Climate, Biden-Putin squabble

Bickering between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin over climate and fires that destroy forests and emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The resident of the United States, lamenting the absence of his counterpart in Glasgow, denounced “the tundra that burns, literally burns” in Siberia, where in fact only this year there has been a record of forests that have gone up in flames, in fires among other things still active. Putin, through his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, raises the question. “The tundra, it is true, is burning. But let’s not forget that the forests are on fire in California, Turkey and other places on the planet. And it is precisely one of the consequences of climate change that we are called to face”, the version of the Kremlin. “Fighting forest fires in Russia is very difficult due to the vast geographical extent of the country.” After a terrible summer, 360 hectares in the Magadan region, 10 thousand kilometers east of Moscow, are burning in these autumn days with temperatures already below zero. “The tundra is usually covered with snow at this time of year. So fires are a very rare occurrence,” explained a source quoted by the Interfax news agency. To aggravate the situation, there are the frozen water reserves that slow down the effort of the firefighters. For the moment the flames do not threaten any inhabited center, with the nearest village out of the fire 12 kilometers away. But in California the situation is no less serious: in the last five years there have been 12 of the twenty most serious fires in history in which 4 percent of the state territory went up in flames (source NASA) Putin “has serious problems on the front. of the climate and says nothing about his will to do something, “Biden said yesterday (in Russia the phenomenon of rising temperatures is significantly more pronounced than elsewhere, particularly in the Arctic). It’s not true. “Russia is making a huge systemic effort” to reduce emissions and achieve carbon neutrality in 2060, “Peskov said. Putin did not attend COP26 in person. But the Moscow delegation, led by the Kremlin envoy for the climate, Ruslan Edelgeriyev and Vice Premier, Alksei Overchuk, is made up of 270 people. “We absolutely do not minimize the importance of the Glasgow conference: Russia’s actions are coherent, thorough, and serious”, Peskov specified, underlining that his Country (fourth in the world for emissions, which has not signed the commitment to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030 but only the commitment to end deforestation by that date) faces “more serious challenges than others “and” has taken a very responsible stance on climate change with long-term plans to reduce emissions and diversify energy sources. “With around 800 million hectares, Russia is the country with the largest extension of forests in the world. But in recent years, as a result of climate change and illegal logging activities, fires have devastated a significant portion of this heritage. Last summer alone, more than 18.16 million hectares of forest were destroyed, an all-time record since 2001, when earth observation satellites began monitoring the situation. The previous record dates back to 2012, with 18.11 million hectares being lost.