THE ENVIRONMENTAL OUTLOOK IN RUSSIA

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• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 0005284819
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• Document Creation Date: June 24, 2015
• Document Release Date: May 27, 2011
• Case Number: F-2008-00831
• Publication Date: January 1, 1999

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The Environmental
Outlook in Russia
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ICA 98-08
January 1999
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 The Environmental
Outlook in Russia
This paper was produced by the National Intelli-
gence Counci4 John C. Gannon, Chairman, and the
DCI Environmental Center, Terrance J. Flannery,
Director. It was prepared under the auspices of
David F. Gordon, National Intelligence Officer for
Economics and Global Issues, Lawrence K.
Gershwin, National Intelligence Officer for Science
and Technology, and George Kolt, National Intelli-
gence Officer for Russia and Eurasia.
ICA 98-08
January 1999
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 ? Nuclear waste and chemical munitions contamination is so extensive and
costly to reverse that remediation efforts are likely to continue to be lim-
ited largely to merely fencing off affected areas.
Environmental problems are harming both the health of Russia's citizens
and the economy:
? US, Russian, and World Bank studies link an increase in respiratory and
gastrointestinal illnesses and developmental problems among children in
several Russian cities in part to environmental factors. A 1996 joint US-
Russian Government study found that one-quarter of kindergarten pupils
in one city had lead concentrations above the threshold at which intelli-
gence is impaired, while a US Government study noted a rise in the inci-
dence of waterborne diseases and environmentally related birth defects.
A Russian Government report cited air pollution as a contributing factor
to 17 percent of childhood and 10 percent of adult illnesses.
? Pollution is adding to budgetary strains, reducing labor productivity
through illness and absenteeism, and damaging natural resources. It also
is deterring some domestic and foreign investors concerned about
cleanup and liability issues. A team of Russian experts has pegged over-
all economic losses from environmental degradation at 10 to 12 percent
of GDP-roughly similar to estimated losses in East European countries
and substantially higher than estimates of 1 to 2 percent in developed
countries.
Russia's environmental problems also pose substantial threats to other
regions and are likely to continue to do so during the next decade:
? Russia is a polluter of adjacent seas, dumping industrial and municipal
wastes, chemical munitions, and, until the mid-1990s, solid and liquid
radioactive wastes.
? It is likely to continue to be a major producer and exporter of illicit
ozone-depleting substances because of widespread black-market activity
and also will remain a major emitter of carbon dioxide.
 Although Russian Government officials decry the economic and social
costs of environmental degradation, they lack the commitment, resources,
and organizational capacity to address environmental problems:
? Policymakers are focusing on stopping Russia's economic deterioration
and stabilizing the country's financial markets, not on the environmental
impact of their actions. Spending on the environment was less than
0.5 percent of total federal budget spending, or about $480 million in
1997-a significant drop from the modest levels of the late Soviet period.
Spending on drinking water quality, for example, was down 90 percent
from levels of the 1980s.
? Russia has a comprehensive legal and regulatory framework in the envi-
ronmental area, but government institutions responsible for environmen-
tal protection lack the authority and capability to enforce legislation.
? A continued Russian tendency to treat certain nuclear waste and chemical
weapons information as a state secret will complicate Western cleanup
assistance programs. The Russian Government recently made broad new
categories of environment-related information subject to secret classifica-
tion in response to revelations about environmental problems at Russian
military bases by former military officers.
? Environmental activism has been on the wane since the breakup of the
Soviet Union. Despite growing concerns about environmentally related
health problems, the Russian public is preoccupied with economic sur-
vival and accords much less priority to environmental issues.
Russia is widely expected to be the major financial beneficiary of the car-
bon-trading scheme associated with the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Frame-
work Convention on Climate Change, mainly because the sharp decline in
Russian economic activity has reduced emissions nearly 30 percent below
the target level Russia set for the period 2008-12. Under the Protocol,
countries exceeding their targeted cuts will be able to sell emission-reduc-
tion credits to those unable to meet their targets:
? Even if a future sustained economic recovery increases emissions,
Russian officials are convinced that the extensive boreal forest covering
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 most of the country will act as a major carbon absorber that will earn
them substantial revenues well beyond the 2008-12 period if effectively
managed.
