TED Case Studies: Russia Air Pollution
CASE NUMBER: 386
CASE MNEMONIC: RUSSAIR
CASE NAME: RUSSIA AIR POLLUTION
1. The Issue
The extent of pollution and ecological collapse in Russia is
due to decades of ill-considered military and industrial
development undertaken in virtual secrecy and with scant concern
for the environmental and health consequences. Environmental
pollution clamps a stranglehold on the big cities in Russia.
Pollution in Russia now threatens the health of millions of
citizens and the safety of crops, water and air. In 84 of
Russia's largest cities the air pollution is ten times the
accepted safety levels. In some areas, especially among children,
levels of respiratory problems are 50 per cent higher than the
national average. Moreover, Russia is a major contributor to
global ozone depletion, being the Worldžs largest producers and
consumers of Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS). Thus, Russiažs
emphasis on production at all costs has cost this country its
environmental integrity.
2. Description
In the former Soviet Union, the government promoted production
at all costs for decades. The strategy for economic growth in the
USSR was established in the first Five Year Plan of 1929, and
remained fundamentally unchanged for the next 50 years. At the
time of the 1917 revolution, and despite a drive for
industrialization in the late 19th century, economic development in
Russia had continued to lag well behind that of the major
Europeans countries and the United Sates. By the late 1930s,
following enormous losses incurred during World War I and the sub-
sequent civil war, and part due to the perceptions of an increasing
threat of further military conflict, the objective of catching up
with the West became the dominant influence on economic policy.
The relatively liberal New Economic Policy of 1921-28 had mixed
results and was seen as inadequate to the task of achieving the
desired ždash for growth.ž The new approach, centered o
accelerated industrialization, required rapid mobilization of
capital, labor and material inputs, with lesser emphasis being
placed n their efficient use (so-called extensive development).
The introduction of a full scale command economy-including
nationalization of almost the entire capital stock and
collectivization of agriculture-was seen as the only way to achieve
these shifts in resources at the required pace.
As far as natural resources were concerned, there had been a
tendency to exploit the more accessible reserves first. Cost of
extraction and transportation therefore rose as production (of oil
and gas in particular) was forced to shift from Europe and Central
Asia to harsher and more remote regions in Siberia and the Far
East. At the same time, the incentives for enterprise managers to
innovate, increase efficiency or improve the quality of their
output were inadequate or even perverse. The planning system
motivated higher production primarily by imposing increasingly
ambitious targets since it could not afford to allow temporarily
lower output from one enterprise to jeopardize the input s to
others. Thus the infrastructure and environment were further
causalities of the preoccupation with growth and meeting the yearly
plan objectives. Risks of environmental damage were not allowed to
obstruct the resource requirements of rapid industrialization, and
would eventually impose enormous costs on the Soviet economy.
The extent of pollution and ecological collapse in Russia is
due to decades of ill-considered military and industrial
development undertaken in virtual secrecy and with scant concern
for the environmental and health consequences. In the Soviet
Union, environmental officials were always kept subservient to the
agencies that ran the military, utilities, mines, chemical
industries and metal-works. Consequently, the purity and integrity
of the environment were seriously compromised. Experts maintain
that over a hundred big cities in Russia are now beleaguered by
stiff environmental predicaments. As a result, pollution in Russia
now threatens the health of millions of citizens and the safety of
crops, water and air. All of these problems are the result of
"economics without limits"--a "perversion of the system of values."
The weaknesses of Soviet environmental protection more
apparent was in the Kuznetsk coal-mining basin, or Kuzbass, a
96,000-square-kilometer (37,000-sq.mi.) swath of southwest Siberia
that for most of this century has been pillaged in the name of
progress for its unparalleled mineral riches. The area holds
effectively bottomless stores of coal, iron, manganese and gold.
For example, under Kuzbass soil lie an estimated 725 billion tons
of bituminous coal--145 times the total amount of coal ever mined
in the entire world. Though coal and iron ore were discovered in
the region in the 1700s, for most of its history the Kuzbass, 2,000
miles east of Moscow, has harbored only the harsh penal colonies of
successive despotic regimes. Rapid development came to the area in
the late 1920s, when Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ordered a
nationwide expansion of the industrial base. In southern Russia,
in the basin of the Don River; in the Far North, Karelia and the
Kola Peninsula; and most of all, through the Ural Mountains to
Magnitogorsk and east to the Kuzbass, the state built a vast zone
of mines and metallurgical combines. Sulfur, Carbon dioxide are
some of the gases emitted from those industries. These contribute
to air pollution and climate change. The only limits were time and
manpower. After Stalin's death in 1953, Soviet leaders expanded
the Kuzbass' growth, then went after the immense reserves of oil,
gas and timber in the rest of Siberia.
