The Economist USA - 21.09.2019

(Barré) #1
The EconomistSeptember 21st 2019 57

1

F


irstcamefiresthatturnedtheSiberian
skiesintoa wallofsolidsmokestretch-
ing for thousands of kilometres. Then
camea droughtthatsuckedtheLenariver
nearlydry,leavingboatsmaroonedinthe
mud.It hasbeenanarduoussummerinYa-
kutia,anicyrepublicinRussia’sfareast.
Addtothatthefactthattheregionalcapi-
tal,Yakutsk,standsuponthawingperma-
frostthatwarpsroadsandbuildings,and
climateinactionbecomeshardtodefend.
“I’velivedheremywholelife,I remember
whatthewinterusedtobelike,andwhat
it’slikenow,”saysSardanaAvksenteva,Ya-
kutsk’smayor.“Icanconfirmthatglobal
warming is a problem.”
Some 1,000km (600 miles) to the north,
on the republic’s Arctic coast, the dying
town of Tiksi would beg to differ. From its
frozen vantage-point, warming has been a

boon.Arcticseaiceisnowrecedingatan
alarming rate. In 1980 it covered 7.9m
squarekilometres(3msquaremiles)atits
summer minimum,whereaslast year it
dippedtoonly4.6m.SotheNorthernSea
Route(nsr) throughonce-impassablewa-
tershasemergedasa potentialglobalship-
pingartery.TheRussiangovernmenthas
pledged to direct some 735bn roubles
($11bn)overthenextsixyearstowardsits
development.Therouteholdsthepromise

of cutting delivery times between Asia and
Europe by weeks, compared with going by
the much longer Suez Canal route—with
Russia poised to take a healthy cut for help-
ing the cargo through. Tiksi has seen a new
military base go up. It is in the running for a
2.5bn-rouble port project.
This tension between catastrophe and
opportunity has shaped the contours of the
climate-change debate in the world’s
fourth-largest carbon-emitter. Russia has
signed but has not ratified the Paris agree-
ment, making it the only large emitter out-
side the pact (though President Donald
Trump has said he intends to withdraw
America from its strictures). It is not only
the world’s second-largest producer of oil
and gas combined, it also possesses ice-
locked coasts and a vast, underpopulated
hinterland which, some argue, could use
the boost brought by a few degrees of
warming. At an Arctic forum in 2017, Vladi-
mir Putin called climate change “a factor
that bolsters optimism”, adding that it
“provides more favourable conditions for
economic activity in this region”. He once
quipped that climate change would enable
Russians to spend less money on fur coats.
Yet the downsides are proving harder to
ignore, as Mr Putin himself acknowledged
at a g20 summit this summer. Russia is
warming more than twice as rapidly as the

Climatechange

A warmerRussia


MOSCOWANDYAKUTSK
Nobadthing,reckonsomeRussians,especiallyinfrozenSiberia

Europe


58 AnotherSpanishelectionbeckons
59 Italy’sDemocratssplit
59 Albania’snewNATO airbase
60 Germancoal
61 Charlemagne: The plight of the olive

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