New York Times Article, Russia31 Oct 2021 22:13
This was published last week but its behind the paywall, i am posting the parts that i found interesting and relevant,
"How Russia Is Cashing In on Climate Change"
Global warming may pose grave dangers around the world, but as one tiny Russian town on the Arctic Ocean shows, it can also be a ticket to prosperity.
PEVEK, Russia — A refurbished port. A spanking new plant to generate electricity. Repaved roads. And money left over to repair the library and put in a new esplanade along the shore of the Arctic Ocean.
Globally, the warming climate is a creeping disaster, threatening lives and livelihoods with floods, fires and droughts, and requiring tremendous effort and expenditure to combat.
But in Pevek, a small port town on the Arctic Ocean in Russia’s Far North capitalizing on a boom in Arctic shipping, the warming climate is seen as a barely mitigated bonanza.
“I would call it a rebirth,” said Valentina Khristoforova, a curator at a local history museum. “We are in a new era.”
While governments across the globe may be racing to head off the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, the economics of global warming are playing out differently in Russia.
Before rising temperatures brought new economic horizons, Pevek was an icy backwater, one of many dying outposts of the Soviet empire. Credit...Emile Ducke for The New York Times
Nowhere do the prospects seem brighter than in Russia’s Far North, where rapidly rising temperatures have opened up a panoply of new possibilities, like mining and energy projects. Perhaps the most profound of these is the prospect, as early as next year, of year-round Arctic shipping with specially designed “ice class” container vessels, offering an alternative to the Suez Canal.
The Kremlin’s policy toward climate change is contradictory. It is not a significant issue in domestic politics. But ever mindful of Russia’s global image, President Vladimir V. Putin recently vowed for the first time that Russia, the world’s fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases and a prodigious producer of fossil fuels, would become carbon neutral by 2060.
climate change may be an enormous threat for the future, why not take advantage of the commercial opportunities it offers in the present
Overall, analysts say, at least half a dozen large Russian companies in energy, shipping and mining will benefit from global warming.
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