A recent New York Times article pointed to the growing impact of data void, given the sanctions on climate research. It cited that the sanctions following the 2022 Ukraine-Russia conflict have directly impacted scientists from European Union and the US working with Russia on data monitoring in the Arctic, which holds over half of its coastline and land mass.
With the removal of the Russian field stations from the International Network of Terrestrial Research & Monitoring, vital data gathering and analysis pertaining to temperature changes, melting polar ice caps, precipitation patterns and other related factors contributing to sea-level rise fell short. This lack of critical research data from Russia has alarmed permafrost scientists and climatologists around the world. While most EU and NATO allies suspended research co-operation with Russia in the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict, new partnerships in the Arctic have emerged between Russia, China and India – which have since moved from being observers to the Arctic Council to actively participating in joint research projects, conferences and publications.
The October 2024 BRICS Summit of emerging economies in Kazan has brought together the 10 member countries towards greater co-operation on strategic interests, including Climate resilience by reducing green-house gas (GHG) emissions and increasing carbon sequestration, while focussing on clean energy-based development. What makes it globally significant is that member nations like China and Brazil have vast mineral resources essential to the production of clean energy products including solar panels and graphite used in electric batteries.
Sanctions have become a non-violent weaponised mechanism and are a set of coercive measures designed to produce an intended realization of geopolitical policy objectives. Unfortunately, sanctions can impact non-sanctioned countries with un-intended consequences that adversely impacts, among others, environmental degradation. Sanctions or even the threat of sanctions could escalate civl and military tensions and could restrict the flow of green capital and technology, forcing impacted nations to erode their commitment to GHG reductions. Trade sanctions also impact the flow of dual-use goods and commodities that play into global economic dependencies and labour migration.
Perhaps the elephant in the room is the shifts caused by sanctions towards defence investment and the manufacturing of weapons. Test firing alone leaves a huge chunk of carbon footprint that often goes unreported and unmentioned. Rockets emit black carbon into the stratosphere and harmful emissions of nitrogen oxides into the lower atmosphere causing lung and respiratory damage.
The 1991 Gulf War generated a massive carbon footprint largely caused by missile strikes and burning oil fires contributing to 2-3 per cent of global emissions, with soot emissions alone yielding 20,000 tonnes and sulphur dioxide releases topping 24,000 tonnes a day! The Ukraine war has generated an estimated 174 million tonnes of carbon, nitrous oxide and the deadly sulphur hexafluoride – more than what many industrialised nations generated combined. With damages estimated at $100 billion, it has destroyed and contaminated an estimated 29 per cent of Ukrainian environmental ecosystems polluting air, soil and water endangering human and animal life for generations. Rebuilding demolished infrastructure further adds to the carbon costs of materials and transportation. This is more than what the five most climate-vulnerable countries on the 2024 International Rescue Committee (IRC) emergency watchlist – Haiti, Burkina Faso, Syria, Yemen and Somalia – incurred.
Sanctions against Russia and the destruction of Nord Stream 2 pipelines under the Baltic Sea saw India import large volumes of crude from Russia, refining it and selling it to EU nations at a premium, massively adding to the carbon footprint, while pinching the pockets of the consumers. The 115 per cent surge of discounted Russian oil purchased by India climbed to 231,800 barrels per day, exposing the loopholes of ‘convenience’ in sanctions.
This cycle has perpetuated its killer kinetics year after year, decade after decade, riding the tides of political rhetoric that justifies aggression and makes room for environmental destruction and scarring of the human spirit that believes in the greater good. Ultimately, for humanity to collectively work towards climate resilience in recognition of the existential threat of climate change, its invisibility has to reveal itself to those who will be on the vanguard of leading this movement as signatories to unsanctioned free-will to protect this blue planet our only hope – and our only home.