311.14 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. That is the cumulative and projected greenhouse gas toll of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, from February 2022 through the four-year mark in February of this year. It is roughly equal to France’s entire annual output, or about half of Germany’s.

This number does not come from a government press release. The accounting was done by the Initiative on GHG Accounting of War, a team combining the Ukrainian environmental organization Ecoaction with international researchers. The methodology was already made public at COP29 in 2024 and has been updated periodically since. I went through their latest report, the 48-month update released after the four-year mark, covering through February 2026. The numbers line up.

Those 310 million tonnes break down across six categories. Military operations (diesel and kerosene burned by tanks, fighter jets, and armored vehicles) account for 37%, or 114.1 million tonnes, making them the single largest source. Second is post-war reconstruction, projected at 73.3 million tonnes, or 23%. That portion has not yet happened; it is an estimated future cost. Close behind is combat-induced landscape fires at 70.3 million tonnes, also 23%. Ukraine’s wildfires in 2025 scorched 1.39 million hectares, far above pre-war levels, with drought making them harder to suppress. The research team inferred this figure by comparing data gaps between conflict zones and non-conflict zones, adjusted for wartime degradation of firefighting capacity. They did not verify the ignition cause of each individual fire. The remaining 17% is split among civil aviation rerouting, damage to energy infrastructure, and refugee displacement.

Four years of war, carbon distributed: military operations 114.1 Mt, post-war reconstruction 73.3 Mt, landscape fires 70.3 Mt, civil aviation rerouting 29.8 Mt, energy infrastructure 18.6 Mt, refugee displacement 5.3 Mt

Multiply by a social cost of carbon of $185 per tonne and you get over $57 billion in climate damages. That covers only the climate ledger, not lives, homes, or economic losses. This $57 billion figure comes from the latest version of the report, covering through February 2026. Ukraine announced at COP30 last November that it would include this type of accounting in the Register of Damage for Ukraine, an international reparations mechanism led by the Council of Europe, as one basis for claims against Russia. At that point, Ukraine was still citing an earlier version of the report: $43.8 billion and 240 million tonnes, both lower than the latest figures. From what I can find, formally using a war’s carbon emissions as the basis for reparations claims against an aggressor state is a genuinely rare step. COP29 in November 2024 laid the methodology open; COP30 in November 2025 turned it into a reparations instrument. Roughly one year between those two moments.

When I talk through carbon issues with business owners, the first conversation is never about calculating emissions directly. It is about deciding where to draw the boundary. Does the coal the factory burns count? What about the raw materials the supplier trucks in? What about employee commutes? Every layer you push outward adds another layer of dispute. The war carbon accounting team faced exactly the same problem, only harder: the fuel in a tank is straightforward enough, but should the wildfires the war ignited count? Should the concrete needed for reconstruction count? Those choices are themselves a position. This report chose to draw the boundary broadly, including landscape fires and projected future reconstruction, and the reasoning is laid out in the report where it can be examined.

Everyday climate conversation tends to sort emission sources into two bins: industrial and lifestyle. This report is a reminder that there is a third: violence itself. The diesel in a tank, the farmland set alight, the factory bombed and waiting to be rebuilt, all of it is sending CO2 into the atmosphere. And those emissions do not stop the moment a ceasefire is signed. The steel and concrete for reconstruction are the next round of entries on the ledger.

When countries calculate emissions reduction targets at climate summits, “fight one fewer war” rarely appears in anyone’s cost-benefit analysis. The 73.3 million tonnes for reconstruction is still a projection. The day the concrete trucks actually roll into Kyiv, the numbers will be revised again. A war’s carbon account does not close on the day the guns go quiet.

Peace is the best climate policy.

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