Rebuild better for a sustainable future

Abstract

While it is important to recognize how as destructive the war in Ukraine has been and continues to be, it is just as important to start planning to rebuild the war-affected areas. Since the construction industry is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and the lifespan of buildings and infrastructure extends beyond 50 years, it is essential to include net-zero climate targets in the post-war reconstruction. One possible step that can be taken to meet the climate policy goals is to use construction materials, where the manufacturing and use have a balancing effect the GHG emissions. These construction materials store carbon, and their manufacturing is associated with low GHG emissions. To give an example, timber can be considered as an alternative material in place of traditionally used cement and steel. The total carbon stored in newly built urban infrastructures worldwide over the next 30 years would sum up to 2-20 Gt if 90% of these would be built with timber, to 1-11 Gt in the 50% timber scenario, and to 0.25-2.3 Gt in the 10% timber scenario [1]. However, few Ukrainian city planners and decision-makers have knowledge of climate policy goals or possible climate mitigation and adaptation options. Ukrainian scientists currently living abroad can play important roles in the knowledge transfer. The post-war reconstruction as a window of opportunity to get closer to meeting the net-zero emissions targets in UkraineThe war in Ukraine started in 2014, and its second phase began with the Russian aggression on 24 February 2022. In July 2022, the Ukrainian President V. Zelenskiy presented the Ukraine Recovery Plan; an interactive map of destruction was developed for better visualization. As of 5 July 2022, 1893 schools, 748 health facilities, 23,863.5 km roads and 59,031 mln sq m of residential buildings had been destroyed (most of the destruction of residential buildings had occurred in the Donetsk (17,324 mln sq m), Luhansk (12,021 mln sq m) and Kharkiv regions (9,578 mln sq m) [2]. Moreover, by June 2022, UNESCO had reported the destruction of 152 cultural sites, including churches and libraries [3]. During first 100 days, more than 300 bridges and about 20-30% of infrastructure elements were destroyed or partially damaged [4]. Typical examples of destruction are shown in Fig 1.According to the Fast Recovery Plan, which was presented on 4-5 July 2022 at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano, Switzerland, a key focus should be placed on the liberated areas in the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv regions. According to data from July 2022 in liberated areas, 1997 houses including 199,873 apartments were completely destroyed, causing 329,360 persons to lose their homes, and 4677 houses including 280,620 apartments were partly ruined, causing 982,170 persons to lose their homes. Twenty percent of these examples of destruction were one-room apartments (approx. 32 m 2 each), 28% were two-room apartments (approx. 49 m 2 each), and 52% were three-room apartments (approx. 65 m 2 each).