Russian heat wave dents hopes of climate "winners"

Russia's summer heat wave has dimmed prospects that northern countries will "win" from climate change thanks to factors such as longer crop-growing seasons or fewer deaths from winter cold, experts say.

Canada, Nordic countries and Russia have been portrayed as among a lucky few chilly nations where moderate climate change will mean net benefits such as lower winter heating bills, more forest and crop growth and perhaps more summer tourism.

Russia's two-month heat wave -- blamed on global warming by President Dmitry Medvedev (right) even though many experts say it is impossible to link individual weather events to climate change -- is likely to shift the perceptions of risks.

"There ought to be, coming out of this, a greater awareness that many hazards come with climate change," said Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

"It's not a matter of a benign shift to a longer growing season" for northern nations, he said. Russia's heat wave doubled death rates in Moscow, wrecked a quarter of Russia's grain crop and may cut $14 billion from gross domestic product.

Many people in Nordic nations and Canada have grown aware of possible damaging side-effects of less chill weather, including the risk to forests and crops of insect pests normally kept in check by winter frosts.

FUR COATS

But that belief is less widespread in Russia, where Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (right) has in the past sometimes spoken about benefits of global warming. As president, in 2002 he joked that less icy weather would enable Russians to buy fewer fur coats.

"By and large, Canadians understand that there may be benefits but climate change is going to be bad," said Steven Guilbeault, of Canadian environmental group Equiterre. Extreme weather in 2010 "is going to help people understand the risks."

He said government policy did not match the urgency felt by the public. Canada's greenhouse gas emissions were 24 percent above 1990 levels in 2008, despite a promise under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol to cut them to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

Russia's emissions were 33 percent below 1990 levels in 2008, partly due to the collapse of high-polluting Soviet industries, and well within its Kyoto goal of keeping emissions below 1990 levels by 2012.

Moscow plans to let emissions rise from current levels by 2020, despite pleas by many nations for a tougher goal.

A study in Norway in June showed farming and forestry could benefit from moderate global warming, blamed mainly on emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

"The immediate effects are in general benefits" to economic growth, said Asbjoern Aaheim, lead author at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo.

But there could be shocks, such as to fish stocks. And longer growing seasons were likely to have knock-on effects, such as more absence from work because of pollen-related illnesses.

Jay Gulledge, senior scientist at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said predictions of climate "winners" and "losers" inevitably ignored many risks, for instance on Russia from Pakistan's floods.

"Does Russia 'win' if the Taliban and other hard-line extremists step in to fill the void left by an ineffectual government and international aid response to the floods in Pakistan?" he asked in a blog.

Source:
Reuters, "Russian heat wave dents hopes of climate "winners"", accessed August 23, 2010

Fires rage in Russia, death tolls rises to 48

A boat travels along the Moskva River next to the Moscow Kremlin shrouded by heavy smog, August 4, 2010.

President Dmitry Medvedev broke off his summer holiday on Wednesday and flew back to Moscow for emergency talks as the death toll from Russia's deadliest wildfires in nearly four decades hit 48.

Thick clouds of acrid, choking smoke from forest and peat bog fires blanketed the capital. Authorities told residents to stay indoors despite the sweltering heat to avoid concentrations of toxic carbon monoxide well above safe levels.

Keen to stamp his authority on the government's response to the fires -- so far largely handled by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin -- Medvedev sacked several senior navy officers for failing to stop forest fires from ravaging a naval storage base outside Moscow last week and destroying valuable equipment.

"Despite the fact that we asked the Defense Ministry to help with extinguishing fires to help the civil population, in the majority of cases the ministry cannot (even) protect itself," Medvedev told officials in the Kremlin after returning from his Black Sea summer residence at Sochi.

The fires have swept through Russia's tinder-dry forests in the hottest summer since records began 130 years ago, leaving thousands homeless and prompting leaders to declare a state of emergency in seven of the worst hit regions.