Russian industry has never taken proper and reasonable
ecological standards and requirements, lacking anything like
resource-saving waste-free technologies and efficient purification
facilities. There are 28,000 enterprises, among them 428 iron-and-
steel works, 625 chemical and petrochemical operations, and 5,429
engineering plants churning out pollutants baneful to both the
people and their environment. Leninsk-Kuznetski, home
to160,000 people. From the center of town, an hour and a half to
the south of Kemerovo, smokestacks tower in every direction, and
the streets are covered with coal dust and ash. Like most of the
factories, the largest of the city's nine mines are downtown.
Residents take their drinking water in pails from the Inya, the
local river. Because it contains more chemical waste than water, it
flows even when winter temperatures drop far below freezing.
In Novokuznetsk, the air grows even worse. During the spring
thaw, the city's mammoth metalworks mock environmental laws,
releasing into the sky three or four times the maximum legal level
of heavy metals. In winter and summer, the climate conspires to
trap poisonous air above the city for weeks at a time. A report by
the regional Health and Epidemiology Survey indicates that sulfur
levels near an agglomeration plant run as high as 312 times the
acceptable level. Near a 5.4 million-square-foot pharmaceutical
plant, fluoride is 300 times the norm.
Two-thirds of the city's air pollution comes not from its
monster factories but from the low stacks of its centralized, and
massively inefficient, coal-burning utility plants. According to
municipal authorities in Novokuznetsk, the city's air averages 10
times the legal level of benzopyrene, a carcinogen found in coal.
One industrial district is burdened with 48 times the legal level.
On bad days, the authorities say, nitrous oxide runs 15 times the
norm, ammonium 10 times and soot 7 times. Studies around the world
have implicated these pollutants in a variety of human ailments,
some fatal, ranging from asthma and sore throats to cancer. By
winter's end, according to a local chemist, snow on the city's
streets contains 200 times the level of pollutants that the law
allows.
While the decline in industrial production has reduced
emissions of air pollutants from stationary sources, this has been
more than made up by increased motor vehicles and industrial
accidents. In 150 cities, including Moscow, Tomsk, Krasnodar,
Rostov-on-Don and Yekaterinburg, vehicular emissions now exceed
those from industry. Often concentrations of harmful substances
from automobile exhausts exceed maximum allowable concentrations
10-20 times. Air pollution is responsible for 41 percent of
respiratory diseases and 16 percent of endocrine diseases.
Even if to ignore accidents, the situation with air pollution
by industries strikes. The following table displays the critical
levels of harmful emissions in the air in some cities.
City Tons of harmful emissions
Novokuznetsk 560,000
Lipetsk over 386,000
Omsk 293,000
Angarsk 233,000
Ufa 232,000
Industrial wastes let out into the atmosphere most frequently
contain:
Type of industrial wastes
Total solid particles per million tons
solid particles 3.6
gases and liquids 17.7
Type of gases and liquids per million ton
sulfur dioxide 6.4
nitrogen oxides 2
carbon 5
hydrocarbons 2.7
Source: Yelena Krivyakina, "Russian Cities Are About To Clean Their
Act", RusData DiaLine- BizEkon News, May 16, 1996
The contribution of transport means and industries contribute
for air pollution in 150 cities, and the levels of exhaust fumes
over those cities often vastly exceeding admissible guidelines. In
Moscow, Tomsk, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, and Yekaterinburg their
content range from 10 to 20 times of maximum permissible
concentrations (MPC).
Over the past two years escalating numbers of vehicles on the
roads have put a stifling strain on the environment. The vastly
proliferating cars are the huge blight on the Russian cities
nowadays. Moscow has, at the moment, nearly 2,000,000 of them, and
every day it further hosts around 200,000 cars from elsewhere. Car
exhausts have reached 1.7 million tons a year to account for 87
percent of entire air pollution levels. By contrast, the share of
industrial pollution over the past few years has slumped by 40
percent and is now not more than 7 percent of total air pollution.
