging topic. |
The conflict’s influence on GHG emissions
In spite of two decades of international discussion on the relationship between security and climate change, the pathways through which conflicts can influence GHG emissions have received little attention. This means that there is no established methodology for calculating wartime emissions, nor consensus on how they should be reported. With updated calculations and the third iteration of its methodology to be published at COP28, the Initiative on GHG Accounting of War has sought to document GHG emissions during the armed conflict in Ukraine. Its 12-month interim assessment calculated emissions at 120 m tCO2e; almost equivalent to the total GHG annual emissions of a country like Belgium.
On a domestic level, factors influencing conflict emissions include those directly generated by military activity, including land, marine and aviation fuels, extending to urban and landscape fires, and fires from damaged energy infrastructure. Changes in energy production can also influence emissions, whether through the increased use of domestic generators, or shifts in the types of fuel used. Internal displacement patterns and demographic shifts need to be considered, as do the negative effects of reduced industrial or economic activity in some sectors. In many cases, these activities, and their emissions, may be displaced internally or extraterritorially. It is anticipated that one of the largest sources of emissions for Ukraine will be the carbon cost of reconstruction.
![Graph showing rates of incidents during 2022 by sector and their potential climate impact, based on data from Ecodozor.](https://ceobs.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/monthly_incidents_with_climate_impacts_sector_960.jpg)
Calculating such trends can be complex. For example, official data on Ukraine’s industrial GHG emissions is unavailable. However, declines in industrial output can be indirectly estimated through annual data on other pollutants reported to the UNECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution. Compared to 2021, in 2022 emissions have halved from public electricity and heat production, petroleum refining and other energy industries, as well as from the manufacturing and construction sectors. The reported drop in the iron and steel sector averaged 80%. One can cautiously assume that the reduction of GHG emissions in these sectors may be of a comparable scale although, in the case of iron and steel, production and emissions may have been displaced abroad.
Navigating uncertainties in estimating landscape fire emissions in Ukraine
Current studies on GHG emissions from the war in Ukraine contain estimates of emissions from landscape fires but they require further refinement. As a contribution to this objective, Zoï and the Regional Eastern European Fire Monitoring Centre (REEFMC) mapped landscape fires and assessed the related GHG emissions. Despite numerous publications on emissions from fires, to date studies in Ukraine have only examined the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone.
REEFMC used two sources of remote-sensing data to detect fires and map burned areas. The OroraTech wildfire monitoring service was used to identify daily ignition locations, and Sentinel 2 was used to map fire perimeters. Land cover types were mapped using the Copernicus Dynamic Land Cover map, with burn severity also mapped.
REEFMC detected around 20,000 landscape fires throughout Ukraine in 2022, with a total burnt area of about 750,000 hectares. Agricultural land accounted for 55% of this area, with 36% other natural vegetation; forests comprised 7.5%. More than two thirds of all landscape fires, and more than 80% of all forest fires, occurred within the 60 km belt along the frontline. Over 40% of all fires occurred in occupied territories, and most affected were the east, south, and north of Ukraine, where military operations were the most active.
![Graph showing frequency of landscape fires by month in 2022 in Ukraine.](https://ceobs.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/landscape_fires_960_.jpg)
Based on the fire data, REEFMC calculated that CO2 emissions from landscape fires reached 5.2 million tonnes in 2022. Around 70% of these CO2 emissions occurred within 30km of the frontlines, and can therefore be attributed to the conflict with some degree of confidence.
Overall, 59% of the total CO2 emissions were released by burning croplands, while uncultivated grasslands released 24%. Forest fires emitted about 17% of the total carbon released, with three quarters coming from fires in pine forests. Other greenhouse gases emitted amounted to 280,000 tCO2e. Due to the higher fuel load and fire intensity in pine forests, the average carbon losses from fires per unit area were more than twice as high as other landscape types, including broadleaf forests.
These numbers differ from existing estimates of 17 million tCO2e. For forest fires alone, the estimates differ by a factor of 13. The reasons for this are methodological, including the way how much biomass burns is calculated for different ecosystems, together with how biomass productivity is assessed, and other parameters. There are also differences in the detection of fire locations, timing, boundaries and land cover produced by the remote-sensing tools used by REEFMC. Finally, REEFMC’s estimates only consider direct emissions during fires, not long-term changes in the redistribution of carbon in fire-damaged forests caused by post-fire mortality of damaged trees. The study team encourages further research to help refine these estimates.