Critics say the government has been slow to respond. They also allege that changes to the law rammed through parliament by the Kremlin and the timber lobby in 2006 fatally weakened fire protection in Russia's vast woodlands, the world's biggest.

"The situation with forest fires in the country has on the whole stabilized but remains tense and dangerous," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told officials during a visit to the southern region of Voronezh, one of the worst hit.

MONEY PLEDGE SOOTHES

Putin has promised the state will help rebuild all homes destroyed by the fires and has pledged generous compensation.

The prospect of government cash led a group of women to praise Russia's paramount leader when he visited a local hotel housing 155 people whose homes have burned down.

Residents thanked Putin for offering money and asked eagerly for details of compensation schemes, taking pictures of the premier on mobile phones as he spoke with them.

The visit to Voronezh contrasted sharply with a meeting in Nizhny Novgorod last Friday when villagers berated Putin, demanding immediate action to rebuild their homes.

Weeping women greeted Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as he visited Verkhnyaya Vereya, a village where all 341 homes were burned to the ground and five residents were killed in the blaze.

"We aren't asking for anything out of this world. We are just asking for a guarantee that we will be able to live here by winter," a woman resident said in footage shown on state Channel One television.

The village, one of three hamlets destroyed around Nizhny Novgorod, Russia's fifth-largest city some 300 miles (475

People search for belongings from their burned-out homes in the town of Voronezh, some 500 kilometers south of Moscow, on Saturday. (Mikhail Metzel/Associated Press)

kilometers) east of Moscow, looked like a ghost town coated in gray ash.

"Before winter, each house will be restored," Putin told the distressed crowd. "I promise - the village will be rebuilt.", adding that the standard compensation of 50,000 rubles ($A1834) per household for loss of possessions would be increased to 200,000 rubles ($A7341) per resident.

Putin flew into the village of Verkhnyaya Vereya on Friday morning after more than 500 residents were left homeless by a fire.

In characteristic strongman style, he was shown facing residents, his sleeves rolled up and meeting with Emergency Minister Sergei Shoigu, where he ordered officials "not to get tied up in red tape".

Television reports showed a central street with all the houses razed to brick foundations and evacuated residents sheltering in a children's summer camp.

"I was at home, I couldn't breathe, the houses were burning, and I couldn't see anything," Valentina Britova, an elderly woman in a headscarf, told the Rossiya television channel.

Some 170,000 people including troops were battling at least 520 fires raging on Wednesday over an area of 1,885 sq km, the Emergencies Ministry said.

The wildfires are Russia's deadliest since 1972, when at least 104 people died in Moscow region alone in forest and peat fires that destroyed an area of 100,000 square km of the then Soviet Union, the ministry said.

A record heatwave has engulfed central parts of European Russia since mid June, ruining much of the wheat crop in some areas and raising fears that a poor harvest in the world's third largest wheat exporter could push up global food prices.

The economy showed the first signs of damage from the heatwave, with the services sector expanding in July at its slowest pace in four months.

German carmaker Volkswagen said that due to smoke from the fires, it had temporarily halted production at a factory in Kaluga, southwest of Moscow, that produced 48,500 cars last year.

MOSCOW SMOKE

Moscow, a city of 10.5 million, was shrouded in acrid smoke.

"The pollution is at the worst level since 2002 and is approaching those levels," Alexei Popikov, an expert on air quality at Moscow's pollution monitoring agency, stated.

The carbon monoxide count in Moscow soared to 5.7 times safe levels overnight and Russia's top lung doctor warned residents are inhaling the equivalent of 40 cigarettes every few hours.

City dwellers complained of waking with headaches and sore throats. Shops have run out of fans and some residents have taken to wearing masks over their mouths in the street.

The forest fires and scorching temperatures have complicated operations for Russia's large and aging nuclear sector.

A reactor at the Novovoronezh power station was shut down on Wednesday because transformers broke due to high air temperatures. Other reactors at the station were working normally, state nuclear corporation Rosatom said.

