(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 7, 2013) Two-thirds of the territory of the Russian Federation is covered by permafrost, and the melting of this ice is rapidly “converting a large part of Russia into a swamp,” according to studies by British and Russian scholars reported and discussed this week in Moscow’s “Novyye izvestiya.” Researchers at the […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, August 5, 2013) Four environmental activists in southern Russia have been given lengthy jail terms for extorting money from a real estate developer, though they denied the accusations, Russian media reported. Four employees of the Gelendzhik Human Rights Center in the Krasnodar Region were given jail terms of between eight and 13 years in a […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 31, 2013) The brown bear that former president Boris Yeltsin gave to the Moscow zoo will be moved to a new location so that he can meet his old age “with dignity,” the zoo’s director Sergei Popov said at a press conference Tuesday. The zoo had previously received numerous letters from visitors, complaining that […]
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Subject: Call for Nominations Klebnikov Fellowship Program From: The Paul Klebnikov Fellowship at the Harriman Institute <lch2111@columbia.edu> Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 Columbia University Harriman Institute Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies Dear Friends and Colleagues, We write to ask for your help in identifying extraordinary candidates for the Harriman Institute’s Paul Klebnikov Russian Civil Society Fellowship for the 2013/14 […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 8, 2013) Penalties for violating the rules of water use and harmful emissions in Russia, which aim to stimulate energy conservation and environmentally clean technologies, have grown by a degree of magnitude, the Russian Natural Resources and Environment Ministry said in a press release. The administrative fine for violating water use rules when taking water without […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, July 6, 2013) Three new pieces of Russian legislation appear likely to inflict serious collateral damage on that country, eliminating a defender of Lake Baikal against industrial pollution, inflicting new suffering on the already hard-pressed numerically small peoples of the north, and destroying some of the last vestiges of federalism in the […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 27, 2013) Temperatures soared to 31.4 degrees Centigrade in Moscow on Thursday afternoon, the hydro-meteorological bureau of Moscow and the Moscow region told Interfax. “A century-old record has been repeated: Moscow had temperatures of 31.4 degrees Centigrade on June 27, 1911,” it said. The bureau does not rule out the temperature record might be beaten by […]
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(Interfax – VILLAGE OF LISTVYANKA, Irkutsk region, June 19, 2013) The number of people who criticize the environmental situation in their localities increased in the past eight years, Konstantin Abramov, deputy general director of the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), said. During a meeting between Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and representatives of the export community on environmental issues, […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, June 18, 2013) The Aral Sea, which has been shrinking for almost half a century causing an environmental disaster in Central Asia, has finally stopped drying up, a Russian scientist said on Tuesday. “The sea is currently close to a balance because its surface has shrunk so much that evaporation has gone down too, so that […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Alessandro Vitelli & Stefan Nicola – June 14, 2013) The United Nations global warming talks have been set back by six months after Russia and its allies blocked progress at a group charged with implementing decisions of the 190 nations involved in the discussions. The Subsidiary Body for Implementation at the UN talks failed to complete […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – June 6, 2013) Ten ecologically pristine zones in Russia are at risk of becoming polluted, according to a report that the World Wildlife Fund released Wednesday, as the nation celebrates ecologist day. Krasnodar, Irkutsk and Kamchatka regions lead the list with two endangered areas each. The paper mill at Baikalsk on Lake Baikal is the […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Lyubov Chizhova and Claire Bigg – June 5, 2013) On June 5, “green-minded” people around the planet are marking World Environment Day, created in 1972 to raise awareness about the need to protect nature. But in Russia, the mood among ecologists is sour. Russia established its own Ecologist Day, also held on June 5, six years […]
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(Interfax – June 5, 2013) Around 20 Russian major environmental non-governmental organizations (NGO) have received prosecutors’ requests to register as foreign agents. “Around 20 environmental organizations have received prosecutors’ requests. Those who sound familiar, who comprise the environmental movement and who are not of just regional importance have received the requests,” Director of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 27, 2013) The personnel of the SP-40 weather station, based on a split ice floe in the Arctic Ocean will be evacuated in mid-June, Natural Resources Minister Sergei Donskoi told reporters on Monday. An icebreaker will depart from Murmansk to collect the personnel and equipment. “If the mission goes as planned and the Yamal icebreaker keeps […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Marc Bennetts – May 2, 2013) Marc Bennetts is a British writer and journalist. He lives in Moscow and is author of “Football Dynamo”, a book on modern Russia and football published in 2008. The fertile