Climate change could be favorable for Russia

The fight against climate change involves every country on the planet. Recently, we saw that the United Nations Environment Program revealed that, in order to avoid global warming to 1.5 degrees, greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced by 7.6% annually, between 2020 and 2030.

Basically, all the measures taken so far, although they are good, are not enough to achieve the objectives proposed by the environmental agenda. For this reason, whenever we talk about global warming or the effects it would cause on the planet, we think about it from a logical negative perspective. However, could it benefit some territories?

Precisely, the increase in temperatures that would cause global warming would imply serious consequences for the planet, such as rising sea levels. However, some nations, as in the case of Russia, could take advantage of this impulse to improve the quality of soils and, consequently, the local economy .

Russia and climate change

2020 was quite novel in environmental terms. One of the most curious situations occurred a few months ago, when an unprecedented heat wave was recorded in Siberia that allowed it to reach up to 38 degrees of temperature in some areas of the map. This was particularly seen in a town called Verkhoyansk.

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The city is one of the coldest on Earth, with minimum temperatures of -46.2 degrees and maximum temperatures of 15.2 degrees in summer . Therefore, the heat wave really worried the population and the planet. As a result of climate change, these situations could become increasingly typical in icy regions, but they would also allow the modification of known productive structures.

In particular, we see that Siberia is generating a transformation that will optimize its soil . This land, historically, was impossible to cultivate, due to the impossibility of finding a temperate region. However, as the temperature rises, the area becomes much more plantation-friendly , something seen in eastern Russia, which is being planted prosperously with corn, soybeans and wheat .

According to an investigation by the specialized journal Environmental Research Letters, by 2080 the permafrost of Russia in its asiatic section will have a reduction of almost 50% . In other words, a third of that surface will be made favorable for civilization, reducing hostility and allowing it to be arable land by that date.

This would also lead to a logical change: migration . As the climate warms, that area would receive an influx of people willing to work the fields so that Russia can capitalize on those effects of climate change, generating greater prosperity. Knowing that there is a large area that the nation could take advantage of to work, it would be greatly benefited in economic terms .

Optimal climates are one of the main conditions for generating wealth through working the land. For example, Iceland increased productivity and development during times when it had above-average temperatures . Therefore, the ideal would be, according to a study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, a temperature between 11 and 15 degrees.

In any case, we must understand that this possibility of a prosperous change in terms of productivity for Russia will not be good news if the rest of the planet suffers. In other words, the environmental conditions of each territory are logical for the part of the Earth in which they are located, so any drastic change, while it could be beneficial for that area, could have repercussions on the entire planet.