The conflict has also had a substantial and complex impact on regional and global GHG emissions. The attacks on the Nord Stream pipeline released large quantities of methane, whose contribution to the climate crisis was greater than if it had been burned to release CO2. Sanctions and energy security fears have had a major impact on Russian oil and gas production. Although some Russian exports have found alternative routes, by October 2023 Russian fossil fuel exports had reached their lowest level since February 2022. The same factors have encouraged increased attention on the renewable energy transition in the EU and elsewhere, a trend that may, if sustained, accelerate emissions reductions from some sources. Price spikes linked to the conflict affected many sectors, including agriculture and the production of fertilisers. Reduced fertiliser use reduces GHG emissions but the picture is complicated by associated changes in land use and crop types.
The closure of Russian and Ukrainian airspace has had a major impact on civilian aviation, leading to the rerouting of flights and increased fuel consumption. One knock-on effect has been the expansion of airports and routes in states in Central Asia to compensate. Military expenditure and readiness training have grown in response to geopolitical tensions and to service the conflict, both factors will have generated emissions. Geopolitics has also impacted the international cooperation needed to tackle the climate crisis, while in Russia, grassroots climate activism has felt the chill of martial law.
The conflict’s impact on Ukraine’s climate mitigation and adaptation efforts
In addition to diverting human and financial resources away from climate mitigation and adaptation, damage linked to the conflict has also undermined Ukraine’s ability to reduce its emissions – although this must be viewed in the context of reduced economic output overall. Numerous renewable energy facilities have been damaged by the fighting or remain subject to occupation. This includes solar and wind farms, many of which are concentrated in the south east of the country.
The energy crisis Ukraine faced after Russia targeted its generating and transmission infrastructure has helped underscore the resilience that distributed renewable energy generation can provide. Throughout 2022-2023, Ukrainian cities have worked on climate and energy plans, developing new projects and searching for financing. NGO and international partners have supported municipalities with implementing pilot renewable energy projects for critical infrastructure, with demand growing nationally.
The loss of the Kakhovka Dam has meant the loss of hydropower capacity, although its main purpose was grid balancing rather than generation. The government declared its readiness to rebuild the dam, a decision whose environmental consequences has worried Ukrainian NGOs. More widely, should the conflict result in the long-term loss of nuclear and renewable energy generating capacity, and should electricity demand remain stable or increase, it may end up being replaced by electricity from fossil fuels, whether locally or via connections with the EU.
The massive disruption to natural landscapes and to agricultural areas is likely to have a significant impact on Ukraine’s domestic carbon cycle. Degraded natural landscapes and the loss of vegetation reduce carbon storage potential. REECFM’s study (see box above), found that the loss of carbon storage capacity from forest fires attributable to the war is around 100,000 tonnes CO2e per year. The REECFM suggests that Ukraine’s forests capture and store 50 million tonnes of CO2e annually. This is equivalent to 15% of Ukraine’s GHG emissions in 2020. The impact on carbon storage in other natural and semi-natural ecosystems, in particular the cultivated fields that have suffered the most from war-time landscape fires, remains to be assessed.
The interplay between forest and nature management, agricultural production, land abandonment, and carbon storage is more complex, and warrants research into the impacts and consequences of the war in the future.
Climate action during recovery
Ukraine has committed to carbon neutrality by 2060 but it is expected that the cost of the war, and the challenges of recovery, will heavily impact its mitigation plans. This reinforces the importance of integrating its transition fully into recovery policies. Ukrainian civil society has been calling for Ukraine’s recovery to be green and sustainable since at least May 2022. For Ukraine to meet its own domestic targets, both mitigation and adaptation will need to be foregrounded in post-conflict recovery and reconstruction. The process of recovery has been suggested as a unique opportunity to deliver this, whether in terms of Ukraine’s green energy transition, low-carbon construction techniques, industrial decarbonisation, or through environmental recovery and nature based solutions.
