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Climate Action
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Eastern Europe, Caucasus
and Central Asia
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More
than 20 months after Russia started an
unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine, the
European nuclear industry continues to cooperate
with the Russian corporation Rosatom. This paper
shows how Russia uses its civil-m,ilitary
nuclear corporation Rosatom as a strategic tool
and how Rosatom is involved in the war against
Ukraine.
Central
Asia is facing a water crisis as the Caspian
Sea's water level continues to decline, posing a
severe threat to the ecosystem and marine
economy in the region. Climate change, combined
with human influence, has exacerbated the issue,
leading to reduced precipitation, increased
evaporation, and diminished water inflow.
Additionally, the region is witnessing
anti-government protests, but authorities'
efforts to suppress dissent have left the
political landscape unpredictable and
potentially unstable. Meanwhile, discussions
about building a natural gas pipeline across the
Caspian Sea from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan are
ongoing, with political will and commercial
deals needed to make progress on this
front.
In
recent public discussions of plans to build
nuclear power plants (NPPs) in Kazakhstan, it
has been argued that NPPs will create jobs and
local industry. However, economist Zhannat
Salimova-Tekai points out that solar and wind
power plants create significantly more jobs per
gigawatt of installed capacity than NPPs, and
these jobs are available to a wider range of
professionals. She also argues that attracting
private investment and borrowing for NPP
construction is not feasible in Kazakhstan due
to insurance risks, low tariffs, and the lack of
an efficient electricity market. In addition,
the cost of electricity from NPPs is the most
expensive in the world today, which contradicts
the opinion of NPP proponents that it is
cheap.
Kyrgyzstan
is experiencing an energy deficit due to a lack
of produced electricity for the population,
resulting in increasing imports of electricity
and possible "regulatory blackouts" of lights.
The drop in electricity production is related to
water levels in hydropower plants, especially
the Toktogul HPP, which depends on shrinking
glaciers and increasing global warming.
Preserving glaciers and reducing carbon dioxide
emissions into the atmosphere are important
measures to mitigate the energy crisis and
conserve resources.
The
Center for Political and Legal Studies in
Kyrgyzstan emphasizes the importance of water
management in Central Asia because of the
resource interdependence between upstream and
downstream countries in the region, the need to
support agriculture and ensure environmental
sustainability. Afghanistan, which has become an
active participant in water management projects,
is also changing the dynamics of water
resources. Existing agreements on water do not
satisfy either upper or lower countries, which
creates potential conflicts, and resolving water
disputes requires mutual understanding and
concessions between countries in the region,
with conflicts that can be resolved through
peaceful means, and may possibly lead to
conflicts.
The
Lithuanian Foreign Ministry urges Belarus to
halt the operation of the first and second power
units of the Belarusian nuclear power plant due
to safety concerns. Lithuania believes that the
BelNPP in Astravets poses a threat to the whole
of Europe and insists on suspending the
operation of these power units until all safety
issues are resolved. This move by Lithuania is
linked to growing concerns about the safety of
the nuclear plant and its impact on the
environment.
The
new climate doctrine recently signed by the
Russian President is structurally similar to the
previous version approved in 2009, but contains
some important differences. The new doctrine
includes the objective of achieving carbon
neutrality, which means a balance between
greenhouse gas emissions and their uptake by
ecosystems. Issues include methodologies for
accounting for emissions, including wildfires,
and assessing the ability of forests to absorb
greenhouse gases. It also includes a
presidential decree to reduce emissions to 70
percent of 1990 levels by 2030, although
emissions were already 50 percent below 1990
levels when the doctrine was signed in
2020.
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A new
report from the International Energy Agency
(IEA) highlights an "unstoppable" shift toward
renewable energy but emphasizes that the
phase-down of fossil fuels is not happening
quickly enough. While the IEA predicts that
renewables will provide half of the world's
electricity by 2030, it warns that emissions
remain too high to prevent a temperature rise
above the critical 1.5°C threshold. The report
calls for a 50% reduction in investment in
fossil fuels and praises progress in expanding
renewable energy and the adoption of electric
vehicles and heat pumps, emphasizing the need to
support clean energy transitions
worldwide.
