Greetings,
friends!
At UWEC Work Group, we continue to
analyze, track, and write about the environmental
consequences of the war. For us, this work is
doubly important because the events in Ukraine
reflect a fundamental conflict that is destroying
the human community and planet Earth. The war
clearly illustrates how authoritarian regimes
destroy lives, short-sighted plans lead to
catastrophes, and the environment, unfortunately,
is often just a pawn exploited by selfish
interests.
War has many consequences. It
exposes problems often unseen in peacetime. For
example, gold mining has always been dirty and
harmful to the environment, but not much has been
said about it past or present. In this issue, UWEC
expert Eugene Simonov analyzes how the war and
sanctions complicate Russia’s ability to sell gold
and how the laws governing its production have
become much simpler and not in a good way. This
combination can have fatal consequences for the
environment of entire regions.
Reports
from the battlefield tell us how the war steals
the lives of thousands of soldiers and peaceful
civilians. However, even more animals and trees
have already died in the war; their deaths are
extremely difficult to track. Ukrainian author and
environmentalist Kateryna Polianska discusses this
mournful side of the war, one that is little
discussed, and about how some people are helping
animals at risk.
Some
are calling the fighting in Ukraine “ecocide.”
This term not only draws attention to the
widespread death of living organisms, but also
serves as the legal basis for filing lawsuits in
international courts. We spoke with Olena
Kravchenko, Executive Director and Board Member of
the Ukrainian NGO Environment-Law-People, about
the war through the lens of environmental law,
standards for collecting evidence, and the
prospects for prosecuting crimes against
nature.
In
early July Ukraine’s government presented a
recovery plan for rebuilding Ukraine, a plan that
provoked strong criticism from Ukrainian
environmental organizations. The plan was even
called the "Shame of Lugano". UWEC editorial team
analyzes its flaws.
Lastly
this week, the war also has a direct impact on
international climate policy. In November 2022,
Egypt will host the Conference of the Parties to
the Paris Climate Agreement (COP-27), and the mood
among climate diplomats and experts is less
optimistic today than a year ago. Learn about how
the war affects international decarbonization
efforts and global climate policy more generally
in an interview with Bill Hare, founder and CEO of
Climate Analytics and co-leader of Climate Action
Tracker.
You
can find additional coverage about the war’s
environmental consequences on our website – https://uwecworkgroup.info/ and
on Facebook and Twitter.
Take care of
yourself and our fragile world,
Aleksei
Ovchinnikov
Editor-in-Chief, UWEC Work
Group
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