Climate change in Russia
Since Russia is the fourth-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world,[2] action is needed to reduce the impacts of climate change on both regional and global scale.
[7] Cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore air pollution in Russia, would have health benefits greater than the cost.
[10] According to IPCC (2007), climate change affected temperature increase which is greater at higher northern latitudes in many ways.
For example, agricultural and forestry management at Northern Hemisphere higher latitudes, such as earlier spring planting of crops, higher frequency of wildfires, alterations in disturbance of forests due to pests, increased health risks due to heat-waves, changes in infectious diseases and allergenic pollen and changes to human activities in the Arctic, e.g. hunting and travel over snow and ice.
[18] The annual surface air temperature maxima and minima both increased, and the number of days with frost decreased over the last 100 years.
The warming has been most evident in the winter and spring periods, and is more intense in the eastern part of the country,[16] according to the Inter-Agency Commission of the Russian Federation on Climate Change, 2002.
[16] As a consequence of increasing temperatures and changing precipitation patterns, glaciers in Russia have been reduced by between 10 and 70% over the second part of the 20th century.
[22] Climate change is projected to lead to warming temperatures in most areas of the world, but in Russia this increase is expected to be even larger than the global average.
[16] This pronounced increase in winter temperatures is connected to the reduction of snow cover as a consequence of climate change.
This results in less of the sun's radiation being reflected away from the earth, and more being absorbed by the ground, increasing surface air temperatures.
[24] The Arctic, which forms a large part of the territory of Russia, is particularly vulnerable to climate change and is warming much more rapidly than the global average.
Extreme heat waves such as the one that hit Russia and eastern Europe in 2010 (the hottest summer in the last 500 years in this region) will become more likely, leading to an increase in the associated heat-related deaths and economic losses.
[25] Most models and emission scenarios show, by the year 2100, the average annual precipitation is projected to increase over most of Russia as compared to the 1960-1990 period.
[31] However, recent peatland restoration efforts in the area of Moscow following the 2010 wildfires have decreased the risk of severe fires in the future.
The increases in temperature caused by climate change lead to longer and warmer growing periods in the tundra.
The agricultural production of the country suffers economic losses due to its dependency on weather and climate factors.
The overall yield of grain crops in Russia is expected to decrease by 17% by 2050, thereby affecting prices of agricultural products on the global market.
[38] The droughts of 2010 and 2012 in Russia was followed by increased prices of rye, wheat and barley in the country, thus showing the vitality of climate factors on crop yields.
[39] In addition to historical trends, recent climatic anomalies continue to underscore the vulnerability of Russian agriculture to extreme weather events.
[41] Climate change has the potential to affect human health in several ways, both directly and indirectly, through for example, extreme heatwaves, fires, floods or insect-borne diseases.
The predicted increases in average annual temperatures in most parts of Russia, especially the western and south-western regions, imply more frequent extreme heatwaves and forest fires.
In addition, during the heatwave there were 33 consecutive days of temperatures above 30 °C in the city, increasing the incidence of heat-related deaths and health problems, and leading to forest fires.
[23] The heatwave and wildfires of 2010 in Russia resulted in around 14,000 heat and air-pollution related deaths, as well as around 25% crop failure that year, more than 10,000 km2 of burned area and around 15 billion US dollars of economic losses.
[46] In the Moscow region, the onset of higher average daily temperatures early on in the year has already led to a rapid increase in malaria cases.
[42] Sandfly-borne diseases, such as Leishmaniasis, could also expand in Europe and Russia as a result of climate change and increased average temperatures making transmission suitable in northern latitudes.
[55] Some of the NDC targets of Russia against climate change and greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris Agreement are the following:[56][57] Every country has different ways to achieve the established goals depending on resources.
[59] Environmental activism is a growing movement in Russia and it has developed into different shapes and forms, such as campaigns aiming to tackle both local and regional problems but also to address concerns including pollution, expansion of industries, non-sustainable forestry and further on.
