The vast Russian region of Siberia will face hot and dry weather this year leading to more forest fires, forecasters said on Tuesday, linking the blazes to climate change.
Devastating forest fires have ripped across Siberia with increasing regularity over the past few years, which the country’s weather officials and environmentalists have linked to climate change and an underfunded forest service.
Speaking to reporters to mark World Meteorological Day by video link, Roman Vilfand, head of science at Russia’s weather service, said the whole country would see above-average temperatures from April to September.
The Siberian regions of Krasnoyarsk and Sakha, he said, would be particularly hot in June.
«It is quite natural that all these characteristics naturally transform themselves into a fire hazard,» Vilfand said, noting that Krasnoyarsk will also see rainfall deficiency.
«The problem of precipitation deficiency is not only a problem of this year, it is a climatic problem.»
Last year, a heatwave caused by changing climate in northern Siberia helped spark forest fires that blanketed cities including Yakutsk in smoke.
Freakishly warm weather across large swathes of Siberia last July saw nearly 300 wildfires blazing at once, causing record high carbon emissions.
Russia has set numerous heat records in recent years, with the first half of 2020 seeing the warmest temperatures since the country began weather observations.
Asked if Russia will see its winters shrink in the coming years due to warming temperatures, Vilfand noted that while that is already happening, the main challenge of global warming is dealing with increasingly cataclysmic weather events.
«The number of dangerous phenomena has doubled over the last quarter of a century. Not by 5%, not by 10%, but doubled,» he said.
Russia to Offer Carbon Credits With Far East Digital Forest Platform
Russia is creating a digital platform to collect satellite and drone data on its vast forests in the Far East with the aim of offering them on the carbon offset market, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
The Lesvostok.rf system, when it launches later in 2021, will allow the government to lease sections of forest to enterprises, which can then invest in planting new trees or protecting existing ones.
“We have the potential to turn them into a massive carbon capture hub,” Bloomberg quoted Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic Alexei Chekunkov as saying.
The company investing into the Russian forest could create and trade a so-called carbon credit if data confirms that the leased area’s CO2 absorption has been improved, Bloomberg reported.
Russia, the world’s fourth-largest greenhouse gas emitter and a major fossil fuel exporter, hopes to parry some of the criticism over its resistance to move toward clean energy with the system, Bloomberg reported.
The country was among the last few countries to ratify the Paris Climate Accords, though the Kremlin chose a baseline emissions level so high that it requires practically no effort to ensure compliance.
“Russia has 20% of global forests, so the international community must be fair in that respect,” Chekunkov was quoted as saying.
The undermanaged and sparsely populated region’s 640 billion trees absorbed nearly 620 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2018, or 38% of national emissions, according to official data cited by Bloomberg.
At the same time, it has been hit by severe wildfires in recent years that release mass amounts of CO2.
The Far East Development Ministry has said it plans to conclude the digital platform experiment and decide on whether to expand its list of services and geographical coverage by Nov. 1.