? According to a MEDEA study sponsored by the National Intelligence
Council, however, current carbon flow models contain significant uncer-
tainties, and it is not clear whether Russia's boreal forest is a net absorber
or emitter of atmospheric carbon.'
Even minor improvements in Russia's environment during the next few
years will require continued international pressure, aid, management exper-
tise, and foreign investment to compensate for Russian shortcomings, but
any government shift toward greater state control of the economy to deal
with the ongoing economic crisis would jeopardize at least some of this
assistance:
? A number of international institutions and environmental nongovernmen-
tal organizations (NGOs) are providing Russia with substantial aid and
technical training, as well as assistance on policy priorities, reform, and
institution-building.
? Although Russia's latest economic crisis has slowed foreign investment
considerably, multinational corporations that have invested in Russia
generally have introduced new and more efficient equipment and employ
more environmentally friendly practices than Russian firms.
The outlook for more sustained environmental progress over the long term
will depend less on foreign assistance and more on whether Russian lead-
ers can muster the courage and skill to implement reforms leading to sound
economic growth, greater governmental accountability, and increased
public political involvement:
? If Moscow can rein in its ongoing financial crisis and implement sound
fiscal, monetary, and corporate governance policies, investors will even-
tually return to Russia and help set the stage for sustained economic
growth that, in turn, would increase government and private-sector
capacity and willingness to address environmental concerns.
' MEDEA is a group of about 40 US environmental and global change scientists. It is an outgrowth
of a CIA-sponsored Environmental Task Force formed in 1992 to use classified systems to examine
key environmental questions.
 ? A higher living standard, along with changes in Russian political culture
that increase government responsiveness and reduce public apathy, would
gradually strengthen public support for a more robust environmental
agenda as it has in more developed countries. It would also boost the
influence of environmental NGOs on government and private-sector
environmental policies.
Although at least some of these positive indicators may begin to appear
near the end of our 10-year time frame, it will probably take decades for
Russians to garner the will and the wherewithal to deal with their environ-
mental problems, especially if neo-Communist or nationalist forces come
to power and pursue decidedly xenophobic and antireformist policies.
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 Figure 1
Key Environmental Problem Areas in Russia
Romania 1
Moldov
Ukraine
y
Saudi .,~
Arabia i f, YR .rcn,sna
Xaiufrkiya
r ton
Che J insk
z7Q Western,
0 4
IYest Siberian
Urar OO~iregiogas
daslria I region
mne
xn, Kazakhstan
JAM
4Sasnoyarsk
Barkar
.egron'
Lake
Baikal
800 Ivometco
800M 0$
Bering
Sea
Critically degraded area
? Heavily polluted water body
ti Heavily polluted river
? High levels of acid rain
9 Radioactive waste dumping site
A Degraded forest area
1;1 Plutonium production plant
 Discussion
Scope of Environmental Challenges
Russian Government officials candidly
acknowledge that the country has many envi-
ronmental problems, often using words such as
"catastrophe" and "crisis" to describe the scale
of the challenge.
Some of the problems are primarily a legacy of
Russia's Soviet past. Among the factors most
responsible for environmental destruction:
? Soviet planners strongly emphasized the
development of heavy industries over other
sectors of the economy, and Russia is now
burdened with a large stock of aged, ineffi-
cient, and highly polluting plant and equip-
ment, the bulk of which requires repair or
replacement.
? Soviet production criteria led to inefficient
use of Russia's abundant natural resources
and energy, which were treated as free or
heavily subsidized goods. This encouraged
waste.
? The priority of defense and the security sur-
rounding defense industries and military
installations allowed authorities to be extraor-
dinarily reckless in their treatment of the
environment including simply dumping
radioactive and other hazardous wastes onto
nearby land and in waterways.
? The collectivization of agriculture destroyed
individual responsibility for the land. Fever-
ish campaigns to "solve the food problem"
led to the overuse of chemical fertilizers and
pesticides, the depletion of arable land, and
the cultivation of vast areas of marginal and
semiarid lands easily damaged by intensive
agriculture.
? Environmental standards, although often set
high, were seldom enforced. Departments
charged with protecting natural resources
were often subordinate to ministries whose
main goal was increasing production.