With
just one month until COP28, the global target to
triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 to over
11,000 gigawatts is poised to take center stage.
This target, aligned with limiting temperature
rise to 1.5°C, offers hope in the fight against
climate change. However, achieving this goal
requires a significant increase in financial
support and financial reform, particularly for
the Global South, where investment in renewable
energy has remained stagnant. The G20's
commitment to yearly investment of $4 trillion
by 2030, mostly from private and public sources,
is necessary, but structural and historical
injustices in the global financial system, such
as high capital costs in developing economies,
must be addressed to facilitate renewable energy
adoption.
A
letter from the international health and medical
community addressed to COP 28
President-Designate Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber calls
for a decisive end to fossil fuel dependency at
the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai. The
letter emphasizes that addressing the climate
crisis is essential for achieving health and
well-being for all, citing the impacts of
climate change-induced extreme weather events,
air pollution from burning fossil fuels, and the
economic costs associated with health impacts.
It calls for an accelerated, just, and equitable
phase-out of fossil fuels as the most
significant way to protect global health, reduce
air pollution-related deaths, and transition to
clean energy sources while emphasizing the need
to leave no one behind and increase investments
in clean energy. The letter also highlights the
need to exclude fossil fuel interests from
climate negotiations to safeguard global
collaboration on climate
progress.
CNN
Academy is offering a comprehensive media
training program for early-career content
creators, journalists, and storytellers from
developing countries in Latin America, the
Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. The program will
focus on climate change reporting and cover
topics such as climate science, investigative
journalism, data-driven reporting, multimedia
storytelling, and ethical considerations in
climate reporting. Participants must demonstrate
a strong interest in climate change
storytelling, fluency in English, and a
commitment to attending the training program in
Abu Dhabi from December 3rd to December
10th.
The
Baltic Sea is facing significant challenges due
to the climate crisis and biodiversity
degradation, as highlighted by a comprehensive
audit from the Baltic Marine Environment
Protection Commission (Helcom). The audit found
that from 2016 to 2021, there was little to no
improvement in the health of the Baltic Sea.
Fish stocks were at dangerously low levels,
pollution, land use, and resource extraction
continued to pressure the sea, and the climate
crisis was taking its toll, leading to reduced
ice cover, more extreme weather, and rising
water temperatures.
White
hydrogen, a form of natural hydrogen found
within the Earth, has gained attention as a
potentially clean and renewable energy source.
Unlike the majority of hydrogen production that
relies on fossil fuels, white hydrogen can be
extracted from beneath the Earth's surface and
is continuously replenished through natural
processes. While there is still much to learn
about how white hydrogen deposits form and their
commercial viability, this resource offers the
potential for a cleaner and more sustainable
alternative to traditional hydrogen production
methods.
Efforts
to reduce air pollution, particularly sulphur
dioxide (SO2) emissions from sources like coal
plants, have led to an unmasking effect, where
the removal of pollutants has allowed more solar
radiation to reach the Earth, leading to an
increase in temperatures. This phenomenon has
been observed in China, where a successful "war
on pollution" led to significant reductions in
SO2 emissions but also a 0.7-degree Celsius rise
in average temperatures since 2014. The
unmasking effect could have a greater impact on
warming than greenhouse gases in some industrial
Chinese cities, and experts warn that similar
jumps in warming may occur in other highly
polluted regions if they clean the skies of SO2
and related aerosols.
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Sent: Tuesday, November
07, 2023 7:01 PM
Subject: 🌏CAN EECCA
Newsletter: Rosatom and Russia’s War in Ukraine, glacier degradation in
Kyrgyzstan and fuel of the future
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