How Urgent is the Environmental Crisis in Ukraine?

The not-so surprising impacts of PM_2.5 in Ukraine and Beyond-By Joyce Anthonia Ojokojo

Media coverage has paid less attention to the indirect consequences of climate and environmental impacts in any conflict. Even though air pollution has both direct and indirect environmental impacts in any armed conflict and non-armed conflict, the indirect impacts surprisingly have long-term consequences with more deaths after conflict than the war itself. These range from PM_2.5 /air pollution from toxic gases and particles due to the use of explosive weapons on military infrastructures and cities and abandoned weaponry.

What is Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM_2.5)? 

PM_2.5  are tiny particles or droplets in the air that are two and one-half microns or less in width ( A micron is a unit of measurement for distance like inches, meters, and miles). PM_2.5  comes from outdoor and indoor sources of fine particles. The indoor sources come from indoor activities such as tobacco smoke, cooking (e.g., frying, sautéing, and broiling), burning candles or oil lamps, and operating fireplaces and fuel-burning space heaters such as kerosene heaters (European Union, Bowe et. al. 2019 and Lilian et. al, 2021).

Impact of  PM_2.5  in Ukraine and Beyond

Prior to the beginning of the war in Ukraine (February 2022), Ukrainians were most concerned about air pollution among three environmental problems (third after water pollution and deforestation (UNDP Ukraine). The Environmental Performance Index ranked Ukraine low on environmental indicators such as air quality, biodiversity, and ecosystem health, and the situation is most likely to get worse after the war broke out.

The eastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol which is less than 10miles from Russia has more than 50 times the World Health Organization's recommended levels of PM_2.5  National Geographic). Dirty air has been strongly linked to heart disease, cancer, dementia, and many other illnesses in Ukraine's other big industrial cities such as Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia (State of Global Air, 2020). 

Beyond Ukraine's border, the war does have multiplier effects on the global climate crisis on both civilians and soldiers. Almost 3,000 people in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan died in 2018 from diseases caused by air pollution  The conflict has been going on since 1978 (Lifegate). The "Gulf War Syndrome" is used to describe the mortality rate among American soldiers returning from the first Gulf War. High rates of leukemia and lymphoma as a consequence of the Iraq conflict, and the Balkan war with the bombing of energy and industrial plants with severe impact on the environment (European Union)

In non-conflict, data abound about the consequences of air pollution. 6.5 million deaths each year globally from air pollution (PM_2.5), about one person dies every 5 seconds. While 2.9 million deaths per year occur from household air pollution using cooking and heating with solid fuels. Across Africa, 1.1 million people died of air pollution in 2019 alone.

The AVERE Ukraine-How people and the planet can thrive

AVERE Ukraine is a forerunner campaigning against outdoor sources of PM_2.5 which are mainly produced from cars, trucks, buses, and off-road vehicle exhausts (e.g., construction equipment, snowmobile, locomotive) (New York State Department of Health). AVERE Ukraine is the Ukrainian community of AVERE, the European Electromobility Association scaling electromobility, sustainable transport, and infrastructure ecosystem. 

Given the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, is scaling electric cars an effective strategy to drive public and institutional changes?  How can the people and government give environmental pollution the urgency it deserves considering the grave consequences of the Ukraine conflict? Follow AVERE Ukraine avere.org to keep updated.