You are obviously right about climate. The problem is time scale - the short, the medium and the long runs.

Most of the energy and demographic issues seem to loom in the 2010 - 2020 horizon, I may be wrong (since I don’t know enough here, and as you indicate maybe no-one does) but it seems the big climatic impacts would come towards the last quarter of the century. In the short term demographics and energy consumption would only seem to be a positive feedback mechanism building up the climatic change.

So yes, buying some land to build for your grandchildren in Canada (or even Siberia) might be a much better investment than a house now in Barcelona or Shanghai.

I have seen no studies talking about the expected changes to specific regions of the world, only the more general “world ‘average’ temperature rises by x degrees” type studies. I can understand that modellers may not want to make predictions that are currently uncertain, either because the computational horepower is not yet available, or because the effects that are important for regional prediction are not yet fully understood.
Bearing that in mind, the two kinda-sorta claims in this regard that I have seen occasionally mentioned are
* the infamous cooling down of Europe/UK from the gulf stream shutdown
* a warming of Russian central Asia
(* I would imagine, though I’ve not seen this mentioned, an analogous warming for Canadian central North America)

Anyone have any light to throw on this? Predictions of how the climate of Russia will change over the next 50 years?

(On the same topic, it would seems to a naif like myself that Russia and Canada do extremely well out of global climate change, Europe does pretty badly, the US seems to be a mixed bag, and, the interesting cases, China, again perhaps mixed bag, India more bad than good, and Brazil and Indonesia more bad than good.)

No analysis on how Iranian demographics will impact the country’s ability to export energy? Especially if the US and/or Israel are forced to make sure nuclear power won’t be used? I am surprised.

You should also look at the planned Iran/India/China pipeline. Considering what India and China would have to release into the planetary atmosphere without that gas, I am inclined to be happy that they get the stuff.

“For its part, Gazprom appears to welcome the proposal to monetize the ‘transit-for-supplies’ relationship with Ukraine. Not only does the idea support the Russian major’s attempt to liberalize gas prices for Russian industrial consumers from 2006, but it also gives the gas giant the incentive to push for higher gas prices for Moldova as well. Moldova may get stuck paying even higher gas prices to Gazprom from 2006, but there is clearly a political dimension to Gazprom’s threat to raise Moldovan gas prices to ‘European levels’.

At the same time, Belarus — which has its own tortuous ‘transit-for-supplies’ arrangement with Gazprom — could see the Russian gas giant turn around and use Naftogaz’s proposal against Belarus, forcing Belarus to pay higher prices. Monetization of this relationship could bring about the downfall of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenka, as the Belarussian economy — while less dependent on gas transit revenues than Ukraine — is even more dependent on cheap Russian gas supplies. Changes in the Ukrainian-Russian gas sector relationship, then, could have knock-on effects in Belarus and Moldova, forcing Ukraine’s neighbours into market-oriented reforms as well.”

from: http://www.prime-tass.com/news/print.asp?id=372687&topicid=65

The monetization aspect is interesting. And the whole text is well worth a read.

If there are any accountants reading AFOE, check out this Independent Accountants’ Review Report for Gazprombank (pdf): http://www.gazprombank.ru/media/papers/financial_report/2005/GPB_IFRS_Intrim_CFS_6m_2005-e3.pdf