Civil society-driven projects are already demonstrating how these goals might be achieved but will need to be scaled-up nationally. This will require regulatory action at the government level, and implementation at the regional (oblast) level, for example on building regulations, on decentralised energy markets and on emissions reporting and targets. Throughout, Ukraine will look to align itself with the EU’s Green New Deal.
The human capacity to deliver the energy transition will need to be addressed, with capacity building and training in low carbon construction and energy installation. Ukraine’s historic fossil fuel dependency also creates major challenges, including designing and managing a just transition for former coal mining communities in its Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which are currently dissected by the frontline. While the Ukrainian government has reaffirmed its commitment to phasing out state-owned coal power plants by 2035, no action plan has yet been developed.
Adaptation projects are ongoing in spite of the conflict. For example, the EU-backed Apena3 project has been assessing the climate vulnerability of different economic sectors across three pilot regions: Lviv, Mykolaiv and Ivano-Frankivsk, as part of Ukraine’s Oblast Climate Change Adaptation Strategy. Mykolaiv Oblast continues to be highly exposed to the conflict. Elsewhere the UNDP and partners recently trained municipal representatives from more than 100 towns and cities in the analysis of climate risks and in adaptation planning.
Coming as it has at a time of unprecedented international concern over the accelerating climate crisis, the climate-sensitivity of Ukraine’s recovery is likely to be viewed as a test for the international community, as well as of its government and its people. Early signs have been mixed. Fossil fuels play a major and expanded role in short and mid-term economic recovery plans. Whereas the government aims to fully decarbonise the energy sector by 2050 through the development of renewable and nuclear energy technologies. Small nuclear reactors have been specifically promoted by energy providers and some international partners, meanwhile civil society remains concerned over the repeated relegation of climate and environmental considerations in international recovery conferences.
Case study: Emissions from damaged Black Sea gas infrastructure
Background
On 20th June 2022, early morning attacks on Black Sea gas platforms were reported as having resulted in significant damage.2 The Black Sea is strategically important, and the strikes were a part of Ukraine’s ultimately successful counteroffensive effort to reduce naval attacks on settlements, and create a safe passage for grain shipments. The Black Sea gas fields and platforms had been captured by Russia following its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
The key infrastructure comprises the ‘Boiko’ towers,3 which Russia subsequently moved closer to annexed Crimea, two fixed drilling platforms – Tavrida and Sivash – and three ‘block conductor’ platforms. Russia maintained military personnel on the platforms and used them for surveillance of surface, underwater and air,4 in particular using the Neva-BS radar, providing near complete control over shipping in the Black Sea. It has also been claimed that the Russian navy was hiding ships behind the platforms to evade Ukrainian missiles.
Initial reports of the 20th June attacks were characterised by confusion and contradiction over which platforms were which, and if or how they had been damaged. Satellite data pointed to the ‘block conductor 1’ (BK-1) platform being the most environmentally significant location. A fire and plume visible within hours has – astonishingly – continued to burn to the time of publication, generating substantial GHG emissions (see below). A 7 km2 oil spill was also visible in the vicinity of BK-1 on 21st June.5 Although the source of the oil is unclear, it may have been associated with rescue vessels in the area – two of which were visible on imagery from 22nd June dousing BK-1.6 It is important to note that BK-1 and Tavrida sit in Zernov’s Phyllophora Field, an ecologically important area in the Black Sea that has been threatened by a number of incidents linked to the conflict.7
![Collage of satellite imagery showing: the Jun 2022 oil slick, June 2022 fire vessels, and July 2022 plume, together with a photo of the scale of the flower at the BK-1 platform.](https://ceobs.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/case_study_boiko_towers_960.jpg)
Media reporting on the precise sequence of events was limited, however a basic timeline can be constructed from Russian media:
- Jun 21, morning – “the fire approached the well”;
- Jun 21, afternoon – “the fire on the first tower does not subside”;
- June 22 – “Weather conditions worsened in the area of the search and rescue operation”;
- Jun 24 – “Two pipes stopped burning as the gas ran out. Four more are still burning since the 20th. Two of the company’s vessels temporarily stopped extinguishing the fire – due to the strong sea conditions”.
