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newsclues • today at 11:51 AM • 3 replies • view on HN

When Ukraine burns a Russian refinery, do those emissions get counted?

Same with burning tankers in Iran...


Replies

iagiagiag • today at 11:57 AM

It's not always directly counted, but we count CO2 concentration in the atmosphere to check CO2 emissions and we're able to attribute a large part of these emissions to countries. It's why it takes a long time to have accurate data on CO2 emissions. I'm not sure we even have the data for 2025 yet, they're usually released at the end of the next year. So obviously for 2026 it's only a vague estimate, we'll know at the end of 2027.

Burning a refinery likely reduces emissions, because the fuel this refinery produced would be burned anyway, and the destroyed refinery will cease producing fossil fuels. So it wouldn't be a surprise if all the refineries destroyed this year in Russia and in the Middle East contributed to a reduction in CO2 emissions.

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KptMarchewa • today at 12:06 PM

The refinery is then offline for couple of weeks or months, during which it does not emit, and does not refine oil for further emissions.

bamboozled • today at 12:46 PM

Do you think the oil that Russia was producing was going to be stored underground, or ...burned in combustion engines therefore releasing the Co2 anyway?