But the figures are grim: 1995 Environment Ministry statement
indicated that two-thirds of Russia's citizens, particularly
those who live in industrial cities, are breathing severely
polluted air, and as many as 50 million out of the country's 147
million people inhale air 10 times dirtier than recommended by
Russian standards.
Moscow's burgeoning number of automobiles spew forth nitrogen
dioxide and carbon monoxide in record quantities, putting the
health of residents at risk. In an in-depth US study published in
1995 in the Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine,
experts drew a clear parallel between effects of airborne particles
from traffic and industry to the likelihood of premature death.
The study linked breathing foul air to increased heart disease,
respiratory diseases and lung cancer.
The dangers are signaled in Russia's population figures.
The total population of Russia numbered 147.8 million in early
July, down 200,000 since the beginning of 1996, according to the
data just released by the State Statistics Committee. A total of
553,200 children were born in Russia between January and May
1996, down four percent on the same period of 1995. A recent
report compiled by Yablokov's commission shows that in 1995 the
population of Russia decreased by 330,000, even after half a
million immigrants entered the country. The biggest increase in
death rate was among those aged 20 to 49. The death rate among
able-bodied men is four times higher than among women and the
average Russian man dies two years before reaching pensionable age.
In the Far North and similar areas the population has decreased by
5.5 percent over the past four years. There has been a steady
deterioration from a population growth rate of 2.2 percent in 1990
to a 5.8 percent decrease in 1995.
The human health consequences of this inattention to the
environment have been catastrophic. For reasons that Aleksei
Yablokov, the head of the Security Council's environmental
commission, attributes to the degraded environment, the life
expectancy of men in Russia has dropped to 57.3 years, compared
to 72 in the United States. In the Kuzbass, it is only 51.
According to Andrei Luzhkov, director of immunology at the Kemerovo
Medical Institute, 80 percent of workers in the Kuzbass have
impaired immune systems. Other studies indicate that adults in
Kemerovo are more than three times as likely as people elsewhere in
the country to suffer endocrine ailments and 2.7 times as likely to
have chronic bronchitis.
Kemerovo's children have three times the kidney and urinary-
tract infections and, according to the Medical Institute's Kaznin,
2.6 times the fatal nervous-system disorders. In one of the city's
particularly polluted neighborhoods, the number of retarded
children is triple the national average. Russia's health
problems, like its polluted environment, are hardly confined to the
Kuzbass. In Novosibirsk, to the northeast of Kemerovo, several
schools have reported cardiovascular problems in all of their
students. In the Kola Peninsula, near Scandinavia, fully one-
fourth of the babies have heart defects or bone-marrow disorders.
Not far to the south, in the town of Nadvoitsy, decades of dumping
by an aluminum plant has contaminated drinking-water sources,
turning the teeth of the town's children black and rotten.
The environmental scourge at the root of such problems shows
no signs of abating. On the contrary, according to a report
released by the Environment Ministry in June, air pollution in the
60 to 70 largest Russian cities, where between 40 million and 50
million people live, rises several times a year to at least 10
times higher than the legal limit. As many as 60 million other
people live in places where pollution yearly exceeds health
standards by at least five times.
Though it may not be apparent, the city government has
undertaken various measures to cut down on Moscow's growing air
pollution problem. From closing down dozens of factories within
the city to forbidding trucks from traveling in the city center
during certain hours to drafting legislation on auto emissions
testing - the Moscow authorities have tried in the past several
years to stuff the genie of air pollution back into the bottle.
Moreover, Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov is attempting to cut the
levels of air pollution in the Russian capital, ordering a local
oil refinery to stop burning off unwanted gas and demanding that
all cars in the city be fitted with catalytic converters. In
addition, Luzhkov understands the need for ecologically clean
petrol as a result, he categorically demanded that all Moscow cars
be fitted with catalytic converters. He also insisted that
production of 103-grade, leaded petrol be ended whereas measures
should be drawn up and used against those who produce and sell this
petrol. Owners of private cars will also be forced to fit their
vehicles with converters. These cost 500 dollars each. But,
according to Luzhkov, if they fail to do so, the consequences will
be very unpleasant. So, they will have to choose.
