Nilov speech at 29 BSPC

29 BSPCYEARSBaltic Sea Parliamentary ConferenceSECOND SESSIONVision 2030: Safeguarding our Environment,Seas and Oceans for Future GenerationsMr. Oleg NilovMember of the State Duma of the Federal Assemblyof the Russian FederationSpeech of Mr Oleg Nilovat the Digital 29th BSPC on 24 August 2020Oleg Nilov offered his greetings from St Petersburg. He noted that he was near one of the mostimportant waterways, in a building that served as its museum. The canals and the draining of StPetersburg had been a very important project and provided a very good example of cooperation interms of financing. Most of the water of the Baltic Sea had been drained out of the city, as well asthe wastewater. In fact, there were only two districts in St Petersburg that were not connected to thewastewater drainage system which had been established with the help of international cooperation.In that regard, he offered his gratitude to the Finnish colleagues whose side had provided financing.He further thanked his Swedish and Norwegian colleagues for their countries’ assistance. Mr Nilovunderlined that this wastewater system was working well, and its implementation had gone aheadwithout any unnecessary comments or arguments about democracy.Beyond the immediate water concerns, the speaker pointed out that water was the basis of theirconference as it encompassed the Baltic Sea states. He reminded his audience that air was equallyimportant to their lives, that the climate mattered. People should be able to live without flooding,without overheating and without forest fires. He praised the efforts of so many colleagues in theBSPC in the framework of the Green Agenda, particularly in the area of green energy. Moreover,Mr Nilov wished to draw their attention to a glaring misbalance. Much discussion was devotedto climate change, global warming, carbon emissions. On the one hand, there was hypotrophiawhich had to be looked at, but there was another area that was not talked about enough. Thisaspect was forest fires.Forest fires were a major problem in Russia. As a matter of fact, it was one of the greatest issues, ifnot right at the top of the list of environmental problems. The same was true of the United States,Brazil and many other countries, such as Australia. Forest fires were not only a disaster for thesecountries in themselves, but they also proved disastrous for the environment of the entire planet.That was because the fire’s emissions were entering the atmosphere.As an example, he referred to climatologists’ reports from June: In Siberia, only 30 per cent ofRussian forests remained. 59 million tonnes of carbon had been emitted into the atmospherethrough forest fires. This was the equivalent of what Portugal was emitting in an entire year. 285million tonnes of carbon had been emitted into the atmosphere as a result of forest fires in recentyears in Russia alone. Considering all the other countries where such fires were major issues, theoverall figure was immensely larger. Mr Nilov underlined that this was a major problem. In thenorthernmost forest fires in recorded history in the tundra, 50 kilometres before the northernice sheet, the turf of the tundra had recently caught fire. If this were to spread, it would proveimpossible to ever put this fire out. The level of carbon emitted into the atmosphere, if that wereto happen, would simply be incredible. Ten to fifteen million hectares of tundra were lost everyyear to forest fires. That equalled the size of Greece, each year, Mr Nilov underlined. He askedhis listeners to imagine what might be left after 2030 in terms of forests, and what huge amountsof carbon would be emitted through the conflagration. That consideration did not even takeinto account that the forests in and of themselves ordinarily served as carbon sinks. If trees wereburning, they could no longer absorb carbon.The speaker pointed out that this was a massive problem and that the BSPC needed to discuss it.He believed they had to speak about what had to be done, that decisions had to be taken on how toaddress the problem of forest fires. At the very least, they should consider if there were any budgetsthat could be put forward to this end.He suggested that discussions should be raised, not only in the BSPC but also in other venues,on how to take the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Accord further. Following in their footsteps, MrNilov called for a Baltic Sea Accord to mitigate carbon emissions through forest fires, as one of themain sources of carbon emissions into the atmosphere on this planet. He said they should drawattention to this issue and channel funding into mitigating losses in this area. If you wanted tobuild a home, he proposed, you should have to plant a tree. If you wanted to buy a car, you shouldhave to plant a whole forest. That would be necessary to compensate for the carbon emissionscaused by your car or home.Mr Nilov asked the other countries to consider what options they saw in this respect, particularlythe nations suffering from this problem. He emphasised again that millions of hectares were beingdecimated each year. This was an issue that they had to start talking about. The speaker also calledfor an international foundation to be set up to alleviate the consequences of this problem, to tackleforest fires both in poor and richer countries as well as in more remote areas. Here, he mentionedAustralia and the US as examples. Neither of them seemed to be in a position to deal with thischallenge on their own. Therefore, Mr Nilov believed there had to be a “green army” of firefightersin order to tackle this problem in the near future.If this problem was not resolved, he stated, then there was no point to talking about burningcarbon at all. Indeed, planes or cars, with all their contributions to global warming, were just onepart of the climate challenge, with forest fires responsible for much in their own right.In conclusion, Mr Nilov pointed to California as a current example. In the US, hundreds ofthousands of people were having to flee their homes because of the forest fires raging there. Billionsof dollars were being lost at this very moment. Recent years had shown that even in democracies, noteverything was perfect. The life of the forest was far more important than elections, he suggested,or political fights or discussions about human rights. Therefore, he believed it was necessary to goback to the BSPC’s original agenda and talk about what were the most important issues concerningthe foundation of life – peace, the forests, the water and the quality of the air. These surely weremore important than political discussions, he affirmed. The latter were something they could talkabout separately, in their parliaments and at the next in-person meetings.He concluded his speech by stating his hope that they could indeed meet in person again verysoon.