April 28, 2022
The Russian authorities are assuming to postpone the plan of saving the planet from global warming due to Western sanctions. The Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation (Ministry of Energy of Russia) proposed to postpone the implementation of the national strategy to combat harmful greenhouse gas emissions for an indefinite period.
According to Alexander Zakondyrin, Chairman of the Public Council at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation (Ministry of Nature of Russia), currently, Russia annually releases about two billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere - about 80 percent of this volume falls on the energy sector. Relative to the levels of 2019, by 2050 the current decarbonisation strategy implies a reduction in the country's carbon emissions by 60 percent (or by 910 million tons). In the minutes of the meeting on the environmental policy of the council, they allowed a revision of the emission targets.
The document says that some companies have already asked the Russian Ministry of Energy to ease control over harmful emissions. For instance, Lukoil proposed to cancel their mandatory verification, and Tatenergo pointed out the need to develop new approaches to reduction of emissions without high costs and attracting foreign equipment. Business representatives believe that in the conditions of sanctions, the objectives of the climate strategy will be impossible for fulfilment - imported technologies will become unavailable, and the companies will incur higher expenses.
Experts believe that the impact of the sanctions will primarily affect foreign technologies and equipment. It will take time to replace them with domestic analogues. Therefore, the time required to reduce the emissions of Russian companies will also increase.
"Excessively ambitious goals and cumbersome carbon regulation may lead to an aggravation of the situation and the development of crises in various fields: energy, food security, the supply of key basic goods, etc. Revision of the goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is possible in certain areas due to the reduction of available financial resources and technologies for the implementation of measures for decarbonisation of the economy," - the representative of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE) Alexander Varvarin said.
On April 7, the G7 countries banned investments in key sectors of the Russian economy. Earlier, the European Union promised to introduce a special carbon tax from 2023, which should be charged on foreign manufacturers of goods that produce them in violation of European environmental requirements, including by excessive greenhouse gas emissions. The introduction of the EU carbon tax may cost Russian exporters about €3.6 billion a year. The Western countries used the policy of reducing greenhouse gases to maintain their own competitiveness.
"In it sense, it was a new colonial tax. Supporting the policy of integration with the West, Russia has been trying to get integrated into this system until the last. But now it makes no sense to focus on the desires of the West anymore. It was estimated that Russia would have to spend 90 trillion Rubles over 30 years for the transition to green technologies," said Artem Tuzov, Executive Director of the Capital Market Department of the Investment Company Univer Capital.
Currently, not only Russia, but also the EU countries are deviating from the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions for the sake of their political ambitions, again increasing the share of coal consumption in their energy balance, resuming operations of nuclear power plants and mining at coal mines.
However, environmentalists are convinced that the cancellation of emission requirements can have negative consequences both for the lives of Russians and for the Russian economy - intense fires, floods, hurricanes and droughts will become more frequent, and the cancellation of mandatory emission reports will demotivate business.
Sources:
https://lenta.ru/news/2022/04/27/otlozheno/
Translated in English by Muhiddin Ganiev