A Warming Siberia: the Russian Prelude to our Climate Quagmire

Climate change — the globe’s elephant in the room. The equivalent of politicians’ essay due tomorrow: the annoying problem that they know is probably the most important at hand, but have no motivation to start addressing at all. And like many of us students facing such deadlines, they put minimal effort into ‘em, cook a half-baked piece and deem it a closed matter. This is, unfortunately, true for many nations to this day. I will get back to this.

However, some may see certain countries with higher altitudes as less prone to the dreaded effects of climate change. And with it, an intriguing perspective regarding perhaps the most representative “high-altitude” country of them all – Russia, has gained traction. The viewpoint goes as follows: Russia will be positively affected by climate change, in both economic and political terms.

Here I seek to examine this unique viewpoint, by highlighting the current climate phenomena in Russia, the authorities’ response, with a particular focus on Asian Russia, and give my thoughts on it.

The Situation at Hand 

A figure that has been cited many times is that Russia is warming up at 2.5 times the global rate (Newlin & Conley, 2021). And this effect is most severe in nowhere but Siberia (Hantemirov et al., 2022). In July 2023, Reuters captured incredible footage (Papachristou, 2023) of the ever-growing Batagaika crater, located in the town of Batagay, of the Sakha Republic of Russia. The crater has formed as a result of continuing and accelerating permafrost melting across Russia, and has sunk 1 mile below ground as of 2023 (Adalian, 2023). Permafrost melting is expected to release humongous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere (Papachristou, 2023), which may hasten further climate disasters in the region, such as extreme temperatures reaching 38°C in parts of Siberia within the Arctic Circle (Hantemirov et al., 2022).Recently, rampant wildfires across Siberia are affecting Sahka, as well as other regions including the Khabarovsk, Amur, Krasnoyarsk (Faulconbridge, 2023), Tyumen, Kurgan, Omsk and Primorye regions (Sauer, 2023). If this warming trend is to continue, the Ural republics and the Russian Far East can expect more devastation for the region in the decades to come. 

Official Policy

Despite all this, Moscow does not really have a climate policy. While Russia is formally part of many international environment treaties, such as the Montreal Protocol, the Kyoto protocol and the Paris agreement (President of Russia, 2023), Russia has been doubtful of renewable energy (Newlin & Conley, 2021) and phasing out fossil fuels (Pudovkin, 2023). Russia has set out goals of becoming carbon neutral by 2060 and make greenhouse gas emissions fall below 70% of 1990 levels, which have been criticised by climate experts as modest targets that would be insufficient to meet the “1.5°C” criteria of the Paris Agreement (Pudovkin, 2023). It has been noted that the latter objective is achievable even if Russia increases its emissions year-on-year, due to 1990 emission levels being astonishingly high (Newlin & Conley, 2021). Therefore, Russia may increase its oil and coal production, allow car makers to produce vehicle engines with lower environmental standards than the EU, shelving regional carbon-neutral experiments (Pudovkin, 2023) and still claim to be in line with its climate policy. This begs the question: what is the reason for this? 

A long breakdown of its own would be needed to answer this. Here I am going to focus on one of the reasons: the aforementioned “Russia winning climate change “ take, which has been backed by some Russian officials (Newlin & Conley, 2021). 

Climate change is going to do a lot to the nation. Aside from warming on-land temperatures and pertinent permafrost thawing, the waters of the arctic ocean will freeze over less months of the year, or perhaps not at all. What this leads to are 4 advantages Russia may be able to capitalise on. To begin with, warmer temperatures in sparsely-populated Siberia makes it an ideal host for future climate refugees, which will increase the country’s productivity along with its population (Real Life Lore, 2021). In addition, a warmer Siberia and permafrost melting creates more arable land, which may cement Russia’s status as the world’s bread basket (Fleischer, 2014). Another point to note is the increased accessibility of natural resources originally buried under permafrost, including minerals and fossil fuels ​​(Akram, 2024), no doubt yet another massive boost to the Russian Economy. The greatest benefit of climate change for Russia, however, may be the year-round opening of the Northern Sea Route, that some call the Arctic Silk Road (Goldstein, 2023), which crosses much of Russia’s Exclusive Economic Zone, and is notably shorter than the trade route currently taken by Eurasian trade vessels. This will not only allow easier exportation of said Russian grain, minerals and energy, but also allow transit tolls to be charged, and the development of many trading ports along the Russian Arctic Coastline (Real Life Lore, 2021). This may allow Russia to expand its influence on the global economy by several magnitudes, and place Russia in a stronger geopolitical position than ever before. With this, we may see how some do not perceive climate change as a hindrance to Russian development, but a blessing, and how politics may shift that way accordingly. 

