“… Biden and his national security team are facing a moment of truth in Ukraine. Simply funding the war in Ukraine without changing the dynamics will likely result in Putin winning over time. … [Biden] must determine whether he has the will and conviction to … see … Zelensky and his generals through to victory. … Biden has extended a […]
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“Shipping lanes are under pressure. Seven of the world’s ten biggest shipping companies have suspended transit through the Red Sea, where the Houthis … are attacking commercial vessels [with the result that] …. far fewer ships are using the Suez Canal …. The volume of trade passing through the Panama Canal … has declined by 30% … after severe drought […]
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(Moscow Times – Dec. 4, 2023) Moscow broke a daily snowfall record on Sunday when nearly 11 millimeters of precipitation fell over just 12 hours, meteorologists in the Russian capital said. Sunday’s snowfall, powered by a strong cyclone that formed over southern Europe last week, marked the absolute daily record in Moscow since observations began in 1878, according to meteorologist […]
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(Moscow Times – Nov. 7, 2023) Ancient pathogens that have been preserved in northern Russia’s permafrost for millennia could reawaken as global temperatures rise, scientists warn, potentially putting humanity at risk of never-before-seen diseases. Jean-Michel Claverie, a virologist and emeritus professor at the Aix-Marseille University School of Medicine, is one of the few scientists worldwide who has studied “zombie viruses” […]
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(Moscow Times – Oct. 18, 2023) “Warming is about to end. And the cause is not humans, but the interplay between the Sun and Earth. Currently, we are in a favorable period, but we will inevitably transition to an unfavorable [cold] one … around 2030-2035.” This statement by Andrei Fedotov, director of the Limnological Institute of the Russian Academy of […]
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“Ukraine’s counteroffensive … will continue through the onset of cold and wet weather later this year …, Kyiv’s intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said[:] …. ‘Combat actions will continue in one way or another. In the cold, wet and mud, it is more difficult to fight. Fighting will continue. The counteroffensive will continue’ …. Apart from the huge concentration of Russian […]
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“[According to] General Mark Milley, … Chairman[,] … Joint Chiefs of Staff[,] … Ukraine’s forces have … 30 to 45 days left … before … fall weather … stop[s] their advance. … ‘There’s still heavy fighting going on,’ Milley said, adding that Ukraine was ‘still plugging away with steady progress.’ … [W]ith progress slow, and the counteroffensive launched later than […]
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“Norway is rebuilding a dilapidated reindeer fence along its border with Russia in the Arctic to stop the animals from wandering into the neighboring country.” “[The wandering reindeer go on] costly strolls for which Oslo has to compensate Moscow over loss of grassland. Norwegian officials said … so far this year, 42 reindeer have crossed into Russia seeking better pastures […]
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Caucasian glaciers have lost a quarter of their surface area to climate change since the millennium […]
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Experts fear the country cares more about carbon levies than the environmental crisis […]
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The Arctic region could see a faster-than-predicted shift from snow to rain as its main form of precipitation if global carbon emissions are not drastically cut, … scientists have claimed [,,,]
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Russia is losing increasing amounts of its Arctic coast each year as climate change accelerates natural erosion processes […]
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“Russia will look to cut its ambitious goals for boosting coal production … and consider imposing a carbon tax or other regulation in the wake of … the COP26 summit … according to two officials familiar with the plans. But Russia won’t join the global agreement to reduce methane emissions, [they] said, speaking on condition of anonymity …. [Russia] is […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Nov. 16, 2021) Now that the United Nations’ COP26 climate summit has ended, opinions are split over whether world leaders made the commitments needed to keep global warming from passing a catastrophic threshold. Here’s a look at things Russia did — and did not do — at the landmark summit in Glasgow: Deforestation pledge Russia, […]
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Russia could be left with almost $2 trillion in worthless hydrocarbon assets if major economies hit their net zero targets over the coming decades […]
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Russia, as well as fellow major polluters China and India, did not sign the U.S. and EU-led Global Methane Pledge to cut methane emissions 30% by 2030 …. [but] the world’s fourth-largest greenhouse gas emitter[] did join over 100 countries … promising to end deforestation by 2030 […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Nov. 2, 2021) As world leaders gather in Glasgow for the COP26 climate summit in hopes of agreeing on a strategy to avoid catastrophic global warming, Russia stands to face significant changes from climate change in the coming decades. Here’s a look at some of the ways Russia, which is warming 2.5 times faster than […]
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“Oil giant Rosneft announced the creation of a plan to transition to green energy, but also warned that fossil fuels would never fully be replaced.” “Russian state oil major Rosneft is developing a new strategy centred on the transition to renewable energy resources. … [according to] CEO Igor Sechin …. However, … [he] stress[ed] that oil and gas would continue […]
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The world’s fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is still in the bargaining stage of decarbonization […]
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Russia’s carbon emissions have been rising in recent decades and are projected to do so for multiple years [. ..]