Over the past two years escalating numbers of vehicles on the
roads (in Moscow, for one, they surged by nearly 700,000 or 1.5
times) have put a stifling strain on the environment. The vastly
proliferating cars are the hugest blight on the Russian cities
nowadays. Moscow has, at the moment, nearly 2,000,000 of them, and
every day it further hosts around 200,000 cars from elsewhere. Car
exhausts have reached 1.7 million tons a year to account for 87
percent of entire air pollution levels. By contrast, the share of
industrial pollution over the past few years has slumped by 40
percent and is now not more than 7 percent of total air pollution.
In Moscow, schools have been closed, hospitals refitted to take
more beds and key medical staff recalled from holidays, but the
current influenza epidemic continues to claim more victims daily,
paralyzing the country's already troubled health service. The
number of new patients hospitalized with flu related respiratory
problems is growing at eight or nine per cent a day say city health
ministry officials. At the Central Clinical Hospital, one of
Moscow's largest, they have double the normal number of respiratory
cases in their care. Experts had identified the strain as so-
called South African flu A H3 N2. This virus is more dangerous
than other strains and if not cured in seven or eight days, the
disease develops into a more protracted form and may cause lung
complications. The problem is exacerbated by the level of air
pollution in the city, which further reduces resistance to the
disease and adds to the seriousness of the lung complications that
often follow. Cancer incidence and related mortality in the cities
of Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo, where benzpyrene
levels in the air exceed MPC by six to ten times, are greater than
on the average in the country.
Air pollution and disease incidence in Russia in 1995,
based on RF security council environmental commission findings
shows that despite a drop by ten million tons in industrial
emissions into the atmosphere by Russia in the wake of production
slump, to 21.3 in 1995 from 31.8 million tons in 1991, the amount
is still very big. And it was rendered bigger still by accidental
ejection of noxious substances registered in Togliatti, Kurgan,
Nizhny Tagil, Volzhsk, Novokuibyshevsk, Norilsk, Tambov, Sochi and
Chita last year alone.
Badly polluted air proves responsible for 41 percent of
respiratory and 16 percent of endocrine pathologies. It becomes
particularly dangerous for 37 percent of children, adults being
affected nearly four times less frequently. Of moment also is that
urban population of industrial centers is hit twice as often
compared to rural. The air in Kurgan and Shadrinsk, for example,
is by far worse compared with that in the surrounding areas.
Children are most affected with bad air estimated to be the
cause of 37 percent of children's diseases. In Omsk, Krasnoyarsk,
Novosibirsk and Kemerovo benzpyrine exceeds limits 6-9 times
resulting in high levels of cancer. In Magnitogorsk, a cocktail
of chemicals in the air is causing birth defects tumors, malignant
blood diseases and diabetes.
Magnitogorsk, in the Urals, whose air stands out for a
particularly 'rich' chemistry, leads for the rates of congenital
defects and cancers, blood dyscrasias and diabetes melitus in
children. Dwellers of Monchegorsk (sulphur anhydride in the air
above 2 MPC, formaldehyde 1.4 MPC, and dust 1.2 MPC) suffer from
tumors, muscular-skeletal pathologies, congenital deformities and
skin cancer by, respectively, 1.8, 2, 1.6 and 1.5 times more often
than in other parts of the country. As to Novosibirsk, with a
whole variety of noxious substances exceeding MPC by from five- to
eight- fold, natural abortions in its women are by 3 to 5 times
more often the case than elsewhere in Russia, oncologic and
endocrine incidence in its population also rating higher by,
accordingly, 3.5 and 2.6 times.
The effects of air pollution is not only compromising the
health of Russians but has also damage the environment. The city
of Norilsk, labelled as the worst polluted city in the Arctic,
illustrates this problem. Norilskžs nickel smelters have belched
out so much sulfur into the atmosphere that trees and vegetation
for many kilometers around have died.
Finally, in 1949 the Soviet Union passed the world's first
resolution defining maximum permissible levels of toxic substances.
But like the progressive Soviet Constitution, this resolution and
the nation's other environmental laws were worth less than the
paper on which they were written. Since the breakup of the Soviet
Union, Russia has added still more laws to the books. But today's
reality--even where the high-minded plans are not sabotaged by
corruption--is that no one can afford to follow through. For
instance, Andrakhanova admits that her 19 new programs and 200
inspectors have no local budget and that only half the federal
money promised them actually comes through.
