Tag: Russia

The Daily Climate, April 22, 2021

Articles include: Earth Day; Young activists; EU climate agreement; Biden’s climate goals; Biden and Putin; building electric vehicles; Brazil and the Amazon; climate change and the world’s economy; African peace and climate change; car-free inner cities; Putin, Russia, and GHGs; Canada’s GHG pledge; Ikea and renewable energy.

The Daily Climate, April 20, 2021

Articles include: Exxon & carbon capture; offshore wind; glaciers melting in the Andes; coal financing; cities hardest hit by climate change; Biden trying to reinstate US climate change leadership; shrinking sea meadows and GHGs; Canadian budget; Euro lawsuits derail clean energy; DOI heads towards clean energy; climate change and coffee; melting Arctic & Russia.

The Daily Climate, April 12, 2021

Articles include: Flood survivors; Biden’s infrastructure plan; California expands O&G drilling; battery makers; Canadian energy jobs; nuclear power plant shutting down; Russia & the arctic; Maine laws & solar investment; Brazil; home buying and climate change; offshore wind; Navajo farmers.

Study: Just 3% of world’s ecosystems remain intact

The Guardian: Just 3% of world’s ecosystems remain intact, study suggests. Pristine areas in the Amazon and Siberia may expand with animal reintroductions, scientists say.

ust 3% of the world’s land remains ecologically intact with healthy populations of all its original animals and undisturbed habitat, a study suggests.

These fragments of wilderness undamaged by human activities are mainly in parts of the Amazon and Congo tropical forests, east Siberian and northern Canadian forests and tundra, and the Sahara. Invasive alien species including cats, foxes, rabbits, goats and camels have had a major impact on native species in Australia, with the study finding no intact areas left.

The researchers suggest reintroducing a small number of important species to some damaged areas, such as elephants or wolves – a move that could restore up to 20% of the world’s land to ecological intactness.

“Much of what we consider as intact habitat is missing species that have been hunted [and poached] by people, or lost because of invasive species or disease,” said Dr Andrew Plumptre, the lead author of the study, from the Key Biodiversity Areas Secretariat in Cambridge, UK. “It’s fairly scary, because it shows how unique places like the Serengeti are, which actually have functioning and fully intact ecosystems.

The Daily Climate, March 30,2021

Articles include: Eastern Kentucky and flooding; Biden offshore wind farms; Massachusetts law and gas ban; Japan’s cherry blossoms peak; Electric vehicles; investigating trump attacks on science; Russian oil leaks; DOE & carbon capture; Study: China and coal-based electricity (published by Ember, the London-based energy and climate research group – no link provided); Biden reducing methane emissions.

Russia’s oil and gas production sharply down in 2020, but here comes a new Arctic offshore platform

Barents Observer: Russia’s oil and gas production sharply down in 2020, but here comes a new Arctic offshore platform. Hundreds of workers at yards in Severodvinsk are engaged day and night with construction of Russia’s second ice-resistant platform for Arctic waters.

Oil production was down 8,6% in 2020 and gas production was down 6,2%, online newspaper Lenta reports.

This is the first year since 2008 Russia sees a drop in petroleum production. The decrease is partly explained by last year’s agreement with OPEC to cut production due to decreased demand in a world seriously hit by the pandemic.

The drop in oil production in 2020 came after two consecutive years of production records in the country’s post-Soviet history.

In December, and this Tuesday, Russia reached a new deal with OPEC to modestly raise oil production, but uncertainties are still high in regards to gas demand in Europe. Especially in the longer run, as the European Union aims at dramatically boosting climate-friendly green energy sources by 2030.

The Daily Climate, December 16, 2020

The Daily Climate discusses:  Ecosystem hierarchy; groundwater rising and toxics; electric car battery costs; Russia and the climate crisis; wildfires and California trees; housing and jobs and the climate crisis; Study on clean energy.

The great global energy shift could push Moscow towards plastics production on Arctic tundra

The Barents Observer discusses The great global energy shift could push Moscow towards plastics production on Arctic tundra. Russia’s powerful petroleum industry feels a mounting pressure from alternative energy sources, and strong voices now say the country’s vast natural gas resources in the Arctic should be used in petrochemical.

There are almost endless natural gas resources in the Russian Arctic, but ultimately demands will shrink and markets vanish. The country’s powerful oil and gas industry now appears to gradually grasp what could end in economic disaster for the hydrocarbon-dependent nation.

Oil and natural gas account for more than half of Russian exports and natural gas alone amounts to more than $40 billion of annual revenues. A major share of that export is likely to vanish as main importer European Union succeeds in reaching its 2030 target of 60 percent cut in carbon emissions.

The rapid change in international energy markets was an underlying key element in Tuesday’s meeting on the development of petrochemical industry between President Putin and top energy sector representatives.