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We ask experts whether the Kremlin’s latest moves on climate, including its 2060 net-zero target, heralds genuine change or more greenwash […]
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According to data from the Union of Concerned Scientists, Russia ranks fourth in the world for annual carbon emissions. But if overall emissions since the pre-Industrial period are taken into account, Russia [reportedly] moves to third […]
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Subject: Our occasional blog about climate science in/around Russia Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2021 From: Nicola Avery <nicolaavery@protonmail.com> We started a climate science blog a year or so ago, profiling scientists, mostly in Russia. We are developing the blog on a voluntary basis so only posting occasionally which is managed by Alina Bychkova at Nottingham Trent University, cc’d. We have […]
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The spike represents the first time temperatures have been over 3 C higher than the norm since measurements began in 1936 […]
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[Reportedly] more than 170,000 square kilometers have burned across Russia this year … the worst in a decade, and possibly ever … an area about the size of the U.S. state of Florida […]
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Russia plans to rely on … forests and swamps to absorb enough greenhouse gases to meet … climate goals while continuing to increase … carbon emissions […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Aug. 17, 2021) Russia’s 2021 wildfires are already the largest in the history of satellite observations, burning across 17.08 million hectares of land, the Greenpeace Russia environmental group has said. The new record beats the previous record set in 2012, when fires burned 17 million hectares of land, and comes with weeks left to go […]
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Putin … said the scale of natural disasters that have hit Russia this year is “absolutely unprecedented” as local officials ask for Moscow’s help to tackle fires and floods […]
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As September elections approach, COVID-19 takes a mounting toll and wildfires burn across huge swaths of the country …. The Kremlin crackdown on dissenters, civil society, and independent media continues […]
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Russia can expect to see intensifying wildfires, floods and other extreme weather events in the coming decades as the global climate crisis deepens a decade sooner than projected […]
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The Arctic is warming roughly three times faster than the planet as a whole, scientists warned …. Permafrost currently covers about 65% of Russian territory, but is melting fast […]
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“First positive sign of potential easing of tensions since last month’s summit” “Russia, … fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has signed up to the Paris climate agreement to limit emissions. Rapidly rising temperatures in Siberia … flooding and forest fires have made climate … increasingly important …. Putin, who four years ago blamed rising global temperatures on volcanoes and ‘cosmic […]
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… In 2020 the Laptev Sea stayed ice-free until November for the first time in documented history. The sea … plays a crucial role in generating ice coverage for the entire Arctic […]
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Most parties … participating in the upcoming Duma and regional legislative assembly elections are now including environmentalists in their list of candidates […]
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“For Moscow it is the last geopolitical battleground where it holds the advantage over Washington and Beijing” “… [N]ew and refurbished bases [are] meant to service the Kremlin’s ambitions in the resource-rich Arctic. … combined to form a new military district … under … the Northern Fleet, Russia’s foremost Arctic naval force[] … [with fleet] headquarters … on the Kola […]
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“Russia’s Sergei Lavrov claimed this week that ‘this is our land and our waters’ as NATO allies boost military activity” “… Russian and U.S. diplomats … [signal] rising tensions between [powers] racing to seize Arctic resources …. Arctic Council [participants] weren’t due to discuss security. But … Russia’s … Sergei Lavrov declared … the Arctic ‘is our land and our […]
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… [T]he rotating chairmanship of the Arctic Council … intergovernmental forum … will pass from Iceland to Russia for a two-year term. … [as] the organization grapples with multiple challenges and Russia-West relations have hit another historic low […]
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MOSCOW. May 13 (Interfax) – The Russian government is planning to ban the harvesting of whales and dolphins for industrial and coastal fishing purposes, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said. “We are planning additional regulations, this time for individual and coastal fishing purposes. First of all, this will apply to whales and dolphins. The new bill will ban their harvesting. […]
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… 60-65% of Russia’s territory is covered in permafrost …. Russia’s Arctic [is] melting 2.5 times faster than the rest of the world […]
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“… Biden … has invited … Putin … and Xi Jinping … to … virtual climate talks. … [scheduled for] 22-23 April. … Some 40 invitations [were sent] to … leaders of … major countries, as well as [some at-risk, low-lying] countries …. If Putin or Xi attend, Biden will have to walk a fine line diplomatically, given claims of […]
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Economists have predicted that Russia stands to reap benefits from hotter temperatures, primarily through expanded navigation and exploration in the Arctic […]
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“Rising temperatures in the Arctic are a warning sign for the planet. The melting ice has an economic upside for Russia.” “Russia … fourth-biggest [greenhouse gas] emitter … [also faces Arctic] temperatures … warming more than twice [that of global rates] …. [With] more than a fifth of the planet’s forests, Russia has [had] two consecutive years of record-breaking wildfires […]
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… [T]he Krasnoyarsk City Court of Arbitration ruled that almost all of the sum, the largest legal award in Russian history, must go to the federal treasury […]
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Polar bears have been forced south by rising temperatures and melting ice cover, limiting their ability to hunt seals and walruses and increasing encounters with human settlements […]
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… [Our NASA Earth Observatory] team noticed a … message with a peculiar and beautiful image from Russia near 66 degrees north latitude. It turned into a scientific detective story and an unresolved case […]
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They agreed to cooperate further within the Arctic Council … [and] to establish contacts ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference […]
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(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – RM Staff – Jan. 28, 2021) As the effects of climate change grow more intense each year, attention is shifting to the inevitable geopolitical impacts of a warming planet. In 2020, Russia experienced its warmest winter on record, while the summer saw forest fires rip through Siberia like never before. At the same time, a […]
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… Russia’s two largest cities experienced the warmest autumn temperatures of their recorded histories in 2020 …. And it’s only the beginning, experts say […]
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“The Kolyma Highway in the Russian Far East once delivered tens of thousands of prisoners to the work camps of Stalin’s gulag. The ruins of that cruel era are still visible today.” “… [P]risoners, hacking … through insect-infested summer swamps and winter ice fields, brought the road … [which] then brought yet more prisoners … a torrent of slave labor […]
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