Other Russian environmental problems are
more closely associated with the country's
political and economic transition during the
1990s, particularly its halting move from a
command to a free market economy:
? Industrial output has plummeted during the
1990s, but pollution from air and wastewater
emissions has not declined as fast. Firms rou-
tinely underreport their emissions and cut
capital investment, maintenance, and the
quality of fuel they use to trim costs (see fig-
ures 2, 3, and 4). Such cuts have caused the
environmental performance of facilities to
deteriorate, and the frequency of industrial
accidents that cause environmental damage to
increase. Oilspills and leaking oil pipelines,
for example, are commonplace.
? The competitive sectors of the new Russian
economy tend to be oriented toward produc-
tion of commodities that are energy, resource,
 and thus pollution intensive. During the
1990s, oil, gas, timber, and metals have
accounted for about 70 percent of Russia's
reported export revenue, and they will con-
tinue to comprise the bulk of Russian exports.
? Russia also must confront many of the envi-
ronmental problems associated with the con-
sumerism and unchecked development
associated with free market systems, such as
burgeoning solid waste streams from pack-
aged goods, traffic congestion, urban sprawl,
and a rush by private firms to exploit natural
resources.
Water
Russia's leading environmental concern is
water pollution. Municipalities are the main
source of pollution, followed by industry and
agriculture. Russian and foreign experts esti-
mate that less than one-half of Russia's popula-
tion has access to safe drinking water. Sixty-
nine percent of the nation's wastewater treat-
ment systems lack sufficient capacity. Only 13
percent of reported wastewater flows were
treated to meet Russia's relatively high-quality
water standards in 1996, the latest.period for
which we have reporting. According to the
Russian Government, "practically all" of the
water courses in the Volga watershed-an area
that covers two-thirds of European Russia-do
not meet Russian standards.
Russia's three military plutonium production
sites-Chelyabinsk-65 (often referred to as
Mayak) in the southern Urals region, and
Tomsk-7 and Krasnoyarsk-26 in southwestern
Siberia have caused extensive contamination
of Russian waterways:
? Highly radioactive waste from Chelyabinsk
was dumped into a nearby river system from
1948 to 1951 and has migrated over 1,500
kilometers to the Arctic Ocean. Other waste
is stored in open ponds at Chelyabinsk and is
seeping into a nearby river.
? At Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk, liquid radio-
active waste injected into the sandy layers
beneath the sites is migrating slowly. If Rus-
sia does not maintain its long-term monitor-
ing program, the waste could seep into local
and regional water supplies without adequate
time to protect against impacts to human
health and prevent degradation of the
environment.
Water pollution from municipal sources is
likely to increase during the next decade as
independent households and the services sector
place additional burdens on municipal sewage
systems. When industrial production recovers,
wastewater discharges also will reverse their
downward trend. Meanwhile, funding short-
ages will constrain operations, maintenance,
and new investment in drinking water, sewer-
age, and wastewater treatment systems. They
also will limit any efforts to deal with nuclear
contamination of waterways and drinking water
supplies.
Air
Poor air quality is almost as serious a problem
as water pollution. In 1996 over 200 cities in
Russia often exceeded the levels prescribed by
Russian health standards for annual concentra-
tions of at least one pollutant, according to a
Russian Government report. Eight cities
exceeded health standards for three or more
pollutants, and they did so by at least a factor of
10. In comparison, according to the US Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency, air pollution lev-
els in the Los Angeles area, which has the
 Figure 2
Sources of Russian Water Pollution by Volume of Effluent
110
Sewage treatment plants
100
90
80
Industrial discharges
70
60
Industrial output
Index: 1991=100
Latest available information.
Source: Russian Committee for Environmental Protection.
worst overall air quality in the United States,
rarely exceed US standards-which are similar
to Russia's-by a factor of more than 1.5.
Although industries continue to pollute the air,
emissions from cars and trucks-lead, carbon
monoxide, and nitrogen oxides-cause the
majority of air pollution. In Moscow, for exam-
ple, 87 percent of air pollution is attributable to
vehicle emissions.
Air quality is likely to worsen as the number of
vehicles-many of which are aging and lack
adequate pollution controls-increases. From
1991 to 1997, car registrations increased
nationwide by 176 percent. The number of cars
in Moscow during the same period jumped 250
percent to 2 million. Fuel quality will add to the
problem-only half the gasoline produced in
Russia is unleaded and, in heavily congested
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