3. Related Cases
Ecsulfur, Japanair, Korpoll, Chileair, Clean, Montreal, Ozone
Keyword Clusters
(1) : Ozone Loss = [OZONE]
(2) : Bio-geography = AIR
(3) : Environmental Problem = Pollution Air [POLA]
4. Draft Author: Marcela Rabi Fall, 1996
B. LEGAL Cluster
1.Discourse and Status: AGReement and INPROGress
Russia recognizes its legal obligations as a development
country signatory to the Montreal Protocol respecting target Ozone
Depleting Substances phase-out schedules. However, the countryžs
economic capability to complete this task has decline
significantly, since ratifying the London Amendments in 1992. As
a consequence, it has fallen behind in phase out activities and
will not be able to meet its phase-out scheduling obligations. A
number of steps have been initiated to ensure that its obligations
are met. Responsibility for ODS phase-out activities has been
assigned to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural
Protection (MEPNR). A comprehensive Country Program as described
below has been developed and formally adopted by the government.
This program acknowledges that Russia will be out of compliance
with its obligations as of January 1, 1996 and proposes a revised
phase-out schedule. Russia has presented its Country Program to
the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Council and to the Parties
to the Montreal Protocol, formally acknowledging its non-compliance
status and confirming its commitment to the revised phase-out
schedule in writing. Russia has also undertaken to address issues
associated with exports of ODS through an agreement with the
Parties to the Montreal protocol which outlines the actions to be
taken. Similarly, Russia is expected to be a developed country
contributor to the Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of the
Montreal Protocol (Multilateral Fund), with in-kind contributions.
While no contributions have been made to date, Russia has
undertaken to resolve its current areas positions and fulfill its
contribution obligations when its economic conditions improve.
At the national level, the Russian presidency has had a
department dealing with environmental matters since 1991, initially
just an ecology adviser, then a coordinating council on ecological
policies and, until lately, the inter-departmental commission for
ecological safety -- all involving Yablokov. However, the recent
re-organization of the presidential power structure since the 1996
summer's presidential election "has made the situation absolutely
unclear." A proposal to President Boris Yeltsin was sent to set up
a special council for ecology and stable development to draw more
attention to Russia's serious ecological problems. However, this
council could comprise leaders of different federal structures
connected with the problems of ecology and stable development as
well as leading scientists and businessmen on a part-time basis.
It would be a consultative body within the President's office "to
encourage the analysis of the problems which will be of growing
importance for Russia."
6. Forum and Scope: Russia and UNILATERAL
The Former Soviet Union (FSU) ratified the Montreal Protocol
in November, 1988 as a developed country. The Russia Federation
continues the FSU membership in the Protocol and in January, 1992,
Russia ratified the London Amendments. However, ratification of
the Copenhagen Amendments has not occurred. Based on its
ratification status as a developed country under the Montreal
Protocol, Russiažs obligations for ODS phase-out are in accordance
with the accelerated developed country schedule for halons (January
1994), and for CFC, CTC and MCF (January 1996).
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,
reinforced in April 1995 by the Berlin mandate and now by the
Geneva Declaration, was adopted at the UNCED Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro, in June 1992. 159 countries have ratified it since then
and it came into force on March 21, 1994. This 27-point Convention
proposes "a global strategy" for restricting atmospheric emissions
of gases causing the greenhouse effect, believed to be responsible
for causing the climate change phenomenon that could spell disaster
for planet Earth. However, it was only the industrialized
countries that undertook to try and bring down, individually or
collectively, their greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the
year 2000. Only a few of these countries are now in a position to
respect this undertaking, it was confirmed at the Geneva
Conference.
Contrary to what was loudly demanded in Rio by non-
governmental organizations, the Convention does not lay down any
binding rules on signatory countries. It is simply a "framework"
to act as an incentive and a context in which Governments can
jointly establish new policies and programs. This is why the
Geneva Declaration mentions for the first time "legally-binding
quantifiable targets," without however going into any figures.
This text will now serve as a basis for negotiations on drawing up
the Protocol decided last year in Berlin and which should be
adopted at the end of 1997 in Kyoto, at the third Conference of the
Parties to the Climate Change Convention. Several countries,
including most notably the small landlocked states, are calling for
a Protocol to the Rio Convention fixing greenhouse gas emission
reductions at 20% below 1990 levels by the year 2005. Germany
suggested 10% below 1990, however.
