A group of climate experts estimates that the first two years of Russia's war in Ukraine will result in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to about 175 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The extra warming caused by these emissions will lead to extreme weather events around the world, with impacts estimated at $32 billion.

Ukraine intends to add these climate-related costs to the list of damages for which Russia is responsible and for which it seeks compensation.

“This will be an important pillar in the compensation case we are building against Russia,” Ukrainian Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ruslan Strylets said in a statement.

“These are the costs to economies and societies caused by extreme weather events due to emissions-driven climate change,” said Leonard de Klerk, a climate businessman and founder of the War Greenhouse Gas Accounting Initiative.

The group today Fourth evaluation The report estimated the impact of the war from February 2022 to February 2024. It found that rebuilding bombed-out buildings, roads and other infrastructure was the biggest source of emissions, accounting for almost a third of the 175 million tonnes – a figure that also includes reconstruction that has yet to take place.

The remaining third is a direct result of the war, with fuel use accounting for the largest proportion.

About 14% of the total is due to passenger airlines having to reroute flights to avoid Russia and Ukraine. For example, a flight from Tokyo to London now travels over Canada instead of Russia, increasing flight times from 11 to 15 hours.

About 13 percent is due to an increase in wildfires recorded on satellite imagery, which is due not only to weapons-fired fires but also an end to fire management in occupied territories, the assessment said.

In most cases, there is a great deal of uncertainty around the figures as there are no official figures to rely on, and instead the group must rely on open source assessments and figures from past conflicts.

There's also the issue of how far to go in assessing the cascading effects of war: “We try to be as comprehensive as possible,” de Klerk says, “but at the same time, there are limitations. Some effects are too remote or too hard to quantify.”

Estimating how much damage additional emissions will cause (known as the social cost of carbon) is another tricky area: “The science of trying to put a monetary value on future damages is still developing,” says de Klerk.

The estimated figure of $32 billion Based on 2022 research The social cost of carbon is about $185 per tonne of CO2.

If this amount, which is growing every day, were to be paid, De Klerk thinks that one part should be sent to Ukraine to be used for measures such as reforestation and helping to capture some of the carbon, while the other part should go to the countries most affected by global warming, probably through the existing system. Green Climate FundBut where that money will go is a political decision that has yet to be resolved.

Low-income and small island nations have fought for decades to establish the principle that high-income countries with large greenhouse gas emissions should compensate them for loss and damage caused by their emissions. A loss and damage fund was finally established last year as part of an international climate agreement.