Moscow. November 17. The annual losses of Russia from the hazardous natural and climatic phenomena reaches on average 30-60 billion rubles, said the head of Ministry of environment Sergey Donskoy at the conference “the Global climate challenge: the dialogue between the state, society and business”.
“The annual damage from hazardous events in Russia is estimated at 30-60 billion roubles. In 2013 the figure was of extreme value – more than 200 billion rubles. In fact, the processes associated with climate change, resulted in the deaths of more than 190 people,” he said.
According to the Ministry, in 2014 in Russia was recorded 569 meteorologically dangerous phenomena – the greatest number for all years of observations.
“If you don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions, climate change may lead to serious threats for food and environmental security, not to mention the political security of entire regions. Climate change can lead to significant social transformations, including uncontrolled migration, the rapid spread of deadly diseases,” said Donskoy.
According to him, the first step to combat possible negative consequences of climate change is adaptation. Among the main adaptation measures he mentioned the establishment of forecasting systems and disaster management, rational use of natural resources use in agriculture, drought-resistant crop varieties, modernization of transport infrastructure.
One of the successful adaptation measures implemented in Russia, is to fight the peat bog fires that started after 2011. In addition, in Russia there is a gradual transition to beneficial use of associated petroleum gas.
“However, it is clear that adaptation measures not enough to combat anthropogenic impact on climate change. Therefore, Russia has a goal to reduce the energy intensity of GDP by 2025 by 25%, electricity consumption by 12%, growth in technological energy – efficiency to 2035, it needs to reach about 200 million tons of fuel annually,” said don.
He added that Russia will also need to create instruments for transition to renewable sources of energy, technologies of coal gasification, cogeneration in the energy sector. “On the agenda – the limitation of emissions due to the use of energy efficient equipment and labelling for energy efficiency classes, energy-consuming constraints of production and turnover of goods,” the Minister added.
“The achievement of goals in energy efficiency, the transition to closed cycles of production and low-carbon infrastructure must become a priority for Russian business”, – he said.
