In 2015, the Russian Federation submitted its 2030 Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to the United Nations. This was a document that outlined Russia’s climate change and emissions related goals, based on their government’s own research and data. It contained emissions targets which said Russia would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions levels, so they were 70% to 75% of its emissions from 1990. In other words, the new levels would be 25% to 30% below 1990 levels by 2030 (Climateactiontracker.org, 30th April 2016).
However, these figures include reductions from greenhouse gases being absorbed by forests and the positive environmental impact of new forests being planted. This is also known as ‘forestry’. Russia contains vast amounts of boreal forests which have a significant global environmental impact. After accounting for forestry, this is a reduction of only 6% to 11% below 1990 levels of industrial greenhouse gas emissions. It is especially important to note the benchmark year, 1990, is the same year used for targets in the Kyoto Protocol. This is significant because in 1991, the USSR officially dissolved and thus, the country experienced a sharp economic and industrial decline. Due to the reduced industrial activity, Russian emissions levels rapidly decreased. In 2010, levels were 34% below 1990 levels (Josefson, Rotar; 22nd Jan 2016).
This in fact means that Russia could continue to significantly increase its emissions output after 2015’s INDC and still meet its 2030 targets. Because of his unambitious INDC targets, Putin has been criticized for not making a “fair” contribution to world climate goals. In fact, the emissions targets set by the INDC are not legally binding, nor are they strictly targets; they are referred to in the INDC as “long-term indicators” of climate action. As such, according to climateactiontracker.org’s report, Russia’s INDC targets fall well below the 1.5° temperature rise target set by the Paris Agreement and also below the more relaxed 2° limit established in the 2009 UN conference.
Altogether, this seems to suggest Putin’s attitude towards climate change action is at best, ambivalent. It can be argued that, as Russia is a country with a large global environmental impact, they should go to greater lengths to reduce climatic impact. One way of doing this would be to reassess their Nationally Determined Contribution using emissions levels from after 1991 as a benchmark.
The Paris Agreement is an agreement within the UN regarding the mitigation and adaptation to climate change, meant to replace the Kyoto Protocol. The countries within the Agreement aim to keep the global average temperature increase to 1.5°C. Each country independently evaluates and reports its own contribution, this is submitted in the form of an (I)NDC. After signing the Agreement, parties must formally join the Agreement by submitting “instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval” (Northrop, World Resource Institute. After joining, the agreement is legally binding however there is no repercussions for parties who miss their targets. Although it signed the Agreement in 2016, Russia has not yet ratified or otherwise formally joined the Paris Agreement (United Nations Treaty Collection, 2018). This suggests that climate change action is not a priority for the Russian Government. The Russian government has shown that they value economic growth more than they fear the consequences of global climate change. In their 2015 INDC which was submitted to the UN, they stated that since the GDP of the Russian Federation had grown 172% since the year 2000 and their GHG emissions figures rose 111%, there GHG emissions were minimal (climateactiontracker.org, 2018). However, these figures for GHG emissions do not include land use, land-use change, and forestry. Despite Russia’s apparent unwillingness to act on climate change, their Minister of Natural Resources, Sergey Donskoy said the final decision of whether or not Russia would ratify would take place “No earlier than January 2019” (TASS, 2017).
Russia’s Reasons
Joining the Paris Agreement contains many benefits for Russia, including possibly selling carbon credit to other countries, reduced risk of flooding and drought, and public health benefits from reduced air pollution in urban centers. As Putin is well known for keeping Russian government policy and decision making private, it is difficult to speculate on Russia’s reasons for their inactions and actions.
One possible reason may be sanctions imposed by the US and other actors.
For example, the 2014 sanction imposed by the Obama administration after Russia’s annexation of Crimea aimed to target Russian banks by blocking American investors from financing Russian companies (Baker, NYT, 2014). This makes it difficult for Russia to research ‘green’ technologies such as more efficient energy transfer and more efficient coal burning technology.
According to the 2014 UNFCCC inventory, Around 41% of all of Russian GHG emissions come from energy industries. The vast majority of this comes from petroleum and coal. Russia has some of the largest deposits in the world of petroleum, coal and natural gas. As of 2016 the oil and gas industry made up 11.5% of the total GDP, and over 70% of its exports. However, the country has large untapped wind resources. But they have not yet adopted large-scale wind energy production. The majority of its current wind production is located in agricultural regions with poor infrastructure; the wind is used out of necessity as connections to the main grid may not exist. By utilizing these untapped wind resources, they could lower emissions while still producing enough energy for commercial and domestic purposes.
Their yearly wind energy production in 2016 was equivalent to the energy produced by 430 tonnes of oil. By contrast, their oil production is 541,000,000 tonnes per year (worldenergy.org,2016). These same oil resources are the source of Russia’s climate-based apathy. The melting of arctic ice is exposing new, untapped oil sources and creating new shipping routes. Areas that were previously inaccessible due to ice caps are now being exposed, ready for exploration and mining operation. The increased oil and mineral export revenues will provide a much-needed boost to Russia’s faltering economy. From the above evidence we begin to understand Russia’s stance on climate change: they are one of the few countries that will directly benefit from it. With Russia’s struggling economy, it is obvious why Putin would choose economic gain over combating climate change. In fact the higher global temperatures would also mean that many parts of the Russian Tundra will become warmer and more hospitable, as well as being more suited for agriculture due to thawing permafrost. In this way, we can see how it is more economically beneficial for Russia not to join the Paris Agreement and take no action against climate change.