territories around Voronezh have long been referred to as Russia’s ‘breadbasket’. They also hold the last major nickel reserves in Europe, and […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 12, 2013) The rare Siberian cranes that took a migration flight with President Vladimir Putin’s motorized deltaplane in the autumn of 2012, have not reintegrated with the wild over diplomats’ failure to come to terms on their hibernation in Uzbekistan, Vedomosti wrote on Friday citing the Flight of Hope project director, Alexander Sorokin. “Uzbekistan’s border service […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 12, 2013) It’s official: This past winter will down in history as one of the snowiest ever. An astounding 3 meters, 29 centimeters of snow fell on Moscow, more than double the average of 1.5 meters, Deputy Mayor Pyotr Biryukov said Friday. The snowfall hit another record on Feb. 12, when 30 centimeters of […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – RIA Novosti – April 1, 2013) World Wildlife Fund expert Alexei Kokorin comments on the latest Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations forecasts. Why is the climate in Russia and the U.S. changing twice as fast as anywhere else? By how many degrees will the temperature in the Arctic rise by 2050, and what […]
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MOSCOW. April 1 (Interfax) – Yury Neyelov, a member of the Arctic Council, former governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, and a senator, believes white bears may become extinct in 30-50 years. “The situation with the population of white bears currently causes serious concerns without exaggeration. According to the World Wildlife Fund, white bears may stop reproducing in 2-3 years, […]
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MOSCOW, March 20 (RIA Novosti) Temperatures in the Arctic will warm up twice as fast as in the rest of the world this century, Russian Emergency Situations Ministry has warned. “In the 21st century, the temperature in the Arctic the average [speed] of global warming will rise 2-2.5 times faster,” the ministry’s center responsible for monitoring meteorological trends, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Roland Oliphant – January 23, 2013) The government is preparing to allocate 100 billion rubles ($3.3 billion) to clean up pollution left over by Soviet-era industry. Natural Resources and Environment Minister Sergei Donskoi told President Vladimir Putin that a bill to allocate that sum as well as define responsibilities for cleaning up decades-old industrial waste […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Roland Oliphant – December 20, 2012) 2012 saw the climate-change-fueled dash for the Arctic’s riches dominate the environmental agenda. The debate over the high north, the annual nightmare of forest fires and continuing battles between activists and developers over roads, mines and the Sochi Olympics are only likely to intensify next year. Greenpeace activists stormed […]
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DOHA, December 6 (RIA Novosti) Russia reaffirmed on Thursday its decision to withdraw from the second period of commitment to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, but said it would stick to its goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent in the next decade. “In 2013, our country will begin implementation of its commitments to reduce greenhouse […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Alina Lobzina – Dec. 5, 2012) Muscovites are to brace for the coldest winter in 20 years, a weather forecast service warned on Wednesday. “It will be like in the good old times snowy and frosty, with no deviations,” a representative of the Fobos weather center told RIA Novosti. Winter seasons when Muscovites wade […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 22, 2012) With weather forecasters promising a rapid dip in Moscow’s temperature, traffic police urged drivers Monday not to delay installing winter tires on their cars ahead of an expected first frost. “With the arrival of fall, weather conditions have definitely become worse, which demands drivers be extra careful on the roads,” traffic police […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 18 (Interfax) – Russia should stay in the Kyoto Protocol; its possible secession will have negative consequences, Greenpeace Russia Program Director Ivan Blokov told Interfax on Thursday. “The Kyoto Protocol is important to Russia. The world will shift to a low-hydrocarbon economy just the same. If we disregard the Kyoto Protocol and keep using fossil fuel, we will […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Roland Oliphant – October 18, 2012) President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered a review of Russia’s involvement in the Kyoto Protocol, raising the possibility that the country could finally “wave goodbye” to the climate treaty altogether. “We have to admit that we did not get any special benefits from the Kyoto Protocol in the commercial sense,” […]
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(Interfax – October 3, 2012) Russian environmentalists have poured cold water on claims by the head of the country’s main security service that Al-Qa’idah was responsible for forest fires in a number of countries across the European Union over the summer. In remarks reported by the privately-owned Interfax news agency on 3 October, Aleksandr Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security […]
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Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Roland Oliphant – October 4, 2012 The Altai republic and Chechnya have the cleanest economies in Russia, according to a new index released Tuesday. The index, put together by WWF Russia and state-owned news agency RIA-Novosti with the support of the Russian Geographic Society, is one of the first attempts to combine environmental threat factors, […]
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