Page - 26 - in options, Volume summer 2017

europe 26 regional focus www.iiasa.ac.atoptions ◼ summer 2017 Russia’s population will decline slightly in the next 20 years, even with the assumption that immigration will exceed emigration by around 250,000 people per year. Without this migration, the population would have declined by more than 5 million people by 2035, according to new population projections from IIASA in collaboration with the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration and the Russian Federal State Statistics Service. Population projections are vital for policymaking, particularly in the area of social security, since the number of people drawing pensions must be supported by those paying into the system. In Russia, the aging population has led to recent calls to increase the retirement age. “This need can be well observed from our projections,” says IIASA researcher Sergei Scherbov, who worked on the new projections. Scherbov and colleagues have recently developed new methods of categorizing aging which take into account people’s characteristics, such as health and education level—these factors are also included in the new projections. Transport and residential heating could be responsible for a greater contribution of black carbon in the Russian Arctic compared to gas flaring or power plants, according to a new study. Black carbon, or soot, increases snow and ice melt by dulling the reflective surface and increasing the absorption of sunlight. Researchers say this is one reason that Arctic regions have warmed faster than any other area on the planet. The new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, traced the sources of black carbon emissions in Europe that may end up in the Arctic. The researchers found that 35% of black carbon in the Russian Arctic originates from residential heating sources, 38% comes from transport, while open fires, power plants, and gas flaring are responsible for only 12%, 9%, and 6% respectively. The study confirms previous work for some areas of the European Arctic, but for Siberia, the findings differ from previous research, which had suggested that contribution from gas flaring were much higher. “Reducing black carbon pollution holds some potential for climate change mitigation, especially in the Arctic, but in order to take effective action, we have to know where it is coming from. This study provides better data, but also shows that we need more information about source structure and spatial distribution of pollution in the Arctic,” says IIASA researcher Zbigniew Klimont, who worked on the study. KL Tracing black carbon in the European Arctic Russia in 2035: An aging and smaller population The new projections also show huge regional differences among demographic indicators across the vast country, particularly in the area of life expectancy. “Regions with highest life expectancy may be not so far from West European countries according to this indicator. But there are regions where life expectancy is at the level of a least developed country. For example, life expectancy for men varies from 58 to 76 years,” says Scherbov. The new assumptions about fertility, mortality, migration, resulted in the projected population age composition and characteristics of aging. The data sheet is freely available online in both English and Russian. KL Further info Winiger P, Andersson A, Eckhardt S, Stohl A, Semiletov IP, Dudarev OV, Charkin A, Shakhova N, et al. (2017). Siberian Arctic black carbon sources constrained by model and observation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: e201613401 [pure.iiasa.ac.at/14364] Zbigniew Klimont klimont@iiasa.ac.at Further info Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), Russian Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), and International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). 2016. Russian Demographic Data Sheet 2016. RANEPA, Rosstat, and IIASA: Moscow, Russia and Laxenburg, Austria. [pure.iiasa.ac.at/14482] Sergei Scherbov scherbov@iiasa.ac.at