At the end of April, the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv turned into the city with the most polluted air worldwide, leaving the traditionally dirty megalopolises in China and India far behind. This is the result of an unfortunate coincidence of climate change and dangerous traditions, which is now threatening lives of thousands of people during the coronavirus pandemic.
For two weeks in April, a major fire was raging in the Chornobyl radiation zone. Officials report destruction of about 200 ha of forest, a smoke cloud covering thousands of hectares of a conservation area and hundreds of animals killed. The fire crept dangerously close to the nuclear waste disposal site Pidlisnyi, located next to Chornobyl NPP. But it was not just the Chornobyl area that was burning, about 100 kilometres north of Kyiv. Enormous fires were raging to the northwest of the capital, in Zhytomyr oblast. A strong wind brought the smoke to the city. According to the global air monitoring website IQ Air, Kyiv had the highest level of air pollution worldwide. City authorities urged the citizens to close the windows and to stay home.
Chornobyl Burning Again
The first reports of fires in the Chornobyl area appeared on April 4, with the main suspected reason being fire setting. The media service of the National Police reported that on April 13, 2020, a local citizen was detained in connection with one of the fires in the Chornobyl area. It was found that the man was burning waste on his private territory and then took the smouldering fire remains out of the village, dumping them into dry grass. That is how dry plants and dead-standing trees caught fire. It is just one sad example out of tens of thousands happening in the entire country.
Now, the “traditional” annual burning season is in full swing in Ukraine. It usually takes place in early spring or autumn. In autumn, people burn dry leaves, stubble in fields and other organic remains from their gardens. In spring, they mainly burn dry plants: grass, cane and stubble which persisted during autumn burning season. According to the State Fire Service, more than 56,000 fires were recorded in natural ecosystems and open areas in 2019. This disheartening statistic is growing every year. UNDP has prepared an information page on the amount of burned territory during the spring period in the past three years: according to satellite data, during the spring months alone, more than 700,000 hectares are burned down every year. This situation leads to billions in damage, pollutes the air, ruins entire ecosystems and claims people's lives. In 2019, indirect losses from fires in ecosystems amounted to about EUR 100 million; 84 people died.
Where the Burning Habit Comes From and What Makes It Dangerous
The practice of brush burning in the Ukrainian society is caused by a whole set of reasons. The UNDP Accelerator Lab has identified at least 20 reasons for this behaviour. Through interviews, analysis of materials in the press and our observations during the expeditions, we were able to establish that there is a wide range of reasons why Ukrainians burn dry plants and waste. In small towns and villages, the beginning of spring and the end of autumn are associated with a haze in the air. Since long ago, young people have been burning the scraps from the garden at night, and while watching the fire, they would share stories, jokes and gossip. The elderly also liked to burn piles of dry remains from their gardens – to get some rest, have fun or chat with their neighbours.
Work on the land takes a lot of effort and almost all the time from morning to night. For hard-working Ukrainians, it would probably be a shame to just take a break or talk to someone. The fire warms the body and soothes the conscience at the same time, liberating the conscientious land owners from public criticism over doing nothing. Ukrainians are also big on cleanliness and care for others. Researchers were surprised to hear that people were burning dry grass so it wouldn't "poke the cow in the nose."
Brush burning is similar to some spring rituals of liberation from old things, from the past, like the tradition of tossing old stuff out of the window on New Year's Eve in some countries. Households mostly burn organic waste due to the lack of alternative disposal methods and knowledge about proper composting. Also, people often use smoke to heat the garden during spring frosts and for pest control; they also use ash as fertilizer. For agricultural enterprises, burning stubble helps to save fuel during ploughing. For all these practices, there are more environmentally friendly alternatives, and each of the causes of brush burning requires a separate approach to solve this problem on a behavioural and technological level. Leaves and remains from the garden can be composted, stubble in the fields can be disked and left as fertilizer or used as organic material for disposable dishes, and so on. But this problem is much more complex and goes far beyond the "traditional" practice of burning dry waste in Ukraine.
Climate Change Exacerbates Situation
Now that the climate is changing, grass becomes completely dry because there is no snow in winter, so any random glass bottle can act like a magnifying glass, causing the grass to ignite.
Dried-up swamps, forest belts, meadows and ponds, as well as destroyed ecosystems, lead to the disappearance of natural barriers to fire. In April, smoke from fires in Kyiv was not the only problem for the air — the situation was made much worse by a dust storm. This was mostly caused by a dry layer of agricultural land, which was lifted into the air by wind gusts — more evidence that climate change is already affecting Ukraine today.
Another snowless winter and the lack of the normal amount of precipitation have led to air erosion of the soil, depletion of subsoil waters and formation of dust, which was brought to Kyiv by the northwest wind. Predicting a dry summer in 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has already allocated about EUR 3 million to fire-fighters and first responders.
According to official data, this year, the number of fires in the ecosystems of Ukraine has increased by 30%. The State Fire Service of Ukraine has reported the destruction of almost 18,000 hectares of natural systems and has even made the emotional statement that "if it keeps going this way, the entire country will burn out by winter." After all, according to the Hydrometeorological Centre of Ukraine, even in the spring the precipitation deficit is 50% or more, writes WWF.
Air Pollution Threatens People during Coronavirus
Meanwhile, the global scientific community is confidently declaring the interdependence of air quality and complications from the coronavirus disease.
Even a small increase in air pollution can cost a person with COVID-19 their life. This is evidenced by new research from Harvard University.
A study published this month in Italy has looked into reasons of the high death toll in Northern Italy, one of the most polluted areas in Europe. Researchers concluded that air pollution is one of the factors of the mortality rate of COVID-19. Ukraine is also at the peak of its struggle against the COVID-19 pandemic. But that is where the situation is further complicated by air pollution not only because of old industry and metal working factories, but major fires as well. Thus, the critical deterioration of air quality because of fires exacerbates the current crisis.
Yevhen Kylymnyk, Oksana Udovyk, Oleksii Moskalenko, UNDP Accelerator Lab, for Ukrainska Pravda Zhyttia
Edited for the Heinrich Boell Foundation, Kyiv Office — Ukraine website by: Sergej Sumlenny, head of the Bureau, and Oksana Aliieva, coordinator of the Climate Change and Energy Policy Programme.