Report - UNDP Russia

Further, the economic cost ofenvironmental impacts is rising at an acceleratingrate, and will continue to do. This factor andincrease of impacts on the environment due toincreasingly difficult extraction conditions(particularly in Russia), will widen the gapbetween extraction and processing in reductionof environmental impacts (this phenomenon hasalready been noted in analysis of structuraltendencies in the economy of various countries,though it has often been left unexplained).Conclusions about the graveenvironmental impact of Russian fuel & energyproducers and converters are evident, despiteincompleteness of our survey and superficialnature of our analysis. Impacts from the fuel &energy sector are large and (what is of moreconcern) they are growing. There have beenoverall improvements in the environmentalperformance of electricity generating and oilrefining, but any improvements on the part of oil,gas and coal producers have been on minorcounts. It is beyond question that reduction offuel &energy production would have positiveenvironmental effects. The question is whethersuch reduction can be achieved withoutundermining industrial output and througheconomically acceptable means. To answer thisquestion, we need to briefly review how theenergy produced by the fuel & energy industry isused in the Russian economy.Table 7.8The energy concern index, data for the beginning of 1990CountryClimate severity indexTotalComparedwith the USA7.8. The connection betweencold climate and energyconsumption in RussiaAfter analyzing the impact of Russia's fuel& energy industry on the environment, it wouldbe natural to pose the opposite question, and toinvestigate impact of the environment on energyproduction and consumption. However, such aninvestigation, if carried out in full, would take usfar beyond the scope of this Report. We willtherefore limit the discussion to impact of theclimate on energy consumption in the housingutility sector.Energy intensity of Russian housingutilities is catastrophically high, and that is theresult of a careless, irresponsible attitude, ratherthan of Russia’s severe climate as such. The‘energy concern index’ (it might also be called an‘energy savings index’) proposed by [Danilov,Shchelokov, 2002] 19 is of considerable interestwith respect to energy use in housing utilitiesand also in other sectors. The index definition andits method of calculation, as well as its values forseveral countries are presented in Table 7.8.Like any other ‘designed’ index, theenergy concern index cannot pretend to offer anaccurate description of reality: in particular, itignores the structure of the housing stock, as wellas some other factors. But it undoubtedly givesan insight into the scale of wasteful energyHeat insulation productionm 3 per thousandresidentsper yearsame, withallowance forclimate severityindex:(4) / (3)Energy concernindex:(5) comparedwith the USAUSA 2700 1 500 500 1Sweden 4020 1.49 600 403 0.8Finland 4120 1.52 420 276 0.55Russia 5000 1.85 90 48.6 0.1See Appendix 19 with amendments19N.I. Danilov, Ya.M. Schelokov, The Power Saving Encyclopedia, Ekaterinburg, Sokrat Publishing House, 2002, 352p.131