Climate damage caused by russia’s war in Ukraine: 24 February 2022 – 23 February 2025. Full assessment

by the Initiative on GHG Accounting of War

With Russia’s war against Ukraine ongoing, emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) have continued to grow. This fifth assessment concludes that the GHG emissions attributable to three years since the full-scale invasion have increased to almost 237 million tCO2 e. The emissions are the equivalent of the annual emissions of Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia combined. With the Social Cost of Carbon of 185 USD / tCO2 e applied, the climate damage caused by this war amounts to over 43 billion USD.

On 24 February 2025, a preliminary assessment was released covering the three years of war, in which the same data sources and methodology were used as in the fourth assessment.

This current fifth assessment is the full assessment of the three years of war. The major up-dates and changes are:

• The assessment has been completely reformatted in line with the Guidance on the Assessment of Conflict-Related GHG Emissions.

• A new approach was introduced to estimate emissions from fires in buildings.

• The impact category Civil Aviation has been completely revised based on the actual flight data of a representative week before and after the full-scale invasion.

• A consistent time series for each 12-month period was calculated for each impact category.