Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Fallout from Ukraine war takes on an environmental aspect

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has already had many deleterious effects on the world, from runaway inflation to uncertain energy supply to famine in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. But now another major implication is raising its head.

The apparent sabotage of both of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the North Sea is leaking massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Most commentators are laying the blame on Russian actors, official or otherwise, despite the fact that it is also a shot in their own foot. The predictable Russian response, that it is sabotage by the USA or Germany (or anyone but Russia, really), is much less convincing.

It is hard to measure the amount of gas escaping from the pipelines, but it is likely to be the largest ever methane leak, and words like "disastrous" and "unprecedented are being bandied around by climate scientists. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and has a climate impact of over 80 times that of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. The Environmental Defense Fund has estimated that more than 115,000 tons of methane has escaped, equivalent to about 9.6 million tons of carbon dioxide, or emissions from 2 million cars for a year.

This is just one more disastrous effect of Putin's ill-advised exercise in empire-building. Europe, and the world in general, will be recovering from this for many years to come.

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