Page 29 - bne magazine September 2020 russia melting

bne September 2020 Cover story I 29
Average temperatures in permafrost regions
Mean
Standard Deviation
Minimum
Maximum
Life on the thaw frontline
The two regions that are going to be worst affected are the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (YNAO) and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (KMAO) in the centre of Russia. Both are very large and both are home to major industrial developments.
“Temperatures in these regions have increased by 2C in the last 30 years, but some are already seeing a 1C rise per decade. That means about half of the structures in these regions are going to have load-bearing problems in between 2050 and 2059,” according to Streletskiy.
Millions of people are going to be affected. The total population of the Russian permafrost regions was 5.4mn, or about 4% of the total Russian population, in 2016 (the time of the last
census), almost all of whom live in the nine worst affected regions. And four regions – Komi Republic, YNAO, KMAO, and the Republic of Sakha – account for four fifths of the permafrost population on their own.
The total value of all the assets in the nine permafrost regions is $1.29bn and that is heavily concentrated in critical infrastructure, which makes up $884.5bn, as well as $140.9bn of non-residential real estate and another $279.2bn worth of housing, according to the study.
The bulk of these facilities are concentrated in the traditional oil and mineral production cities of Western Siberia,
and in the regions of YNAO and KMAO in particular.
“In YNAO and KMAO, [the] majority of expected costs (about 73% and
96%) will result from the deformation of infrastructure due to ground subsidence,” Streletskiy says.
“The widespread impacts of climate induced permafrost changes are expected to have a pronounced negative effect on infrastructure throughout the Russian permafrost region by the mid- 21st century,” Streletskiy says.
“While the permafrost infrastructure
in the North America and Scandinavia consists primarily of relatively small residential buildings and lightweight industrial facilities, the Russian Arctic is dominated by the massive, heavy-weight apartment buildings and structures. This might require development of unique and possibly more costly adaptation and mitigation strategies to address negative impacts of permafrost changes in the Russian context.”
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