More than 2,100 firefighters were battling fires near a secretive nuclear research center at Sarov in Nizhny Novgorod province, where the first Soviet atom and hydrogen bombs were designed, about 350 km (220 miles) east of Moscow.

Source:
Reuters, "Fires rage in Russia, death toll rises to 48", accessed August 4, 2010
CBS News, "Russia Mobilizes Army To Fight Fires That Kill 25", accessed August 4, 2010

Smog blankets Moscow on city's hottest day

People walk along Red Square,
with St. Basil's Cathedral seen
through heavy smog caused
by peat fires in out-of-city
forests, in Moscow, July 26, 2010.

Moscow sweltered on Monday through its hottest day since records began 130 years ago, as temperatures hit 37.4 degrees Celsius (99.3 degrees Farenheit) sparking 34 peat fires and 26 forest fires that blanketed the city in smog.

A heatwave has engulfed central parts of European Russia, and
Siberia since June, destroying crops covering an area the size of Portugal. Green groups, including Greenpeace, say the temperatures are evidence of global warming.

"The all-time record has been broken, we have never recorded a day this hot before," said Gennady Yeliseyev, deputy head of Russia's state weather agency. The previous high of 36.8 degrees Celsius was recorded on August 7, 1920, he said.

"The new record could be broken by Wednesday," he said. 

A dome of Christ the Saviour
Cathedral is seen through
heavy smog, caused by peat
fires in out-of-city forests,
in Moscow, July 26, 2010.

Muscovites have struggled to deal with the heat, with most electronics retailers selling out of fans and air conditioners, and many cafes running out of ice and cold beer by early afternoon.

Women were using golf umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun on Red Square. Bloggers have begun to complain of men traveling with bare torsos on the metro.

"This summer is very hard, physically and emotionally," said accountant Marina Veselkova, trying to cool off by a fountain in front of Bolshoi Theater after sending her children to relatives in the country.

"It's very bad," said Alexander, a courier. "I go to the beach at the weekends but it's difficult to swim because the water is so hot."

CROPS SUFFER

Russian grain prices shot up last week on advancing drought . The Agriculture Ministry said late on Friday that by July 22 drought had killed crops over 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles), an area larger than Portugal.

Muscovites' discomfort was compounded on Monday by a blanket of smog, whose sharp, cinder-filled smell permeated the city and crept into offices, homes and restaurants via windows and doors.

The emergencies ministry said 34 peat fires and 26 forest fires were blazing on Monday in the area surrounding Moscow, covering 59 hectares (145 acres) although in a late report Pravada reported that specialists had reported

A tower of the Moscow Kremlin
(in the foreground) is seen through
heavy smog, caused by peat fires
in out-of-city forests, July 26, 2010.

63 forest fires taking place on the outskirts of the city on the total square of 71 hectares.

"Muscovites will have to inhale smoke for another two to two and a half months," said Alexei Yaroshenko, head of the forest program at Greenpeace Russia. He said the smoke could eclipse the worst smog registered in Moscow, in 1872 and 1837.  Russia's Chief Therapist Alexander Chuchalin recommends Muscovites and residents of other territories should stay outside as short a time as possible.

Summer temperatures in Moscow have already set nine records in just 1.5 months.

Airports serving Moscow were unaffected by the smoke.

Vessels move along the
Moskva River shrouded by
heavy smog, caused by
peat fires in out-of-city
forests, in Moscow,
July 26, 2010

"This is awful. It is going to damage people's health," said telephone engineer Davit Manukov, 25, standing by the Kremlin where black clouds of smoke enveloped its golden onion domes.

The Moscow government agency overseeing air pollution, Moseko monitoring, stated that the amount of harmful impurities in Moscow's air exceeded the norm by 5-8 times.

The elderly and those suffering from heart disease should try and avoid contact with the smog, said its chief specialist Alexei Popikov, adding that the levels of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide were high.

Source:
Reuters, "Smog blankets Moscow on city's hottest day", accessed July 28, 2010