"An increase of two or three degrees wouldn't be so bad for a northern country like Russia. We could spend less on fur coats, and the grain harvest would go up."
– Vladimir Putin, Russian President, October 2003
Climate change has many losers: Dutch, Africans, and Floridians to name a few. But does it have any winners? These days many are looking at Russia a little differently. Russia may have reason not to participate in any post-Kyoto agreement and its scientists may be reluctant sign off on certain parts of the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
Energy
Essential to our lifestyle and economy, energy is a $2 trillion industry (in sales), and the combination of growing population and per capita consumption has it at $3 trillion by 2020. But supply is less certain. One problem is that many of the global suppliers are the poster children of instability. And some experts think the world's oil supply may be near a peak similar to the Hubberts Peak in the US in the early 1970s when supply plateaued and then declined. From a climate perspective, burning oil is bad, burning oil’s substitutes like coal and tar sands1 is far worse.
Spanning 11 time zones, Russia is a geographic monster almost twice the size of the world’s second largest country, Canada. Russia has 6.2% of the world’s proved oil reserves, ranking seventh behind the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, the UAE and Kuwait), and Venezuela.* With natural gas, Russia is the top dog with 26% of proved reserves, with Qatar and Iran at 14% each. Russia is the energy Tsar.
More importantly, Russia knows how to work its energy assets. Some fret that Russia, still smarting from its hitherto obedient Warsaw Pact underlings joining NATO, could use energy to drive wedges between European states. Largely robbed of the full value of its natural resources after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia is now tightening control over its energy assets. Gazprom, for instance, now controls the Sakhalin operation north of Japan (from Royal Dutch Shell). Russia has also renegotiated prices with the Ukraine, Georgia and, most recently, Belarus (which in turn affected Germany and Poland). On one hand, Russia’s tightening could push Europe, especially eastern Europe, back to energy-intensive, high-polluting, low-grade lignite coal. On the other, it gives Western Europe additional incentive to get off of fossil fuels.
Climate
Politically, Russia’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol2 on November 18, 2004 put the CO2 emissions minimum of signatories over the 55% minimum, and thus enabled the treaty to be put into force on February 16, 2005.
Scientifically, Siberia’s melting permafrost is releasing significant levels of methane, which had been frozen between 12,000 and 40,000 years into the atmosphere, further increasing the thickness of the greenhouse blanket enveloping the Earth. Methane is 23 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but has a much shorter shelf life of around 20 years (carbon dioxide can stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years). Some scientists believe this release of methane (which is a positive feedback) may be the equivalent to all of the CO2 from US cars, power plants and other US-based anthropogenic sources.
Russia has been in the news too, as a relative climate change winner. Like most of the world, Russia will experience more chaotic weather, increased disease and damaged building, road and rail foundations from the heaving of the ground due to the melting permafrost. It will likely loose St Petersburg to rising seas.
But unlike many countries, Russia has upsides:
· Expanded Shipping Lanes – The shipping industry will be able to use new shortcuts along the north coast of North America and the north coast of Russia. A newly navigable Arctic could cut thousands of miles off the journey between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
· Access to More Resources – While America, Canada, Denmark and Norway are all arguing about access, the United States Geological Service says about one-quarter of the world’s undiscovered energy reserves may be in the Arctic…and Russia isn’t losing any time. It will be launching the world’s biggest offshore gas field, Shtokman, 300 miles off its northern coast. And in keeping with Putin’s tight control, Shtakman will be a Gazprom-only endeavor.
· Increased Agriculture – 2006 saw world grain stockpiles drop 20% due to drought in the US, and in particular, Australia, as well as an infestation of beetles in the Ukraine. Many biota zones are moving north. Russia (and Canada) could find the world breadbaskets migrating favorably northward due to better temperatures and increased CO2 (which fertilizes up to a certain level through photosynthesis), sorghum, corn and sugarcane. Higher temperatures in lower latitudes may adversely affect the respiration process, though soils are generally not as favorable further north.
· Fewer Deaths from cold – While millions more may die from increased heat in Africa, the Americas and Western Europe, and while more will die worldwide from spread of disease, Russia will have fewer deaths from cold. And given that temperatures are rising faster in the higher latitudes, much of Russia’s hitherto frozen north could become very livable.
The US and the West may have won the cold war, but the playing field is changing again, and Russia seems especially well positioned.
1When including tar sands, Canada holds at least 1.7 trillion barrels, and Venezuela, in its Orinoco fields, has 1.8 trillion barrels, in comparison to 1.75 trillion barrels of traditional oil worldwide. Tar sands are extremely dirty and water hogs.
2The Kyoto Accord requires most industrial countries to reduce their CO2 emissions between 2008 and 2012 to a level 5% below their 1990 levels. It also provides carbon trading and clean development mechanisms where developed countries can work with developing countries to lower emissions.