Russia

SITUATED IN BOTH Europe and Asia, the Russian Federation has a land area of 6,592,800 sq. mi. (17,075,400 sq. km.), with a population of 142,499,000 (2006 est.), and a population density of 21.8 people per sq. mi. (8.3 people per sq. km.). Moscow, the capital and the largest city, has a population of 10,654,000, with a density of 25,022 per sq. mi. (9,644 per sq. km.). The second largest city, Saint Petersburg, has a population of 3,990,267.

In spite of the vast size of Russia, some 8 percent of the land is arable, with a further 4 percent assigned as meadows and pasture, and 46 percent of the country is forested, including vast expanses of the Siberian tundra. The per capita rate of greenhouse gas emissions from the Russian Federation was 13.4 metric tons in 1992, falling steadily to 9.9 metric tons per person by 2002, partially as the economy in the country was struggling, and then rising to 10.5 metric tons per person by 2004. Because of its climate, and the need for extensive heating, 60 percent of the country's carbon dioxide emissions come from the production of electricity, of which 66.1 percent is generated from fossil fuels, 18.9 percent from hydropower, and 14.7 percent from nuclear power. This heavy use of fossil fuels is largely because of the abundance of coal, and also the availability of locally extracted petroleum in parts of the country. However, by 1998, the use of natural gas from Siberia had become much more important, with gaseous fuels [Page 875]making up 48 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions, solid fuels making up 26 percent, and liquid fuels 24 percent. In terms of the sector producing the emissions, with the bulk created in electricity production, 14 percent came from manufacturing and construction, 13 percent from transportation, and 10 percent from residential use.

The coal-mining areas of western Russia still remain important, politically, but the discovery ofthe Siberian gas fields around Omsk and other cities has led to the Russian Federations exportation of gas to neighboring countries, and also some parts of Western Europe. Russia has suffered some of the effects of global warming and climate change, with the melting ofthe Arctic sea ice creating major problems for the northern parts of the country. Satellite measurements ofthe Arctic Ocean have revealed that the area of perennial ice cover has fallen by about 7 percent per decade since 1978. There has also been the melting of some of the Siberian permafrost, which some Russians have welcomed, as it has the potential to open up more arable land. However, it has also caused damage to hundreds of buildings in cities of Yakutsk and Norilsk, with the average temperature ofthe permanently frozen ground at Yakutsk having warmed by 2.7 degrees F (1.5 degrees C) between 1968 and 1998. Lake Baikal has also experienced a shorter freezing period in the last century, with winter freezing taking place 11 days later than had been the case, and the spring ice breaking up some five days earlier. There has been a similar problem in the Caucasus Mountains, where half of all the glacial ice there has disappeared in the last 100 years.

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