Forest fires push up greenhouse gas emissions from war in Ukraine

News Snapshot:

The burning of Ukraine’s forests at unprecedented rates over the past year has helped push the total greenhouse emissions from the war since Russia’s full-scale invasion to almost 230m tonnes, analysis shows. The study, published on the third anniversary of the invasion, found the fighting and its consequences had led to 55m tonnes of emissions in the past 12 months. An unusually dry and hot summer last year, thought to have been exacerbated by climate breakdown, led to a notable jump in landscape fires, with the 92,100 hectares burned in 2024 more than double the annual average of 38,300 destroyed...