A Mongolian Climate Story

Mongolia is facing a bleak future. Already an arid land struggling to support a population that remains largely subsistence, climate change threatens to further dessicate it, wringing out the last precious drops of life-giving moisture. Everyone here describes the same story of less rain year on year, rivers and lakes drying up and their fears about the continuing viability of their traditional nomadic lifestyle. They may live simple lives but Mongolians are far from ignorant about the origins of their plight. Their radios and satellite televisions, powered by solar panels, have given them science's explanation for what ails them.

A once huge lake in central Mongolia reduced to a puddle

Mongolians, in common with most people it seems, like to say their government is not doing enough about climate change. They plant a few trees here and there but there's more talk than action. The reality is, as far as mitigation is concerned, there's little Mongolia is able to implement, especially in rural areas where lifestyles could barely be more low carbon. As is the case for the majority of the world, the extent of the powers the country possesses to deal with climate change are generally restricted to adaptation, in other words mopping up someone elses mess.

Climate change is drying up this Mongolian waterfall

The litter that is clearly a problem here does not betray a lack of respect for the environment, as you might assume. Mongolians, like all traditional societies, are not yet used to disposing of anything that doesn't become food for something else. On the contrary, looking after their environment is heavily embedded in Mongolian culture. Shamanic folklore terrifies Mongolian children with tales of the perils of disrespecting the natural world.

The solar panel is a common sight in Mongolia

Mongolia cannot afford the luxury of climate change denial because the evidence of climate change is plain for all to see here and now. Despite that Mongolians have not caused the problems that now threaten their ancient way of life, they don't seem angry or bitter, despite a little baiting. Mongolians seem to point blank refuse to badmouth other countries, aside from Chinese, for whom they bear a vitriolic historical grudge. It's both humbling and heartwarming to have discovered that the consensus emerging from this vulnerable country is that it's everyone's responsibility to tackle the problem of climate change.

Dorjsuren, Orkhon, Mongolia

Dorjsuren, more commonly known as Ben (which means boy in Mongolian), is our guide for our three days of horse trekking around the magnificent eight lakes area. I wasn't planning on interviewing him but after watching my interview with Myagaa he so enthusiastically voluteered himself that I could hardly refuse.

Dorjsuren

As with all my previous Mongolian interviewees, the first thing Dorjsuren ,mentions is the lack of rain in recent years, especially the last five. What rain there is tends to fall in flash floods, which doesn't soak into the soil properly and therefore fails to nourish the plants that their animals feed on. Particularly dear to Dojsuren is the local waterfall that he grew up next to. It's a big attraction for tourists but these days it's dry all by two months of the year. We're extremely fortunate to be there while the waterfall is falling, albeit as a pale shadow of its former glory.

Dorjsuren with our pack horse

Climate change is a big problem throughout the country. This region is suffering from one of the many knock-on effects of global warming, increased pests. The trees, which protect the area from desertification, are being attacked by a two types of moth. They are thriving under the new warmer and drier conditions that climate change has brought.

Our trusty steeds

Like Myagaa, Dorjsuren thinks the government is all mouth and no trousers, talking plenty but doing little. He would like them to at least start with small problems, like helping his community fight the moths that attack their life-preserving trees.

Waterfall under threat from climate change

The future for Dorjsuren is unclear, although he can easily imagine a Mongolia without fossil fuels. He thinks his son will be ok but expects his grandson might have a very hard life because there will be so little water left when his time comes.

Vaanchig - Southern Gobi

For three seasons of the year Vaanchig lives next to some of the most impressive sand dunes in Mongolia. In fact, he recognises his neighbour's horse on the cover of our guide book. Most of his eight grown up children have now moved away but one son still lives at home. When we arrive, a week before the family are to move to their winter residence, he is extremely welcoming. He asks each of our group how are animals are doing and offers perfumed nasal explosive, also known as snuff, both with a cheeky knowing smile.

Vaanchig & his snuff bottle

Our smiling, mischievous host has worries though and once the interview begins I see a more serious side to Vaanchig. He thinks climate change will be a big problem for Mongolia.

Especially in the last few years, he has seen big changes in nature. He tells me that in Mongolia the biggest problem is a lack of rain. This year there was almost no rain, or snow in the winter. Even the water under ground, where the roots of plants could grow down to reach is now failing.

The incredible landscape in which Vaanchig lives

Compared to other parts of Mongolia the grass grows more sparsely here and creeping desertification is a constant threat. In the South Gobi there are now many more people and cars. The cars turn useful grassland to sand.

Vaanchig hears people talking about globalisation. He belives that as we live on one earth, everyone needs to try to solve the problem of climate change. It's not enough to work in isolation, all our efforts need to be connected.

