Biden Criticizes the Absence of Putin and Jinping at COP26 | News from Germany about Russia

US President Joe Biden at a press conference in London on Tuesday, November 2, criticized Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping for not attending the UN COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, and called it a mistake.

“China has missed the opportunity to influence people around the world and people here at COP26,” Biden said, and recalled the magnitude of the climate problem for the entire world “from Iceland to Australia.” According to the head of the American state, Russia and China have moved away from solving it and are silent about the desire to do anything, while this problem seriously concerns these countries as well.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed respect for the decision of the leaders of Russia and China, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, due to the coronavirus pandemic, to refuse in person at the climate summit in Glasgow. At the same time, the head of the British government recalled the arrival of a high-level Chinese delegation to the conference.

On the eve of the press secretary of the head of the Russian state Dmitry Peskov said that the president of the Russian Federation will not speak at the climate summit in the format of a video conference, since such an opportunity is not provided for technically. In addition, the topics raised at the forum in Glasgow largely echoed the issues discussed during the G20 meeting, Peskov stressed and pointed out that during his speech at the G20 summit, Putin outlined in sufficient detail the approaches of the Russian side to solving the climate problem.

See also:

Natural disasters of summer 2021 in Russia – the consequences of climate change
Yakutia: forests burned for three months
Climate change is not just a rise in average temperatures. Global warming leads to an imbalance in the weather on the entire planet, and this gives rise to a variety of natural disasters. Summer 2021 was frighteningly rich in such excesses in various countries, including Russia. The fires in Yakutia became the largest disaster: dry forests, due to the lack of rain, burned from late May to September.

Natural disasters of summer 2021 in Russia – the consequences of climate change
Moscow: orange level of danger
Due to global warming, blocking anticyclones are more and more often formed. In winter, they lead to long frosts, in summer – to heat. In the second half of June in Moscow, the temperature turned out to be 7-10 degrees above normal and reached 35 degrees, so the penultimate, orange level of weather hazard was in effect for ten days. In mid-July, the heat returned, and the fifth temperature record for the summer was set.

Natural disasters of summer 2021 in Russia – the consequences of climate change
Sochi: two floods in a month
Sochi: garbage collection instead of a beach holiday. On July 4-5, in the main resort city of Russia and in part of the Krasnodar Territory, due to volley showers, in less than a day, a monthly norm of precipitation was recorded. Overflowing the banks of the river flooded residential buildings and boarding houses, roads suffered from mudflows. Three weeks later, on July 23, everything repeated: another monthly norm, again flooding and deaths.

Natural disasters of summer 2021 in Russia – the consequences of climate change
Petersburg: 8 records and a sandstorm
The first month and a half of summer in the northern capital of Russia was abnormally hot: during this time, eight temperature records were set in St. Petersburg: five in June, which, like in Moscow, turned out to be the warmest in the history of meteorological observations, and three in July. And on July 15, in the city on the Neva, a previously extremely rare weather phenomenon in these latitudes was observed, such as a sandstorm.

Natural disasters of summer 2021 in Russia – the consequences of climate change
Yakutsk has nothing to breathe
Throughout the summer, forests continued to burn in Eastern Siberia, and by mid-August the smoke from the fires completely enveloped Yakutsk. The smoke, harmful to human health, turned out to be so strong that August 13 in the capital and a number of districts of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) had to be declared a non-working day, and dozens of flights were canceled at the local airport due to poor visibility.

Natural disasters of summer 2021 in Russia – the consequences of climate change
Amur region: not flooding, but flooding
Since the end of July, when a bridge on the Trans-Siberian Railway collapsed in Transbaikalia after rains, and throughout August there have been official reports of “floods” and “flooding” in the Russian Far East. In fact, in the Amur region, due to the heavy downpours that were so expected at the fires in Yakutia, there was a real flood. This confirmed the decision to declare an emergency situation on a federal scale in the region on August 13.

Natural disasters of summer 2021 in Russia – the consequences of climate change
Ural and Kama region: drought, heat, fires
In the second half of August, the abnormal heat came to the Urals and Kama regions, reaching 38 degrees. The smoke from forest fires reached Yekaterinburg, on August 24, the federal highway to Perm had to be temporarily blocked. However, the regional emergency regime in the Sverdlovsk region was introduced on July 22 due to a severe drought. Farmers already then fully felt what climate change was leading to.

Natural disasters of summer 2021 in Russia – the consequences of climate change
Kerch *: showers after a long drought
Due to the imbalance in the climate, the uniform distribution of precipitation is disturbed: in some regions, the rains do not stop, others suffer from drought. After two dry years that sharply exacerbated water supply problems, abnormally heavy rainfall caused flooding in the annexed Crimea. In one day, June 17, a two-month norm of precipitation fell in Kerch.

Natural disasters of summer 2021 in Russia – the consequences of climate change
Yalta *: three-month rainfall
The next day, June 18, a three-month norm of precipitation fell in Yalta, after which the streets and beaches of the city were cleared of rubble for a long time. But the abnormal rains and flooding in the annexed Crimea did not end there: on June 26, half of the monthly norm poured out on Yalta, on July 4, the city was partially again under water, while the two-month norm fell on the Bakhchisarai region.

Natural disasters of summer 2021 in Russia – the consequences of climate change
* From the editor
Crimea is a Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia. At the moment, the peninsula is controlled by the Russian authorities, who, like the residents of Crimea and Russian tourists, are faced with the problem of floods. Therefore, photographs from Kerch and Yalta are included in the photo gallery about the natural disasters that Russians suffered in the summer of 2021.
Author: Andrey Gurkov