Fires, floods (and even bugs) are challenging Russia's
stance on the climate crisis
By Mary Ilyushina and Frederik Pleitgen, CNN
Updated 0523 GMT (1323 HKT) August 6, 2019
Giant sinkholes appear as wildfires rage near Siberia
Yakutsk, Russia (CNN)Landing in Yakutsk, six time zones east
of Moscow, the first thing you see and smell is thick, acrid smoke.
This is one of the coldest inhabited places on Earth, and
just one of the dozens of Russian cities choked by the wildfires that have been
ravaging the Arctic this season at unprecedented levels.
"These past weeks it's been impossible to breathe, the
smoke is coming from the woods all around us, so we were all warned to stay
inside," said Murtaz, a local taxi driver, as he drove past a lookout
point of the smog-filled city. "But the bugs are the worst -- literally
hundreds of them are fleeing the fire and swarming all over you."
Alaska and Canada have also been affected by wildfires. But
in Russia the smoke from thousands of kilometers of burning forest has spread
over almost half of the country and even reached the west coast of the United
States.
Fires in Siberian taiga forests happen annually, but they
now have global implications. In the last three years alone, the area affected
by forest fires has tripled, spewing megatons of greenhouse emissions into the
atmosphere, according to official Russian estimates.
So as Siberia
heats up, it has potential to accelerate global warming. But the Russian
response has been slow. Authorities here at first decided not to put the fires
out unless they pose a direct threat to settlements as it would be "economically
unsound." In other words, local budgets were too constrained.
Complicating matters is the extraordinary logistical burden
of working in the vast, undeveloped expanses of eastern Russia. Getting to
hard-to-reach forest fires requires a lot of people, aircraft and fuel.
But forest fires are only one part of the cascading effects
of climate change. Rising global temperatures, scientists say, are tied to
deforestation. Timber is a major Russian export, particularly to
resource-hungry China. But as loggers move in, environmental activists say
their clearcutting allows vital topsoil to wash away, weakening the ability of
the earth to hold extra moisture -- and making the region vulnerable to
flooding.
Northern parts of the Irkutsk region were hit by wildfires
before its southern areas could recover from deadly floods which took 25 lives
and displaced over 30,000 people this June.
The area hasn't experienced floods this strong in years, and
is not used to having them this time of the year either. Researchers at Irkutsk
State University said the flooding was caused by "anomalous atmospheric
processes taking place amid global and regional climate change," warning
that Siberia is bound to experience even more weather extremes in the future.
Climate change at the 'Gateway to Hell'
While the surface of eastern Russia is on fire and flooding,
its foundation is literally melting away. Two thirds of the country sit on
permafrost, which is degrading rapidly, puncturing places like the Yakutia
region with giant sinkholes.
The biggest known one is the Batagai crater, another
thousand kilometers north of Yakutsk. Locals dubbed the gaping hole in the
permafrost the "Gateway to Hell."
Global climate change is often imperceptible. But at the
Batagai sinkhole, you can witness the effects in near-real time.
What sounds like heavy rain from afar is in fact water
streaming down the walls of a giant black glacier. This is the sound of melting
permafrost. Cracking is audible as ice and frozen earth break loose and falling
hundreds of meters from the edges of the crater.
"At first we thought that some meteorite fell here but
turns out it was all human factor," says local resident Erel Struchkov.
"It used to be a logging area, then people made a little pathway, which
turned into a little creek and then, bit by bit, it grew into this massive
thing."
Related: Greenland's ice sheet just lost 11 billion tons of
ice -- in one day
And it keeps growing -- about 10-15 meters sink each year.
The locals are worried it might envelop their village, and that other holes
could endanger more populated areas, where much of the infrastructure sits
precariously on permafrost.
"This is massive social issue," said Alexander
Fedorov, the lead scientist at Yakutsk Permafrost Institute. "The
infrastructure -- buildings, gas lines, water pipes, railroads, roads -- is
decaying which comes at a big cost."
And that's where the forest fires are also raising alarms.
According to Fedorov, areas where the permafrost sits under trees -- both
untouched -- are much less prone to degradation.
Dependence on fossil fuels
Russian President Vladimir Putin has already ordered the
military to send planes and helicopters to help fight the inferno. The fires
even took on a geopolitical dimension last week, after US President Donald
Trump also offered to send help.
For now, the Russian government is tentatively acknowledging
the effects of climate change. Putin paid a visit to Irkutsk flood victims on
his way to the G20 summit in Osaka in June, where he delivered a message about
climate change.
"I want to remind you that in Russia we are warming 2.5
times faster than the rest of the planet. This is a serious challenge to us. We
must understand this," Putin said. "Hence the floods and the melting
of permafrost in areas where we have big settlements. We need to understand how
to respond to the climate change happening there."
Standing up to this challenge would require an environmental
policy to cut dependence on fossil fuels -- a cornerstone of the Russian
economy.
The point of no return is almost here, we are at a critical
point already when it comes to permafrost.
Alexander Fedorov
But a summer of wildfires and flooding may be changing the
way Russians feel about action on climate change.
"We need to lessen the human impact. When climate
change meets human factor, the effect is colossal," Fedorov said. "If
we don't cut down the forests, if we don't cause fires the permafrost can be
more stable... The point of no return is almost here, we are at a critical
point already when it comes to permafrost."
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