At the COP28 climate conference, Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Victoria Kireeva said that as a result of Russia's full-scale aggression, 150 million tons of CO2 equivalent have been released into the atmosphere in 18 months.
The climate damage that Russia must compensate for is estimated at $11 billion, the Ministry of Environment reports on Facebook.
Kireeva emphasized that this amount of emissions exceeds the annual emissions of such a highly developed country as Belgium.
It is noted that 37 million tons of CO2 were emitted from hostilities, and 22.2 million tons were emitted from fires. The number of fires increased 36 times during the first year of full-scale war compared to the 12 months before the full-scale invasion.
"Russia should reimburse Ukraine this amount as reparations for emissions caused by the war," she said.
The message emphasized that currently a neither in international climate policy nor in international humanitarian law is there a clear way to oblige an aggressor country to do so.
"This does not mean that Russia cannot be held accountable. Ukraine, together with international allies, is forming an International Compensation Mechanism to finance recovery. We are convinced that the damage caused to the climate should be part of this mechanism and the registry of damage that is being developed under the auspices of the Council of Europe," said Lennard de Klerk, the lead author of the interim study of climate damage caused by the Russian war in Ukraine.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that Director General of the Director of the European Commission for Justice Nils Berndt said that the EU is ready to help Ukraine in investigating Russia's environmental crimes.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, a study by carbon accounting experts showed that the war in Ukraine deepens the climate crisis, and during the first 12 months of the war, CO2 emissions reached about 120 million tons.
