Page 9 - RusRPTDec21

Russia has seen increasingly severe wildfires in recent years, most of which have affected remote, hard-to-reach areas of Siberia and the Far East. This year, one Siberian wildfire had a 2,000-kilometer frontline, making it impossible for firefighters to combat the blazes.
Russia’s decarbonization strategy heavily relies on the country’s forests to absorb excess carbon emissions, a plan some experts have met with skepticism.
Desertification
As Earth’s climate zones shift from the Equator to the poles, previously forested lands are turning into deserts.
The desertification process has already caused significant harm to communities in the Russian republic of Dagestan some 1,500 kilometers south of Moscow.
Russia’s key agricultural regions are located near to Dagestan, and experts worry that desertification could spread to these regions and impact the country’s food supply. If insufficient action is taken to combat climate change, desertification could reach Moscow itself by 2100, scientists at Aalto University projected.
2.2 Russian Energy Minister proposes changes to complex
Russian Minister of Energy Nikolay Shulginov has given an interview to Kommersant. The key takeaways as follows.
● The Ministry of Energy supports gas export rights being granted to Rosneft as an experiment, with Rosneft to conclude an agency agreement with Gazprom, but MinEnergo is not going to participate in the negotiations. Rosneft might be able to take additional gas for exports from the Rospan and Kharampur projects. This is not an immediate decision, though, as the latter has yet to be launched.
● Shulginov expects export gas prices to remain at attractive levels.
● According to MinEnergo, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline already complies with
the European Third Energy Package. Compliance is determined by the
delivery point for the gas, which can be set as a commercial term.
● No guidance was provided concerning the timeframe for NS2 certification.
● Gazprom’s gas flows into Europe are above contract requirements at the
moment, in order to fill European underground gas storages.
● MinEnergo is not considering deregulating domestic wholesale gas tariffs.
● Gasification in Russia is to be financed by Gazprom’s investment
programme, with funds coming from the tariff for gas distribution
companies, a special surcharge, etc.
● Higher wholesale gas tariff indexation (5% in 2022 vs. the usual 3% for
industrial users) is due to higher inflation rather than gasification funding requirements.
9 RUSSIA Country Report December 2021 www.intellinews.com