7. Decision Breadth: Russia and 123
In 1992, 132 nations signed the Global Climate Convention in
which they agreed to stabilize their carbon dioxide emissions at
1990 levels by the year 2000. However, as recently as April 1995,
several of these countries (most notably Norway) admitted that they
will be unable to reach this goal. In Europe, the only nations
currently poised to meet the emissions target are those that have
successfully made the transition from coal-fired to natural gas-
fired generating capacity.
8. Legal Standing: TREATY
Russia is party to Air pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen
Oxides, Air Pollution Sulfur 85, Antarctic Treaty, Climate Change,
Nuclear test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, etc. It is signed, but
not ratified to Air Pollution-Sulfur 94, Antarctic-Environmental
Protocol, etc.
C. GEOGRAPHIC Cluster
9. Geographic locations
a. Geographic Domain : EUROPE
b. Geographic Site : EAST EUROPE
a. Geographic Impact : RUSSIA
Russia is located in Northern Asia (that part west of the
Urals is sometimes included with Europe), bordering the Arctic
Ocean, between Europe and the North Pacific Ocean.
10. Sub-National Factors: YES
The city government has undertaken various measures to cut
down on Moscow's growing air pollution problem. From closing
down dozens of factories within the city to forbidding trucks from
traveling in the city center during certain hours to drafting
legislation on auto emissions testing - the Moscow authorities have
tried in the past several years to stuff the genie of air
pollution back into the bottle. In addition, Moscow Mayor Yuriy
Luzhkov attempting to cut the levels of air pollution in the
Russian capital, ordered a local oil refinery to stop burning off
unwanted gas and demanding that all cars in the city be fitted with
catalytic converters. In addition, Luzhkov understands the need
for ecologically clean petrol as a result, he categorically
demanded that all Moscow cars be fitted with catalytic converters.
He also insisted that production of 103-grade, leaded petrol be
ended whereas measures should be drawn up and used against those
who produce and sell this petrol. Owners of private cars will also
be forced to fit their vehicles with converters. These cost 500
dollars each. But, according to Luzhkov, if they fail to do so,
the consequences will be very unpleasant. So, they will have to
choose.
The Soviet government began to order industry out of the
capital 20 years ago, however, as a rule, those orders were not
carried out. There was not enough money to build new plants, and
since there was no replacement, the old ones couldn't be closed.
11. Type of Habitat: [COOL]
Russia's climate ranges from steps in the south through humid
continental in much of European Russia; subartic in Siberia to
tundra climate in the polar north; winters vary from cool along
Black Sea coast to frigid in Siberia; summers vary from warm in the
steppes to cool along the Arctic coast.
D. TRADE Cluster
12. Type of Measure: Regulatory Standard [REGSTD]
13. Direct vs. Indirect Impacts: INDirect
14. Relation of Measure to Environmental Impact
a. Direct Related : Yes - Mining, (M): Oil and Gas [OILGAS]
b. Indirectly related : Yes - Air Conditioners, Refrigeration
c. Not Related : No
d. Process Related : Yes - Ozone Loss [OZONE]
15. Trade Product Identification: Many
Petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, wood and wood
products, metals, chemicals, and wide variety of civilian and
military manufactures. 16. Economic Data Russia continues to
experience formidable difficulties in moving from its old centrally
planned economy to a modern market economy. It has made little
progress in a number of key areas that are needed to provide a
solid foundation for the transition to a market economy. Financial
stabilization has remained elusive, with wide swings in monthly
inflation rates. Only limited restructuring of industry has
occurred so far because of a scarcity of investment funds and the
failure of enterprise managers to make hard cost-cutting decision.
In addition, output has continued to fall.
According to Russian official data, which probably overstate
the fall, GDP declined by 15% in 1994 compared with a 12% decline
in 1993. Industrial output in 1994 fell 21% with all major sectors
taking a hit. Agricultural production in 1994 was down 9%.
According to official statistics, Russiažs 1994 trade with nations
outside the former Soviet Union produced $12.3 billion surplus, up
from $11.3 billion in 1993. Foreign sales - comprised largely of
oil, natural gas, and other raw materials - grew more than 8%.
Imports also were up 8% as demand for food and other consumers
goods surged. Russia trade with other former Soviet republics
continued to decline. At the same time, Russia paid only a
fraction of the roughly $20 billion in debt that came due in 1994,
and by the end of the year, Russiažs hard currency foreign debt had
risen to nearly $100 billion. Russia's physical plant continues to
deteriorate because of insufficient maintenance and new
construction. Plant and equipment on average are twice the age of
the Westžs. Many years will pass before ussia can take full
advantage of its natural resources and its human assets.
