Vladimir Putin long dismissed the threat posed by global warming. But fires, disasters and foreign pressure have prompted him to change course. Last week, President Putin said Russia would stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2060. It was a remarkable reversal since Mr. Putin has long dismissed climate science and many in his country see international efforts to combat global warming as part of a Western plot to weaken Russia. But it’s unclear if Russia is sincere in its new pledge. Russian energy experts and government officials acknowledge the moves are largely driven by economics, with the European Union’s plans for tariffs on heavily polluting countries threatening exports from Russia, the fourth biggest among nations in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Mr. Putin long dismissed the scientific consensus that human activity was to blame for the warming of the planet. Rather, he said in 2018, climate change could be caused by “cosmic changes, shifts of some kind in the galaxy that are invisible to us.” Then, last year, a devastating oil spill in Siberia caused by thawing permafrost toppling a diesel tank underscored the particular danger that global warming poses to infrastructure in Russia. Under its existing plans, Russia will meet the pledge it made as part of the Paris climate agreement to reduce its emissions by 30 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, even though its emissions could still rise in the coming years. But there are signs that Russia will revise its plans to be more ambitious. The government’s draft climate strategy calls for Russia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 79 percent by 2050.
By Anton Troianovski. New York Times. October 19, 2021.