Emma, Vaanchig & guide Khuu

"We need to reduce the pollution from industry and cars" says Vaanchig. "We must reduce the pollution everywhere!" He thinks the Mongolian government need to do something because they're doing nothing at the moment. They're just fighting about unimportant things. He can imagine a life without fossil fuels but at the moment everyone is so dependent.

Sunset at the top of the 200m sand dune overlooking Vaanchig's ger

I thank Vaanchig for his time and his thoughtful opinions and get up to leave but he stops me, saying he has a question for me. He asks me if I know whether other countries have been stealing Mongolia's rain by "shooting the clouds". At first I rather conceitedly think he's referring to a superstition or that he's misunderstood something he heard on the radio. I'm humbled when Jeff, an American who we have been travelling with, realises he's talking about cloud seeding. He informs us both that China does use cloud seeding for special occasions but that they wouldn't do it regularly because it interferes with rain cycles.

Boli - Gurvan Saikhan National Park, Mongolia

Boli and his wife and children live the traditional nomadic life in the beautiful Gurvan Saikhan National Park, which lies in the Southern, Gobi region of Mongolia. He is worried about climate change and has been well informed about it by his radio.

Emma, Boli and guide/translator Khuu

The last few years have been very dry with not nearly enough rain. No rain equals no grass, so Boli's animals don't have enough to eat. If they don't get fat enough over the summer, they will die in the winter. The situation is not disastrous now, particularly as the tourist trade supplements the diminishing support from his livestock, but he's concerned about how things will be in 30-40 years time if things carry on as they are. He has a longer time frame than most people I know.

Nomadic life in the Gobi

Boli thinks that everyone should try to fix climate change and has low energy lighting, which is powered by a solar photovoltaic panel, a fixture of most gers. He is also concerned about litter, which is heartbreakingly ubiquitous here, and tries not to contribute to the problem himself.

Curiously, for someone who remembers when animals not oil were the primary power source, as recently as the 1970s, he can't imagine a life without fossil fuels. He knows this sort of life is possible but cannot see how things can go back to how they were.

The view from a gerr

Later that day, after we leave Boli, we visit the 'ice gorge', which until recently boasted a year round ice packed crevice. Even our 2008 guidebook doesn't tell how the summer heat now steals away this impressive attraction and disappoints the many who visit in the height of the tourist season. That said, this is not all that surprising from the 'book of lies'.

Like the ice gorge, Boli's traditional nomadic family life is an attraction for tourists that is under threat from climate change. His dwindling income from the degraded environment is now supplemented by the very people who are destroying it by flying into the country in droves to gawp at a life, which demonstrates a stark contrast to their own cash-rich, wellbeing-poor existence at home.

The question that I cannot escape at the moment is whether this destruction is merely absent-minded or knowingly selfish? With knowledge of the great damage we're doing ourselves becoming clearer every day, I fear we can no longer excuse it as the former.

A Russian Climate Story

Russia has a lot to lose from climate change. A recent study by the World bank reported that the country is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change due to its ageing infrastructure, environmental damage caused by the Soviet regime and extreme weather patterns. In the 50 years the largest territory in the world can look forward to severe storms, heat waves and flooding, which they are ill-prepared to cope with. Herders in the north of the country are increasingly under threat from the melting permafrost.

St Basil's Cathedral, Moscow

Russians refer to an out of place building as a rotten tooth. With the USA and China both now taking climate change more seriously will Russia end up being the 'rotten tooth' in climate negotiations? This is looking less likely than it once was. Russia at last seems to have stepped up to take its important role in the grand political narrative of climate change.

Crumbling church gate, North West of Moscow

And when Russia does decide to take action on climate change mitigation, its socialist structures still in place will make it their achievement easier. For example energy efficiency in buildings will be easier to enforce because freehold of buildings by local government is far more common. In the UK the government has trouble persuading people to install measures like cavity wall insulation, even when it makes financial sense to do so.

So what do real people think about climate change in Russia? The ones I spoke to are by no means a representative sample but their views do provide an interesting insight into how Russians relate to climate change.

Traditional Russian wooden house

With varying degrees of seriousness, everyone jokes that the weather will be more amenable because of climate change. I'm no There is unanimity that the weather has changed in recent years, with much milder winters than they are used to.

There is a feeling that other countries have much to lose from climate change but I'm not sure the connection to increaed natural disasters and global food supply, and the potentially disastrous implications for Russia as a net food importer, have really been made. At least not in the eyes of individuals yet. Many of the people I spoke to believe that it will take a natural disaster, like Hurricane Katrina in the USA, for Russians to take climate change seriously.

