Nature warns

Global warming threatens Russia no less than other countries

Millions of Russians suffered from unprecedented heat and smog, and thousands lost their homes in fires. However, no matter how cynical it may sound, if you look at it globally, the Russian “great drought” pales in consequences in comparison with the cataclysms that are now occurring in other countries.

For example, in Pakistan. The already unstable country is suffering the worst flooding in its history. According to authorities, at least 1,600 people have already died from the water disaster. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless. About 14 million Pakistanis were affected in one way or another by the destruction.

For example, in China, which is experiencing the largest flood in the last ten years. This year, more than 2,100 people died and more than 1.4 million homes were destroyed.

Why does nature seem to go crazy? Natural disasters have always existed - that's a fact. It is also a fact that they are happening more and more often and in an increasingly extreme form. In Russia, the number of dangerous hydrometeorological phenomena has increased, according to Roshydromet, almost threefold since the beginning of the 1990s. For this development of events, the vast majority of scientists around the world blame global warming, which, in their opinion, is caused mainly by anthropogenic factors. Roshydromet carefully puts it this way: “It is highly likely that, since the mid-20th century, the observed increase in concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gases has accounted for most of the global warming.”

Russia, one of the most energy-inefficient economies in the world, bears more responsibility for climate change than much of other countries. In terms of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere as a result of fuel combustion, Russia has an “honorable” fourth place in the world - after China, the USA and India. At the same time, according to experts, it is one of the forces that most actively slow down the international negotiation process to reduce these same emissions. Thus, as a result of the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, Russia had quite a lot of “unused” emission quotas in reserve, received due to the fall in industrial production in the 1990s. It turns out that now, when the Russian leadership proposes a reduction in emissions in the range of 15 to 25% (by 2020 compared to 1990), we are actually talking about an increase in emissions, even faster than in the period from 1999 to 2007, since the real decline to date compared to 1990 levels has already reached approximately 34%. In addition, Russia continues to insist on the transfer of quotas from the current Kyoto period to the next - the so-called. post-Kyoto. Obviously, such a policy sets a rather bad example in the global negotiation process.

Another way to look at it is that the heat and fires we are currently experiencing, as well as their dire economic consequences, bring home the true cost of the still extremely cheap use of fossil energy sources. And we should not forget that global warming is just beginning. It is difficult to actually link a single natural phenomenon with climate change. But without global warming, there would be much fewer such natural disasters. Both the heat in the European part of Russia and the floods in Asia exactly coincide with the forecasts of climatologists. Russia has not experienced such extreme heat since the beginning of weather observations. Since the beginning of meteorological observations, the whole world has not known such a warm period as from January to June 2010.

Damage from the fires may become a new shock for a country that has not yet overcome the economic crisis. People died. Enterprises temporarily stopped production. Valuable forests have been destroyed over vast areas. Entire villages require complete restoration. High grain prices will remain a heavy burden on consumers for many months to come. Meanwhile, Russia has many other problems that need to be solved, while the authorities have been preoccupied for weeks with drought, fires and smog.

Unfortunately, all these costs are just the beginning. A commission led by renowned economist Nicholas Stern warned in a report to the UK government already in 2006 that if left unchecked, climate change could lead to a global economic crisis that could reduce global consumption by 20%. As bitter experience shows, it is very likely that a global crisis of this magnitude will fully affect Russia.

Scientists agree that the growth of global greenhouse emissions must be stopped by 2017 at the latest. By 2050, industrialized countries, including Russia, must reduce their emissions by about 90% compared to 1990 levels. In this case, it will be possible to stop global warming before its impact becomes catastrophic.

Russia must (for reasons of general justice and its own security) and can (more easily than many other countries) get involved in solving this problem. The low level of energy efficiency since the times of the Soviet Union is both a huge and profitable resource for Russia to quickly reduce emissions. Not many countries have to count on this.

Meanwhile, the world is competing to achieve the best results in the race to a carbon-free economy. Countries such as China, Germany and Denmark are ahead of almost everyone else in energy-efficient technologies and already have a powerful and rapidly growing alternative energy industry. Economies that can achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions the fastest will have the first advantage.

Russia is just waking up. But she has demonstrated more than once that she can overcome various kinds of backlogs by leaps and bounds. Moreover, Russia has a good chance of taking a leading position in this process. There is currently no leading force in international negotiations on climate change. The European Union is mainly preoccupied with its own economic crisis. The United States has not yet realized the consequences of climate change and the chances of fighting it. Russia may well occupy this niche. But to do this, it needs to change its position at international climate negotiations - stop being a brake and become a locomotive.

“To be frank, what is happening now with the climate on the planet should encourage all of us (I mean heads of state, heads of public organizations) to take more energetic efforts aimed at counteracting global climate change,” he said at the end of July, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Have the authorities appreciated the full power of nature’s “warning shot”? There are less than four months left until the next major international climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico.

Oldag KASPAR, climate policy expert at the non-governmental organization Germanwatch, Vilena VALEEVA, journalist