This paper does not represent US Government views.
Executive Summary
Russia is already experiencing the impacts of climate change in the form of milder winters; melting permafrost; changing precipitation patterns; the spread of disease; and increased incidence of drought, flooding, and other extreme weather events. Many of these observed climate impacts are having concrete, negative effects on Russians’ quality of life. By 2030, Russia will start to feel the impacts of climate change in relation to both water and food supply. Nonetheless, a significant portion of the country’s senior leaders continue to voice the view that a warming climate is a net benefit for Russia. Russia has a number of attributes that provide a greater capacity for resilience than some other industrialized countries and most developing countries. However, as the impacts of climate change continue and intensify over the coming years, Russia’s capacity to adapt and protect its people will be severely tested.
The most important impacts of climate change in Russia will likely include the following:
- Energy. A warming climate holds the possibility of milder and shorter heating seasons, which in turn may lead to reduced Russian energy demand. Increased water availability—particularly along those Siberian rivers that are used for hydroelectric power—should result in increased power production in certain parts of the country. However, existing and future energy infrastructure for the all-important petroleum industry will experience more pronounced challenges— structural subsidence, risks associated with river crossings, and construction difficulties as permafrost thaws earlier and deeper, impeding the construction of vital new production areas. These latter challenges have the potential for a material, negative impact on the single-greatest source of revenue to the Russian state—the oil and gas industry.
- Water. Many parts of Russia’s massive territory will experience increases in the availability of water, including much of Siberia, the Far North, and northwestern Russia. This change will bring certain positive impacts—including for hydroelectric generation (above). However, managing the increased flows will pose other problems, especially when these increased flows coincide with extreme weather events such as downpours, or springtime ice-clogged floods. In addition, increasing water shortages are predicted for southern parts of European Russia, areas that already experience significant socioeconomic and sociopolitical stresses. Moreover, a number of densely populated Russian regions that are already subject to water shortages are expected to face even more pronounced difficulties in decades to come.
- Agriculture. As growing seasons become longer and precipitation patterns change, using lands for agricultural purposes that previously would have been too far north—too cold for too much of the year—will become possible. Raising new crops and new varieties of crops that are currently grown in Russia also could become possible. However, a changing climate may not be hospitable to expanded agriculture. A key question is whether the longer growing seasons and the warmer Russian agricultural lands will result in increased yields. Yields of existing crops may fail and whether new crops will succeed remains to be seen. Agriculture will become more reliant on irrigation (especially in the southern parts of European
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This paper does not represent US Government views.