No further substantive information was released on the fire, nor the fate of the people missing at sea. Russia’s Ministry of Defence’s account was that anti-ship missiles and UAV’s hit BK-1 and the Ukrainian jack-up rig,8 “threatening an environmental disaster”.9 No images from the facilities were shared, but the glow could be seen from Odesa. Although footage of a missile exploding on the Tavrida platform was uploaded by Ukrainian forces, this was likely a separate incident on 25th June 2022.10 By the 4th July Russian media were reporting that everything was operating as normal, ignoring the ongoing fire on BK-1.
There were no publicly reported incidents at the gas field’s infrastructure for more than a year. On 22nd August 2023 the Ukrainian military recaptured the platforms. The operation included an exchange of fire in very close proximity to a platform. Three weeks later, Ukrainian forces released footage of the mission, showing a platform being boarded and the removal of surveillance equipment and ammunition. This was likely Tavrida as the burning BK-1 platform is visible nearby. There were also photographs released from onboard the Ukraine and Petro Hodovanets drilling rigs.
Estimating the GHG emissions from the burning platform
The continued fire at BK-1 from 20th June 2022 until this briefing’s publication date in November 2023 is akin to emergency flaring. However we have no indication where on the platform the point of combustion is, how intentional or safe the burning is, and what may happen in the future. To try and determine its climatic impact, we have estimated the GHG emissions from the flaring using satellite data and known emission factors.
The volume of flaring gas can be estimated from data collected at night by the VIIRS instrument. This data is processed into ‘Nightfire’ data, which provides the temperature and radiant heat of a flare, and from which flaring volume can be derived by applying a calibration. We estimate that between 20th June 2022 and 17th November 2023, 0.1892 billion cubic metres of flared gas have been emitted.11 This represents a substantial contribution to the global flaring total. Considering the emissions over a one year period, the fire would rank 173rd of all 8,434 upstream gas flares detected globally in 2022.12 If the flaring platform were a country, it would rank 49th out of 87 states that flare gas, higher than the combined totals of countries like Norway and Bahrain.
A rough conversion indicates a central estimate of at least 0.34 million metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent.13 This would likely make it the most significant single contributor to CO2 emissions in Ukrainian territory during the war. This conversion is very conservative as it unrealistically assumes 100% burning efficiency. Typically, efficiencies of 98% are assumed, but recent airborne measurements suggest it is more like 91%, generating up to five times more methane emissions. Particulate matter is also emitted from flaring and we estimate that around 303 tonnes of black carbon have been produced.14 Black carbon is the most important component with respect to climate change as it is a short-lived climate forcer in the atmosphere, and can be advected to polar regions where it accelerates melting.
Because of the numerous uncertainties, our emissions estimates should be treated as provisional and require further, deeper analysis. The estimates also need to be dynamic as gas will continue to burn at BK-1 until the security situation allows an engineering solution – though the complexity of that is unknown.15 Until that point, its GHG emissions will continue, to no one’s benefit.
![Nightime lights showing the intensity of the burning BK-1 platform and with a timeseries showing its average temperature by month.](https://ceobs.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/case_study_boiko_towers_nighttimelights_960.jpg)
Given the emergency flaring and the nature of the damage at BK-1, a further question arises – has there also been leaking of gas? Leaks could have occurred at any of the infrastructure, and one report mentioned how platform workers “let off the gas”. Direct release of methane could be even more significant than the flaring emissions, given its higher global warming potential. Unfortunately we can only get limited insight remotely,16 and the data used in recent seminal studies is not available to us in this case.17 While a crude approach using openly available Landsat-8 data suggests that there has not been a huge methane leak,18 this method is unlikely to capture emissions at low source rates. The possibility therefore remains that there may still be a climatically significant methane leak and we recommend further investigation with the WorldView-3, GHGSat, and EnMAP satellites.
Without the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and Russia’s capture of the ‘Boiko’ towers, Ukrainian gas fields may have been producing three to five times more fossil gas.19 Therefore although the ongoing fire at BK-1 continues to be a significant source of GHG emissions, the wider arc of the conflict has reduced Black Sea emissions; although these will have been displaced by production elsewhere. It is highly likely that the end of the conflict will see a quick resumption of production,20 and exploration,21 even against a backdrop where the UNFCCC is recommending no further exploration of fossil fuels by 2030.
