Unveiling the environmental impact of earthquakes in Europe

Earthquakes represent a significant but often overlooked environmental burden in the construction sector, driven by post-disaster repairs and reconstruction that generate substantial carbon emissions. Here, we unveil the environmental toll of earthquakes in Europe by presenting a seismic risk map of embodied carbon associated with earthquake damage across residential, commercial, and industrial buildings. We develop a harmonised database of material quantities and carbon factors covering diverse construction materials and building types, which we integrate into a continental-scale probabilistic seismic risk model. Our analysis reveals that Europe’s building stock embodies nearly 14 billion tonnes of CO₂e, with seismic damage, based on over three million earthquake scenarios, contributing an average of 6.6 million tonnes annually. These values are comparable to the yearly emissions of millions of cars or tens of thousands of transatlantic flights. Our models and datasets offer a scalable, transferable tool to incorporate sustainability into disaster risk reduction and advance climate-resilient development. Earthquakes generate substantial carbon emissions from building damage repair and reconstruction. The study maps Europe’s seismic carbon risk, showing annual losses of 6.6 Mt CO2e and providing tools for sustainable disaster planning.