Beautiful Lake Baikal, which is under threat from climate impacts

Much fuss is made over how readily Russians have embraced consumerism and how bad this is for climate change, amongst other environmental problems. A few days after my first interview with the six young people from Moscow, I speak again to the most skeptical member of the group, whose first baby is due next spring. He tells me that although some people want only for their children to be rich, he would rather his grew up to be happy. An unusual individual decision or a sign of things to come?

I was particularly struck by the words of Masha from Irkutsk, when she told about the Russian word ABOCb, pronounced avoss, which is roughly equivalent to saying “what the hell, I know something bad might happen but I'm just hoping it will be ok anyway” that is found in their folklore and fairy tales. I wonder just how important the stories we're taught as children are to the lifelong relationship we have with our environment.

Emma with the carriage boss on the Trans-Siberian

The Russia I found was a country of extremes and contradictions. There is a clear deep love of the natural world embedded in the Russian psyche, yet the countryside is liberally strewn with broken vodka bottles. The people I spoke to, although concerned themselves about environmental issues, held little hope for their fellow Russians. Despite the pessimistic attitude for which they are justifiably famous, there is also a sense of possibility, that things can change quickly, in this vast country with an ideological scale to match. 56% of Russians think there government should take stronger action on climate change. Russia seems, at last, to be waking up fast to the realities of climate change and their strong leaders, for better or worse, can implement change at a lightning pace.

Last night in Moscow

My last night night in Moscow we do something we'd been a little disappointed to have avoided so far. We drink vodka. Lots of it. I manage to interview two more people, both in their mid-twenties, before I am completely inebriated. Tanya works for a cosmetics company in a swanky office next to a contemporary art gallery and has the most sparkling smile in Moscow. Dennis works at a cool young TV station that shows mainly cartoons for teenagers, of the Southpark ilk.

Tanya, Emma & Dennis

Tanya isn't familiar with the term climate change as related to global warming is and admits that when she first heard about the Climate Stories project, she thought we were documenting how the weather changed through the regions we're visiting. Having clarified that we're referring to the global environmental problem, she confides she hasn't really thought about it much. She is a massive animal lover though and worries about what impact it will have on wildlife. She is disturbed by the idea that climate change may wipe out up to 50% of all species by the end of the century.

Dennis, Vova, Emma, Tanya & Will

Dennis carries that slightly distant air about him that deeply creative people often do but he is immediately likable. I'm surprised to learn that he is a teetotal, non-smoking vegetarian, which must surely be a rarity in Russia. He is concerned about climate change and thinks that it's everyone's job to fix the problem. He thinks it will take a natural disaster to make people in Russia wake up to the reality of the issue. I tell him this is not a Russian state of mind but a human one and remind him that the US became a lot more concerned about global warming after hurricane Katrina. He high fives me at the end of the interview and I leave Moscow with more hope for the future than I arrived with.

More Moscow Minds

Unfortunately I am a complete idiot, somehow managing to delete the video recordings most of my Moscow interviews and some later ones too. I have some notes but I'm really kicking myself for relying so heavily on what I should have known would prove to be unreliable technology.

My last day in Moscow is spent running around the city interviewing to three people, all a generation above the group of young people I first spoke to. I speak to Boris at Focus Media, a public health and social development foundation, and Olga and Lyobov at the Agency for Social Information. I hugely appreciate the time all of them have taken to speak to me. At their offices I get the impression there is always more work to be done.

Boris, like me, used to work for a national agency on climate change issues and has the tired, defeated look that I wish I saw less commonly in older environmentalists. His English isn't perfect (though obviously much better than my Russian!) but he has prepared a statement, which he reads to me. He says that global anthropomorphic climate change is happening right before our eyes and that the potential impacts are frightening. He compares the human race to a greedy crowd of rabbits that destroys itself through over-consumption of natural resources. It's difficult to disagree with him.

Olga seems shy but my interviewing technique is far from polished, which probably doesn't help. She knows climate change is a problem for Russia and wishes her contemporaries took it more seriously. She says her teenage son and his friends are much more aware of environmental issues than her generation. I am also informed that the vodka in Russia is much better in the countryside than the city.

Lyobov has twinkling eyes and a bubbly personality. Like Olga she is modest about her ability to provide an interesting interview but goes on to be absolutely fascinating. She worries about the Russian attitude to the environment in general. She is angry that any areas of natural beauty in the country are spoiled by her littering countrymen. She thinks Russia needs more awareness raising on climate change but remains optimistic about the future.

These three are all deeply concerned about climate change. They tell me that they are taking action in their lives but that the majority of Russian people are not. This sounds little different to a conversation I could have with most educated, middle-class people of their generation in the UK. Caring about the environment, and more specifically tackling climate change, may not be in the forefront of everyone's mind but there are clearly not so few people who are willing to ignore the evidence of climate change that now appears plain to all but a few dwindling 'flat earthers'.

PS Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Get involved.