Sanctions policy should not distract us from the heart of the matter. The introduction of a carbon tax is a political measure that promotes the interests of European states on the world stage and makes other countries dependent on European Union decisions.
There is a double-standard in the EU’s position on climate issues because many European countries moved their large industrial production to South-East Asia a long time ago, so they have moved their emissions and pollution there as well. But the atmospheric circulation is the same all over the planet.
In my opinion, it would be more rational, instead of paying the carbon tax, to allocate the funds for the early modernization of production facilities, because this process requires more than one year, and the amounts needed to re-equip production facilities are very large, they need to be planned and redistributed from somewhere.
I should note that large production facilities like Evraz, the Arkhangelsk Pulp and Paper Plant and the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant have been upgrading as planned, so that their products are freely traded on the international market.
We need not only to comply with international agreements, but also to pursue Russia’s national development goals. The maximum financial and political possibilities should be aimed at achieving them.
Russia already has a list of carbon payment verifiers. These are controlling organisations that expertly examine the entire production cycle and supply chain to identify irregularities and mark out weaknesses to the producer.
Verifiers also assess and issue official documents on the magnitude of the negative environmental impact of finished products. These documents are official and must be internationally recognised.
Such verifiers are organisations with sufficient expertise and technical capacity to confirm and develop recommendations for the implementation of various types of compensatory measures. It came as a surprise to Western Europe that we have such organisations.
The Europeans had planned that only their verifiers would calculate carbon units. The emergence of Russian verifiers broke their game. Now it is a political mishap. Life will show how the documents of Russian verifiers will be accounted for in the international market.
Фото на обложке: Volha Maksimava / iStock
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