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Over the next 30 years, Russia plans to increase its greenhouse gas emissions. That’s right: the country’s latest climate plan shows an 8.2% rise in carbon emissions from 2019 to 2050. The world’s fourth-largest polluter plans to rely on its extensive forests to meet climate targets by planting more trees and reducing wildfires. The plan comes after President Vladimir Putin said that his country’s emissions must be lower than the European Union’s in the next 30 years. It was the first time he mentioned climate as a priority during his state-of-the-nation speech.
Why This Matters: As a top-five emitter of greenhouse gases, how Russia approaches climate action matters worldwide. The Climate Action Tracker labels Russia’s plan as “critically insufficient,” calling out its lack of measures to create a green recovery from the pandemic, emphasis on expanding natural gas exports, and minimal support of renewable energy. Today, Russia is experiencing climate change with a rapidly warming (and on fire) Arctic and melting permafrost. And its reluctance to quickly ramp down emissions—along with carbon from the rest of the world’s big polluters—could eliminate the boreal forests it hopes will absorb emissions.
The Shifting Russian Approach to Climate: Russia ratified the Paris Agreement in 2019, but climate legislation that followed was gutted, eliminating tangible emission quotas and pollution penalties. And because the Paris Agreement sets its emissions targets based on 1990 levels, Russia technically already hit the 30% reduction goal in the early ’90s due to the Soviet Union breakup.
Speaking of the Soviet Union, the work of Soviet climatologist Mikhail Budyko in the early ’70s connected human activity, carbon emissions, and rising temperatures—and kicked off climate change studies around the world. He predicted that a warmer world could melt Arctic ice cover by 2050.
Now, however, “Russia is glaringly absent from international climate leadership,” Center for Strategic and International Studies fellow Georgy Safonov writes, noting that while Russia has signed international climate treaties, its actions don’t match its commitments.
“This is due in great part to poor leadership from national decision-makers flanked by energy lobbyists and loyal scientists who have sought to downplay the climate threat, arguing that the international community cannot control climatic processes, mitigation is unaffordable, and Russia’s forests absorb most of its carbon emissions anyway.”
By Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer Earlier this year, Ecuador’s new President Guillermo Lasso issued decrees to expand oil and mining projects in the Amazon. Indigenous communities from the country’s rainforest are now suing the government in an effort to stop these projects, calling them a “policy of death,” according to reporting by Reuters. Community […]
By Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer The giant sequoia trees in California’s Sequoia National Park are over 1,000 years old and could live another 2,000 years, but climate change-fueled fires are killing them. The trees can usually withstand the flames, but the intensity of recent fires has been overpowering. Last year’s Castle Fire killed up […]
By Amy Lupica, ODP Daily Editor As wildfires and deforestation grip the Amazon rainforest, Indigenous communities are urging world governments to pledge to protect 80% of the forest by 2025. The groups launched their campaign at a biodiversity conference in France, where experts from around the world are laying the groundwork for the UN’s delayed […]
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