Tracking unaccounted greenhouse gas emissions due to the war in Ukraine since 2022

Bun, Rostyslav; Marland, Gregg; Oda, Tomohiro; See, Linda; Puliafito, Enrique; Nahorski, Zbigniew; Jonas, Mathias; Kovalyshyn, Vasyl; Ialongo, Iolanda; Yashchun, Orysia; Romanchuk, Zoriana

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.169879

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Bunker emissions are included but military emissions excluded (e.g. Bun et al 2024). For more completeness, this year we also include estimates of N2O and CH4 emissions from global biomass fires, sourced from GFED.…”

Section: Methods Of Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence

Forster,

Smith,

Walsh

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Abstract. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments are the trusted source of scientific evidence for climate negotiations taking place under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Evidence-based decision-making needs to be informed by up-to-date and timely information on key indicators of the state of the climate system and of the human influence on the global climate system. However, successive IPCC reports are published at intervals of 5–10 years, creating potential for an information gap between report cycles. We follow methods as close as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One (WGI) report. We compile monitoring datasets to produce estimates for key climate indicators related to forcing of the climate system: emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, the Earth's energy imbalance, surface temperature changes, warming attributed to human activities, the remaining carbon budget, and estimates of global temperature extremes. The purpose of this effort, grounded in an open data, open science approach, is to make annually updated reliable global climate indicators available in the public domain (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11064126, Smith et al., 2024a). As they are traceable to IPCC report methods, they can be trusted by all parties involved in UNFCCC negotiations and help convey wider understanding of the latest knowledge of the climate system and its direction of travel. The indicators show that, for the 2014–2023 decade average, observed warming was 1.19 [1.06 to 1.30] °C, of which 1.19 [1.0 to 1.4] °C was human-induced. For the single year average, human-induced warming reached 1.31 [1.1 to 1.7] °C in 2023 relative to 1850–1900. This is below the 2023 observed record of 1.43 [1.32 to 1.53] °C, indicating a substantial contribution of internal variability in the 2023 record. Human-induced warming has been increasing at rate that is unprecedented in the instrumental record, reaching 0.26 [0.2–0.4] °C per decade over 2014–2023. This high rate of warming is caused by a combination of greenhouse gas emissions being at an all-time high of 54 ± 5.4 GtCO2e per year over the last decade, as well as reductions in the strength of aerosol cooling. Despite this, there is evidence that the rate of increase in CO2 emissions over the last decade has slowed compared to the 2000s, and depending on societal choices, a continued series of these annual updates over the critical 2020s decade could track a change of direction for some of the indicators presented here.

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Section: Methods Of Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence

Forster,

Smith,

Walsh

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…Quantifying unaccounted greenhouse gas emissions due to the war in Ukraine -driver analysis, emission estimation, and implications for emissions reporting Rostyslav Bun 1,2 , Gregg Marland 3 , Tomohiro Oda 4,5,6 , Linda See 7 , Enrique Puliafito 8,9 , Zbigniew Nahorski 10,11 , Mathias Jonas 7 , Vasyl Kovalyshyn 12 , Iolanda Ialongo 13 , Orysia Yashchun 1,7 , Zoriana Romanchuk • Emissions reporting is important for understanding the global carbon cycle and for addressing global climate change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1,7 1 Lviv Polytechnic National University, Ukraine; 2 WSB University, Poland; 3 Appalachian State University, USA; 4 Universities Space Research Association, USA; 5 University of Maryland, USA; 6 Osaka University, Japan; 7 International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria; 8 Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina; 9 Mendoza Regional Faculty, National Technological University, Argentina; 10 Systems Research Institute PAN, Poland; 11 WIT University, Poland; 12 Lviv State University of Life Safety, Ukraine; 13 Finnish Meteorological Institute, Finland…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying unaccounted greenhouse gas emissions due to the war in Ukraine – driver analysis, emission estimation, and implications to emission reporting

Bun,

Marland,

Oda

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Quantifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is a critical task for climate monitoring and mitigation actions.  Under the Paris Agreement, for example, accounting and reporting of GHG emissions are mandatory for Parties.  Reported emissions are often calculated using activity data approaches.  The robustness of the activity data collection is a key for obtaining accurate emission estimates; however, in a period of open conflict or war, the systems for data collection can be desperately damaged and destroyed and thus the ability of achieving robust GHG estimates and transparent reporting can be significantly hampered.  Also, military emissions, which are thought to be often poorly quantified, should increase significantly than peace times.  We attempted to quantify GHG emissions during the first 18 months of the 2022/2023 full-scale war in Ukraine.  We first identified major, war-related, emission drivers and processes from the territory of Ukraine.  We analyzed publicly available data and used expert judgment to estimate emissions from (1) the use of bombs, missiles, barrel artillery, and mines; (2) the consumption of oil products for military operations; (3) fires at petroleum storage depots and refineries; (4) fires in buildings and infrastructure facilities; (5) fires on forest and agricultural lands; and (6) the decomposition of war-related garbage/waste.  Those sources are often not covered by current GHG inventory guidelines, and thus are not likely to be included in national inventory reports.  Our estimate of the war-related emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) for the first 18 months of the war in Ukraine is 77 MtCO2-eq. with a relative uncertainty of ±22 % (95 % confidence interval).  It is important to note that these emissions are considered to be emissions from Ukraine in reporting because the emissions occurred within the territory of Ukraine.  The current emission accounting system (e.g. UNFCCC) is not designed to account war/conflict time emissions adequately.  The uncertainties due to the unaccounted emissions are also aliasing to our global and regional carbon budget calculations.

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“Just” Means “Just” Everywhere: How Extractivism Stands in the Way of an Internationalist Paradigm for Just Transitions

Fernandes

2024

Int J Polit Cult Soc

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Tracking unaccounted greenhouse gas emissions due to the war in Ukraine since 2022

Cited by 9 publications

References 29 publications

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence

Quantifying unaccounted greenhouse gas emissions due to the war in Ukraine – driver analysis, emission estimation, and implications to emission reporting

“Just” Means “Just” Everywhere: How Extractivism Stands in the Way of an Internationalist Paradigm for Just Transitions

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Tracking unaccounted greenhouse gas emissions due to the war in Ukraine since 2022

Cited by 9 publications

References 29 publications

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence

Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence

Quantifying unaccounted greenhouse gas emissions due to the war in Ukraine &#8211; driver analysis, emission estimation, and implications to emission reporting

“Just” Means “Just” Everywhere: How Extractivism Stands in the Way of an Internationalist Paradigm for Just Transitions

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Quantifying unaccounted greenhouse gas emissions due to the war in Ukraine – driver analysis, emission estimation, and implications to emission reporting