The Human Cost

I suggest a break from looking at how climate change will affect Russia in 50 years. Instead, how climate change is affecting Russia now, especially underrepresented regions east of the Urals, in Siberia and the Russian Far East, deserves its long underpaid attention. 

Locals have named the Batagaika crater the “gateway to hell”  (Papachristou, 2023). While an imaginative name inspired by its unmissable shape, the name also invokes and implies fear: fear of something so unnaturally and catastrophically looking, and fear that this may soon be knocking their doors. Over 15 million Russians live on permafrost foundations, and they may be in danger as global warming rages on. infrastructures have already been threatened or damaged, and such costs may mount up to $97 billion by 2050 (Shemetov, 2021). While permafrost melting may free up more arable land in the long run, that is not the case right now, as Russia continues to experience the opposite (Newlin & Conley, 2021). And Russia has even more climate problems such as droughts, floods, monsoons and heatwaves (The Moscow Times, 2023) affecting many more millions of people. 

It must be noted the impact dealt on the indigenous peoples located in Asian Russia. A melting Arctic and thawing earth inevitably disrupts their way of life, as lakes dry up, fish stocks take a hit and forest fires keep emerging time and time again (Scollon, 2020). Climate Scorecard reports how indigenous people’s homes were flooded following permafrost melting in Sahka, and late freezing of lakes and rivers are causing more drownings to occur in the Tomsk region (Stambler, 2020). Yet Moscow seems to have done more to exacerbate their predicament, than to help them out of it. NGOs representing their climate concerns have been shunned as foreign agents (Stambler, 2020), while melting ice in the Arctic has only been seen as an opportunity for more oil and gas extraction, which makes it two problems on two fronts that would hurt the locals’ lifestyle (Scollon, 2020). 

Closing Thoughts

With all the above in mind, I suggest a more cautious view of Russia and climate change. What this optimistic narrative does very well is explain the scientific and geological impacts of climate change on Russian territory. What it does not do, however, is account for other existing factors. For this vision to be realised, an assumption of ceteris paribus is advisable, and Russia offers no such guarantee. Despite heavy investments by Russia and China on the Northern sea route, not much traffic uptake has been seen in recent years, largely down to worsening diplomatic relations between Russia and Western economies (Goldstein, 2023). Western decoupling with Russia has thrusted into action since 2022, with countries seeking to diversify imports, and reduce their energy and food dependence on the behemoth nation, a process that is surely to continue economically and politically. But external elements represent only one side of the coin. While Moscow has increasingly clamped down on all forms of public dissent, including environmental activism, in the last decade, protests have only increased since then (Newlin & Conley, 2021). And inaction will certainly aggravate public anger. Russia could address massive environment-related problems of energy inefficiency and forest fires, without interfering with its muted climate policy at all, but as of late 2023, climatologist Alexei Kokorin is still calling for implementations of any solutions to mitigate these issues (The Moscow Times, 2023). Frustrations may be even greater among Asian Russians, who have suffered disproportionate military drafts as part of Moscow’s “partial mobilisation” policy, which some interpret as the latest footnote in a legacy of discrimination. This long-standing grudge, coupled with climate-induced developments, may only fuel further disillusionment with the state, and perhaps, unrest. A combination of external pressure, and possible internal instability, cast doubt on the idea of Russia as a future hegemon. 

Ultimately, it is no surprise that Russia, a nation economically dependent on oil and gas exports, would be less enthusiastic about curbing climate change. I simply find it regrettable that the consequences of bureaucrats merely paying lip service to one of the greatest challenges to our future must be borne by the people, especially one of the least represented, known, and thought-of groups in the world. I advise all those who know little about the myriad of peoples in Asian Russia, whether it be the Tuvans, the Aleuts or the Yakuts, to learn more about them, before climate change can do anything to them.

Bibliography

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