1.Impact of Measure on Trade Competitiveness: MEDIUM
18. Industry Sector: MANY
Russia has a complete range of mining and extractive industries
producing coal, oil, gas, chemicals, and metals; all forms of
machine building from rolling mills to high-performance aircraft
and space vehicles; ship-building; road and rail transportation
equipment communications equipment; agricultural machinery,
tractors, and construction equipment; electric power generation and
transmitting equipment; medical and scientific instruments;
consumer durable.
19. Exports: $48 billion (f.o.b., 1994)
Commodities: petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, wood
and wood products, metals, chemicals, and wide variety of civilian
and military manufactures.
Partners: Europe, North America, Japan, Third World countries, and
Cuba. and Imports: $ 35.7 billion (f.o.b., 1994)
Commodities: machinery and equipment, consumer goods, medicines,
meat, grain, sugar, semifinished metal products.
Partners: Europe, North America, Japan, Third World countries and
Cuba.
E. ENVIRONMENTAL Cluster
1.Environmental Problem Type: Ozone Loss [POLA]
Air pollution is a result from heavy industry, emissions of
coal-fired electric plants, and transportation in major cities. As
much as 48 percent of the air-polluting discharges come from
industrial operations, while fuel-and-energy businesses are
responsible for over 15 percent of industrial effluents. To
illustrate, the oil-mining facilities alone take the blame for 10
percent of the nation's entire air pollution. Gas-extracting
operations have only 8 percent of waste gas trapped and detoxified
and account for 20 percent of noxious exhausts by entire industry.
The coal industry, though responsible for only 1 percent of
such exhausts nationwide, has them containing singularly poisonous
substances, such as fluorides and hydrogen chloride. The heat-and-
power plants engender nearly 20 percent of all industrial
discharges in this country, while the construction of hydro power
projects and companion reservoirs has left 4.5 million hectares of
land submerged. Nuclear power engineering generates very tangible
pollution challenges all across the board, from mining the
materials it uses to recycling and reclaiming its waste. The iron-
and-steel sector in Russia spews nearly a fourth of all toxic
discharges, with chemical and petrochemical works accounting for 6
percent of them and engineering plants for another 5.5 percent.
Russia is one of the world's largest producers and consumers
of Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS). In 1990 when production
peaked, it was estimated that 198,000 MT was produced, accounting
for between 15-20% of worlds production. In 1992, Russia ODS
production had fallen by 26% to 146,500 MT (including 21,000 MT
HCFC and 59,000 MT CTC). This production supplies 100% of the
domestic markets that continue to exist. Russian domestic
consumption also peaked in 1990 at approximately 70,000 MT and had
fallen by 40% to 48,365 MT in 1992. Consumption continues to
decrease primarily due to the economic downturn and, to a lesser
extend, phase-out action that has been taken. Five sectors account
for Russiažs ODS use: aerosol (46%), refrigeration and air
conditioning (27%), fire protection (14%), foams (11%) and solvents
(2%).
21.Name, Type, and Diversity of Spices: NA
22. Impact and Effect: HIGH and REGULatory
Fourteen countries contested the final declaration of the
phase-out; most of these states also opposed the adoption on July
16 of a scientific report by the IPCC, the Inter-governmental Panel
on Climate Change, which affirmed the inevitability of global
warming, with mankind as the principal culprit. The objectors were
Kuwait, Iran, Oman, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, the United Arab
Emirates, Syria, Qatar, Bahrain, Yemen, Sudan, Venezuela and
Russia.
23. Urgency and Life Time: HIGH
The cost of recovery is incalculable, and the coffers are
bare. The Russian case illustrate who production practice without
prudence may destroy or damage all that sustains them.
24. Substitutes: Clean-Technologies and Biodegradable products
Industries have became cleaner. For instance, the most
dramatic change in steel production have come in the former Soviet
Union and eastern Europe. The decline in pollution are due to
major improvements in manufacturing process. Also, Russian
scientists have received a US patent for a cost-saving air
pollution -control device that uses electrical pulses to destroy
more than 99 percent of polluting molecules, leaving behind basic
elements like air, water and carbon, the manufacturers say.
I. Identification