Case study acknowledgements
With thanks to the Earth Observation Group, Payne Institute for Public Policy for providing processed VIIRS Nightfire flaring data.22
Immediate and future needs
Ukraine’s recovery is increasingly being viewed as a test for whether and how the international community can support states to emerge from conflict in a way that accelerates their green energy transition, promotes adaptation and aligns climate and nature goals. Making these aims a reality will require support and engagement from stakeholders including the government, international community, civil society, scientific community and the private sector.
i) Climate mainstreaming
Embed cross-sectoral climate adaptation and mitigation in all recovery and reconstruction policies and programming, and support its implementation; this should include supporting and scaling up the emerging climate-friendly reconstruction projects that can provide examples for future larger scale recovery.
ii) Build capacity for the green transition
Provide capacity building and training to boost Ukraine’s human resources for its energy transition and green recovery.
iii) Study conflict emissions and address accounting
Support ongoing research into the conflict dynamics influencing emissions in Ukraine and globally, and address accounting gaps in the international climate system.
iv) Ensure a green and participatory recovery
Support and ensure transparency and broad stakeholder participation in climate and energy planning.
Media enquiries: doug(at)ceobs.org or nickolai.denisov(at)zoinet.org
Research and content by CEOBS and Zoï Environment Network.
Thank you to our additional contributors and reviewers: Anna Ackermann (Centre for Environmental Initiatives “Ecoaction”, International Institute for Sustainable Development), Antonina Platonova, Hanna Plotnykova, Lennard de Klerk (Initiative on GHG accounting of war), Oleksandr Soshenskyi (National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine), Vasylyna Belo (Centre for Environmental Initiatives “Ecoaction”).
Cartography: Matthias Beilstein, Zoï Environment Network, Schaffhausen. Graphics: Matthias Belistein and Eoghan Darbyshire, CEOBS.
- Policies include: the Concept on State Policy on Climate Change until 2030 and an Action Plan for its Implementation; the Energy Strategy of Ukraine until 2035; the Low-Emission Development Strategy for 2021-2050; and NDC Financial Strategy and Action Plan until 2030. Laws and regulations were adopted on the Monitoring, Reporting and Verification of GHG emissions, on Ozone-Depleting Substances and F-gases, and updated legislation on waste management and air emissions.
- The first report we could find was at 08:47 [UTC] from Oleksii Goncharenko, a Ukrainian politician, and minutes later by Rybar, a Russian millblogger. Later, Interfax Russia reported that the first strike was at 08:37 [Local].
- Infamously named after a corruption scandal in their procurement. The two rigs are both Drilling Jack Up rigs, meaning they can be moved. The first has been known as Petro Hodovanets, B312, West Juno, or by the Russian name Modu Crimea 2. The second has been known as Nezalezhnist, B319, Independence, Ukraine, or by the Russian name Modu Crimea 1/ Krim-1.
- The use of offshore infrastructure for surveillance purposes is not unique to the Black Sea, with a known example in the East China Sea
- Visible from a suite of satellite instruments at different times, including: Sentinel-2, Landsat 8/9 and Sentinel-3.
- It is unclear what was being used to try to extinguish the fire. Most likely it was water, though it may have included firefighting chemicals which would add to the environmental damage.
- Phyllophora is a genus of red algae found in the Black Sea, which grows on the seafloor at depths up to 70 m. Phyllophora beds are important habitats. Ukraine’s largest, Zernov’s Phyllophora Field, is home to at least nine endangered species of algae, fish and crustaceans, in addition to forty seven species of fish and 110 species of invertebrates (Stevens et al., 2019). The two Phyllophora fields are important habitats, nurseries and refuges, and have been identified as priority areas for the protection of the Black Sea’s wider ecosystem (Almpanidou, Doxa and Mazaris, 2021).
- Visual inspection of very high resolution satellite imagery indicated there was no clear large-scale damage. However, interpretation of these images is difficult given the nature of their appearance, and different imagery view angles at different overpass times.
- Despite reports at the time that environmental assessments would follow from the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources, it later stated that: “We have no data that we see the release of any components into the environment”.
