In this Russian city, air pollution is so bad that ‘black skies’ are the norm

A Russian city nestled in the vast Siberian forest– 2,000 miles and four times zones east of Moscow – has air so bad that the authorities regularly warn people to stay inside. During frequent “black sky” events, caused by Soviet-era factories and coal-fired power plants, Krasnoyarsk has clocked the dirtiest air on the planet, beating out Mumbai and Guangzhou. The record temperatures in Siberia this year mean the city may not get any respite this summer, with the forest fire season forecast to start in late June, a month ahead of usual. “Black skies are common in Krasnoyarsk,” said Yulia Moiseeva, a resident who kept a supply of N95 masks well before the coronavirus pandemic made them ubiquitous. “The smog sometimes is so bad that it’s hard to see the next building.” Krasnoyarsk’s 1 million residents find themselves on the front lines of climate change, facing toxic levels of smog in winter, when coal-powered emissions peak, and in summer smoke from wildfires. Our air is ranked the worst in the world so often that we don’t even pay attention to the global Air Quality Index any more Igor Shpeht, a Krasnoyarsk resident The city is emblematic of the wider environmental catastrophe in Siberia, a region bigger than the US, where global warming is melting the permafrost and burning one of the world’s biggest forests – known as the Taiga in Russian. Last month, softening ground probably helped cause a fuel dump in the remote northern city of Norilsk to leak 20,000 tons of diesel into an ecologically fragile river system, perhaps the worst spill in the Arctic since Alaska’s Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989. President Vladimir Putin, long seen as sceptical on environmental protection, is starting to acknowledge the challenge, scolding the giant mining company responsible for the spill and considering pushing ahead with a stalled environment law. The Covid-19 pandemic brings additional challenges. The health crisis will aggravate pollution as the economic fallout forces locals to rely on cheaper, dirtier fuels for heat, according to United Co Rusal, the world’s biggest aluminium producer outside China and one of the city’s biggest employers. Melting Russian permafrost could cost economy US$2.3 billion a year In response, the authorities should accelerate plans to extend a natural gas pipeline to the city, Rusal chief executive officer Evgeny Nikitin wrote to the government in an April 30 letter seen by Bloomberg News. The national weather service says Krasnoyarsk had the dirtiest air of any Russian city in 2018, the latest data available. But Igor Shpeht, who set up a crowdsourced network of meters placed on volunteers’ balconies, said air quality is much worse than the authorities let on. “Our air is ranked the worst in the world so often that we don’t even pay attention to the global Air Quality Index any more,” Shpeht said. It may get worse. Even as Europe moves away from coal, Energy Minister Alexander Novak says Russia wants to boost production by over 50 per cent by 2035 under its “optimistic scenario”. Coal provides the half of the region’s electricity and is used extensively to heat private houses. Although Russia is the world’s biggest natural gas exporter, much of Siberia is not connected to the national pipeline network for the cleaner-burning fuel. While Siberia gets half of its electricity from zero-emission hydroelectric stations, a dam 30km from Krasnoyarsk contributes to the pollution. Are Chinese tourists the greatest threat to Lake Baikal? The Yenisei river downstream never freezes, despite temperatures that average -16 degrees Celsius in January, creating steam that traps harmful particles and exacerbates the smog. Krasnoyarsk’s air quality caught the attention of federal authorities following a 2018 visit by Putin and last year’s fires in the Taiga, a vital carbon sink that absorbs carbon dioxide for the entire planet. The city is now part of a national clean air programme that calls for expanding the use of natural gas. The plan calls for a 570km gas pipeline from the Kemerovo region that regional governor Alexander Uss estimates will cost 120 billion roubles (US$1.7 billion). But the proposed pipeline was not included in Gazprom PJSC’s 2020 investment programme. Planned investments through 2025 are still under discussion, the state-run gas giant said last month. Scientists warn of ‘zombie fires’ in the Arctic The Energy Ministry declined to comment on the gas pipeline to Krasnoyarsk, but said there is a plan approved by the government to improve the air in Krasnoyarsk by 2024 that includes modernising the city’s heating systems and shutting down old boilers. The cost of bringing gas to Krasnoyarsk would be about three times what Russia spends on gasification annually, according to Sergei Kapitonov, an analyst at Moscow’s Skolkovo Energy Centre. Regulated gas prices can be one-tenth what the average European consumer pays. That “creates a paradox where large regions of the country with the world’s biggest gas reserves don’t have access to gas and must use coal for heat and electricity generation instead”, Kapitonov said.