Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday condemned Russia’s invasion of his country for exacerbating the “catastrophic” effects of climate change.
“There are still many for whom climate change is just rhetoric or marketing or political ritual,” Zelensky said in a video address to the United Nations climate change conference (COP27).
“They are the ones who start wars of aggression when the planet cannot afford a single gunshot because it needs global joint actions,” the president continued.
Slamming Russia for its attempts to “destroy the independence” of Ukraine, Zelensky described a situation in which dozens of countries have now had to resume coal-fired power generation to reduce energy prices following Moscow’s invasion.
He also blamed the Russian war for triggering “an acute food crisis” that has stricken countries that were already enduring “the existing manifestations of climate change, catastrophic drought, large-scale floods.” Russian shelling, the president added, ravaged 5 million acres of forest in Ukraine in less than six months.
Zelensky likewise accused Russia of turning the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “de facto into a military training ground.
“They are constantly playing with connecting and disconnecting their plant and nuclear reactors from their power grid,” the president said, warning “there is direct risk of a radiation disaster.”
Zelensky called upon world leaders to “tell those who do not take the climate agenda seriously that they are making a catastrophic mistake.”
Russia’s “insane and illegal war,” he continued, is “destroying the world’s ability to work united for a common goal.”
The Ukrainian leader urged COP27 participants to support a Kyiv initiative presented at the summit that would create a global platform for assessing the impacts of military actions on the climate and the environment.
“We must ensure that suffering doesn’t multiply because the world doesn’t have time to respond to climate challenges,” Zelensky added.