Putin’s Meeting with Government members – climate

With hopes that we can discuss this without feathers flying and hitting one another with hard ideology clubs.  It is time to rediscuss these issues.

President Putin had a meeting with his government members basically on internal Russia issues.  I would not call it a ‘must-read’ as it focused on internal Russia and what we are about is more the geo-political picture.  What shone through however, is the increasing number of disasters, floods and fires.  I focused on Mr Putin’s comments, to gather an idea of what the climate concepts are in modern Russia.  So, this post consists of quotes by Mr Putin, that explains their formal stance. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/72050

Quotes:

Vladimir Putin: This year, the average temperature on the planet reached 17.24 C degrees for the first time. This broke the record of 2016, when it was 16.9. Fires are breaking out everywhere, and unfortunately, we have them here, too. Fires on one side and floods on the other.

Mr Kurenkov, how is the response effort going in this area?

Alexander Kurenkov: Mr President,

Since the beginning of the year, over 11,000 wildfires have been recorded in the Russian Federation affecting a total area of over 4 million hectares. With a slight increase in the number of fires, the area effected by them this year exceeds last year’s figures by almost one and a half times.

According to Aerial Forest Protection Service, today there are 169 forest fires burning across the country with more than 330,000 hectares affected. Of these, 30 outbreaks, or only 17 percent, have been contained. At the same time, five forest fires on an area of 308 hectares broke out within five kilometres of settlements. Over the past 24 hours, 31 fires broke out affecting an area of over 900 hectares. At the same time, 125 fires were extinguished on a total area of more than 250,000 hectares.

Mr President,

The Government Commission on Emergency Prevention, Response and Fire Safety has declared the situation in the forests of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the Khabarovsk Territory and the Amur Region an interregional emergency. The forecast for developments remains unfavourable.

The forces and means of the Russian Emergencies Ministry are involved in protecting settlements from the spreading fire. The Emergencies Ministry is also using its aviation capacity. Over the past 24 hours, six aircraft have been used to extinguish wildfires and relocate crews.

In the Nadym district of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area, a Be-200 aircraft made 30 discharges and dropped 117 tonnes of water. In total, since the beginning of the wildfire season, Emergencies Ministry’s planes have made more than 1,900 sorties, transported over 5,000 people and more than 4,000 tonnes of cargo, and made over 3,000 discharges of water exceeding 23,000 tonnes.

Now for the situation with floods.

Since the beginning of August, as a result of heavy precipitation, there have been significant rises in water levels in the rivers of the Far East. The most difficult situation has developed in the Primorye Territory, where residential buildings, household plots and roads were in the flood zone, and transport links and power supply were disrupted in 71 settlements. Today, the water level in most settlements is decreasing.

In the past 24 hours, 2,378 residential buildings, almost 2,500 household land plots and five sections of roads have been relieved from water. In 18 settlements, 567 houses and 754 household plots, as well as 19 sections of roads remain flooded. Work is underway to restore power supply in three municipalities.

Vladimir Putin: We have hot weather not only in the European part of the country, but also in Siberia: it is +35C degrees in many regions. Mr Kozlov, what is the forecast?

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov: Good afternoon, Mr President, Mr Prime Minister, colleagues.

The phenomena of weather extremes is increasing every year, and records are being broken around the world almost every month. There was abnormal heat in Krasnoyarsk in July, and drought in the Volga Region and Siberia, and this is not the end of it.

The forecast through the end of August shows extreme heat in 11 regions: Kalmykia, the Stavropol Territory, the Krasnodar Territory, the Rostov Region, Astrakhan, Ryazan and all regions in the Black Earth belt. In addition to the heat, this summer was marked by typhoons and pouring rains that flooded the Irkutsk Region, the Krasnodar Territory, Crimea, and the Primorye Territory a week ago, as my colleague reported.

And what would I like to say? Since the beginning of the year, 544 dangerous hydrometeorological phenomena have been recorded in Russia alone. Last year, there were 438 of them during the same period, and most of these dangerous phenomena have been predicted accurately: over 96 percent of warnings given by Roshydromet were accurate.

Weather conditions that go from one extreme to another are caused by global climate change. Incidentally, Russian academician Mikhail Budyko was among the first to predict this in the 1970s. Over the past 50 years, each decade has been warmer than the previous one. This is due to the fast build-up in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity.