- It was reported that a missile hit Tavrida leaving a hole in the helipad – though this was not visible in our analysis of very high resolution satellite imagery. There were however potential signs of a fire.
- Gas flaring volume was derived for each observation using the relationship between radiant heat prime and Cedigaz reported gas flaring volumes at the national level 2012-2019, which is described in Zhizhin et al., 2021. Radiant heat prime is a flare’s radiant head accounting for flame shape and satellite zenith angle. We then built a time-series of cloud-free, daily maximum, flaring volumes. To estimate the flaring on cloudy days – 32% of the time period – we used simple linear interpolation between the nearest two good observations. There were observations on most cloudy days, but flaring volume was consistently 50% lower, and so we discounted this data. To give a sense of potential range we can use the minimum (year 2019) and maximum (year 2012) coefficients described in the supplementary material of Zhizhin et al., 2021. This results in a range of 0.1641 – 0.1937 bcm. The low end of the estimate is equivalent to approx. 325,000 m3/day, which is well in excess of the maximum well production capacity of approx. 200,000 m3/day. This inconsistency was puzzling, but a similar discrepancy was reported for a similar case, the Elgin North Sea platform. According to Wikipedia, the platform was producing 19,000 m3/day at the time, but the emergency flare flow rate was 200,000 m3/day per day. Still, this points to the need for involvement of offshore gas engineers in a fuller assessment of the flaring volume.
- The first 365 days, 20 June 2022 to 19 June 2023.
- Our central estimate of 0.3407 MMt CO2e is calculated using the conversion presented in Elvidge et al., (2018). It assumes all carbon atoms are converted to CO2, and so 1 BCM of CH4 gas is converted to 1800.62 kt of CO2. By using the minimum and maximum coefficients described in Zhizhin et al., 2021 (see footnote 11) we can then present a simple minimum and maximum range of estimates of 0.2955 – 0.3488 MMt CO2e.
- Our estimate is based on the emission factor of 1.6 g/m3 from Stohl et al. (2013), which is a relatively central estimate of the very wide range of emissions factors that have been observed for flaring – See discussion and Table 1 in Chen et al., (2022).
- A potentially similar case is the Elgin North Sea gas platform, for which many heavy engineering solutions were developed. In the end, the flare burned itself out.
- While in recent years there has been a rapid development of many high- and mid-resolution satellites to detect methane leaks there is a large observational gap in marine environments. Only very recently have satellites operating in a special ‘sun-glint’ been able to pinpoint facility-level emissions in the Gulf of Mexico, the African coast and Nord Stream 2 Irakulis-Loitxate et al. (2022), Roger et al. (2023) and MacLean et al. (2023).
- WorldView-3 satellite imagery is the only publicly open data and unfortunately there is no archive of WorldView-3 satellite imagery over the BK-1 platform to repeat the analysis method of Irakulis-Loitxate et al. (2022).
- By generating a normalised band ratio between B7 and B6, as in Irakulis-Loitxate et al. (2022) (supplementary materials S7).
- Estimates were that by 2022 production would be at 5-8 bcm, up from 1.7 bcm in 2013.
- Both the Ukrainian and Russian authorities have stated production will resume when the security situation allows.
- Ukrainian exploration of the “Dolphin” fields was suspended by the conflict, whilst the Main State Expertise of Russia plans to develop the Zapadno-Oktyabrskoye field.
- For more detail on the Nightfire method see: 1. Zhizhin, M.; Matveev, A.; Ghosh, T.; Hsu, F.-C.; Howells, M.; Elvidge, C. Measuring Gas Flaring in Russia with Multispectral VIIRS Nightfire. Remote Sens. 2021, 13, 3078. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13163078; 2. Elvidge, C.D.; Zhizhin, M.; Baugh, K.; Hsu, F.-C.; Ghosh, T. Methods for Global Survey of Natural Gas Flaring from Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite Data. Energies 2016, 9, 14. https://doi.org/10.3390/en9010014; 3. Elvidge, C.D.; Zhizhin, M.; Hsu, F.-C.; Baugh, K.E. VIIRS Nightfire: Satellite Pyrometry at Night. Remote Sens. 2013, 5, 4423-4449. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs5094423