Even Putin Is Now Worried About Climate Change & has dropped its doubts about joining the Paris
Even Putin Is Now Worried About Climate Change
Russia has dropped its doubts about joining the Paris accords.
By Leonid Bershidsky at Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2019-09-24/putin-is-finally-worried-about-climate-change?__twitter_impression=true
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Given how little the Paris accord actually requires countries to do (theyre allowed to determine their own contributions based on the goal of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees by the end of this century), Russia doesnt really have to worry about implementation costs. When it signed the agreement, it promised to keep greenhouse gas emissions to 75% of the 1990 level. That target is easy to meet, after the collapse of Soviet industry in the 1990s. Indeed, on CO2 emissions, Russia is doing better than Germany, not to mention the three bigger emitters China, India and the U.S.
That doesnt mean, however, that Russia is doing its bit for the climate today. According to the Climate Action Tracker, a research project backed by the German environment ministry, Russia is one of the worlds laggards. Merely joining the Paris accord as a symbolic step wont change it; after all, only two major nations the U.S. and Turkey havent done so yet.
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Putins decision to stop dithering and join the accord, however, is likely more than a symbolic step: It's a signal of the Kremlin's growing seriousness about the threat. As such, it doesnt augur well for industry lobbyists, who have objected to the introduction of emissions pricing. Before the end of this year, the Russian parliament expects to see a government draft of a new emissions law, and its likely to hold some unpleasant surprises for the energy industry, especially for coal-burning power plants. Russia certainly has room to improve when it comes to emissions reduction. According to the consulting firm Enerdata, it has the second most energy-intensive economy in the world after neighboring Ukraine.
The Russian government is about to try a climate-related set of goals to reduce the countrys fossil fuel dependence and improve the economys energy efficiency. Whether these intentions will lead to a drop in Russian emissions, or simply end up creating another tax on industry, is impossible to predict. But at least the evolution of Putins views on climate appears to be going in the right direction.
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