For example, the concentration of carbon dioxide alone has climbed 50 percent over the past 200 years and in combination with other gasses this has led to increases in the average global temperature by 1.15 degrees. People will not really notice this in daily life, but of course, this brings about serious changes in the life of the planet, like heat waves, alternating periods of abundant and scarce precipitation and the rising of global sea levels, which, according to statistics, has risen by 9 centimetres over the past 30 years.

Global temperatures will continue to rise, at least, until the middle of this century. Even with all taps turned off and manufacturing suspended, global warming will continue because the climate system is inertial.

The international academic community says it is highly likely that there will be more tropical cyclones and hurricanes. The situation with floods in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe and South America will be worsening. Some island states, particularly in the Pacific and Indian oceans, and in the Caribbean, are threatened with complete submersion. Droughts and water shortages will be an increasingly common phenomena in the Mediterranean, Central Asia, America and Africa.

Scientists forecast that in Russia, the river run-off in Siberia and the Far East will be increasing while in the south, including the entire Don River catchment area, on the contrary, the stream flow will be depleting. For example, water shortages in Kalmykia will become worse.

Permafrost occupies two-thirds of our country. Certainly, global warming will be affecting it, putting at risk buildings, utility lines and people’s comfort. Mr President, in keeping with your instructions, this year we have launched a state-run background system for monitoring permafrost to understand what is going on beneath the surface and try to preclude the likely implications for social and economic infrastructure. In the next three years, we plan to build 140 monitoring stations across the country, which will supply data to scientists for analysis.

Still, I would like to say that our country is better positioned than other countries. Our advantage is the large territory and the diversity of climatic conditions. For instance, in agriculture, it will be possible to use late-ripening varieties of produce that yield a good harvest, and it will be easier to deliver food and goods to the areas in the extreme North.

Mr President, what’s happening to the climate now and what will happen in the next decades is inevitable. No matter how hard humanity tries to decrease the volume of greenhouse gas emissions, these actions will only influence the climate in the second half of the century, which is very important for the generations to come but completely insufficient for the population now. Today, measures are needed to adapt all spheres of economic activity.

Our scientific and research institutes, such as Roshydromet Main Geophysical Observatory and the RAS Institute of Computational Mathematics are already running climate change scenarios for each region. This information needs to be introduced into the planning of construction and repairs of various facilities.

Knowing about potential floods, we can build dams or make decisions to relocate people permanently and think about building flood control channels when preparing for a drought. For example, under Mr Mishustin’s instructions, we are already carrying out a construction and technical expert evaluation in Kalmykia. So, we will begin construction right after we finish this.

We are predicting the thawing of the permafrost, and it will be necessary to strengthen underground lines and connections. According to the Ministry of Economic Development, as of July, only 59 regions have approved their adaptation plans. This is exactly the document under which, I believe, it is possible to respond and quickly get ahead of these events.

The dialogue between science and government is the foundation of the Federal Scientific and Technical Programme on environmental development and climate change. Last year, under your instruction issued at the Council for Science and Education, we started implementing an innovative project of national importance, called the Unified National Monitoring System for Climatically Active Substances.

One of its key objectives, but not the only one, is to obtain reliable data for making climate forecasts and for defending Russia’s position, including in international climate disputes, because climate apprehension can only be dealt with through balanced and conscientious behaviour.

For example, today, scientists have already made initial measurements of methane concentration, improved methods for monitoring ozone using Russian satellites, and much more.

Mr President, thank you for your attention. My report is over.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

I think that, of course, we should keep in mind what the Minister has just said. Of course, we need to think about the next generations, but we need to adapt to today’s inevitable changes. I support what the Minister said, Mr Kozlov is right: we must consider this in our construction plans, during repair work, and so on, in our everyday lives.

From those selected quotes, we can see that Russia is actively working on climate remediation and adaptation, and they are considering a warming cycle, and not a cooling cycle.  The permafrost is really melting.

We of course know that climate as a subject has gathered a large money contingent who wants to create climate as a commodity and make people pay for having a barbecue or something equally small.  The actual problem is bigger than that, whether your ecology is a cooling cycle or a warming cycle.

Has anyone seen interesting science that does not buy into the clearly mob-driven and financially hijacked polarities of climate change?

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