It is worth recognising that the climate agenda has become the greatest challenge of the 21st century for all the world’s people. Strategies to ensure energy security, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from human activities and adapt to climate change should therefore be a core element of global climate policy.
A wide-ranging debate on strengthening cooperation between countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to ensure a just transition to a net-zero emission economy to combat poverty and ensure a sustainable future is expected at the key climate event of the year scheduled for November in Sharm el-Sheikh — the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27). The world’s greatest attention will be focused on adjusting the climate commitments of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases — China, the US, India, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Japan and Russia.
At the same time, experts fear that the governments of the leading countries of the world, having switched to political and economic crises, will postpone the climate agenda as a non-priority, thus affecting the coherence of actions, resulting in missed opportunities to curb global warming in order to ensure a livable future on the planet.
In the meantime, Russia could set an example in terms of how to adapt and develop a climate change strategy. Regulatory frameworks, national greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and climate infrastructure have been steadily built over several years in our country.
Parts of the Climate Strategy of the Russian Federation are now reflected in various federal and regional laws and regulations. Fundamental documents are the Climate Doctrine of the Russian Federation, a set of national projects, the Strategy for Socio-Economic Development of the Russian Federation with Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions until 2050, the Energy Strategy of the Russian Federation until 2035, the state programme ‘Energy Development’ and the Comprehensive Plan for Energy Efficiency of the Russian Economy. These documents set targets for sustainable development, energy transition, reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, modernisation of the waste management system and introduction of renewable energy sources (RES).
The target is for Russia to achieve carbon neutrality, or a balance between greenhouse gas emissions from all sources and their absorption by sinks present in the environment as a result of natural and anthropogenic processes, by 2060.
In order to stimulate activities to reduce energy-environmental risks, reduce the carbon intensity of goods, energy, works and services produced, increase generation based on RES, large-scale electrification and digitalisation of transport and technological processes in industries, introduction of carbon capture, storage and processing technologies, greenhouse gas price regulation is introduced.
In the electricity sector, the generation mix is projected to change over the period 2031–2050, with a shift to low-carbon sources of generation: renewables, hydro, nuclear and combined heat and power, and lower emissions from coal-fired generation. Low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies are expected to be introduced in carbon-intensive industries. The absorption capacity of forests is set to more than double between 2020 and 2050 — from 535 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent to 1.2 billion tonnes.
These measures should result in an 11.8 percentage points increase in the share of post-industrial industries, i.e., high-tech industry, information technology and communications, and research and development, by 2050 compared to 2020. The share of traditional industries, namely mining, agriculture and low- and medium-tech industries, in the structure of gross domestic product will decline, falling by 9.4 percentage points over the same period. Energy exports are expected to fall by 2.1% annually from 2030, while non-energy exports are expected to grow by 4.4% annually.
As part of the climate experiment, various carbon management measures will be tested in the Sakhalin Oblast and their effectiveness will be assessed for scaling up nationally. It is planned to fully gasify the territory of the region, increase the share of renewable energy sources to 26% of total energy production and transfer transport to alternative energy sources. The list of companies participating in the experiment includes 50 emitting companies from 20 thousand tonnes of CO2 per year.
It is thanks to the solar plant that the first 96 carbon units were produced and registered in September 2022 in the national register of carbon units by DalEnergoInvest through a renewable energy project on connected facilities and mini-grids in the Sakhalin region. The company has built a plant on Iturup Island with 648 solar panels with an installed capacity of 250 kW and plans to produce 1,832 carbon units by 2031.
The list of instructions issued by President Vladimir Putin on 3 February 2022 (Pr-740, item 1 d) includes “the issue of defining the criteria for classifying investment projects as compliant with the concept of environmental, social and corporate responsibility (ESG), as well as the provision of state support measures for participants in such projects”. At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development declared its readiness to develop a national standard in addition to the documents already adopted in Russia to support “green” projects.
To strengthen the security of enterprises and entire industries, the process of forming sectoral and corporate climate change adaptation plans has been launched, which in the long term will help to reduce losses and find benefits associated with both climate change and the associated risks of sectoral restructuring. To date, climate change projects have been announced for implementation by Rusal, SUEK, EuroChem, UralChem and others.
Companies and businesses need to consider that the climate agenda will affect supply chains in complex sectors, such as cement production (leaders in production are the Central Federal District, the Volga Federal District), steel (leader in production is the Chelyabinsk Region), chemicals and heavy engineering.
Thus, when developing adaptation plans for climate change, enterprises need to forecast the development priorities of the location regions, relevant industries and markets in accordance with the nomenclature produced.
The adaptation plans of entities and corporations should meet the requirements of the transition of the Russian economy from a macroeconomic policy of financial stability to a policy of intensive development based on the structural modernisation of the economy.
According to the Unified Plan for Achieving the National Development Goals of the Russian Federation by 2030, in particular, in order to achieve the indicator “Real growth of investment in fixed capital of at least 70% compared to the 2020 indicator” under “low-carbon development (4.2.4)”, the defining federal project is the “Low-carbon development policy”.
Sectoral, regional and institutional adaptation plans should rely more on climate science.
Governmental Decree No. 133 of 8 February 2022 approved the federal scientific and technical programme for environmental development and climate change in the Russian Federation for 2021–2030, which is focused on monitoring and forecasting environmental and climate conditions; mitigating human impact on the environment and climate; and adapting ecological systems, the population and sectors of the economy to climate change.
With regard to climate change adaptation plans, it should be noted that solutions should take into account short- and medium-term challenges as well as the potential for inter-regional cooperation when setting up new industrial conglomerates. The climate belts in which the regions are located can be used as an advantage when establishing internal inter-regional production-logistics links. It can be recommended for those regions that are still in the planning phase to ask for information from actors in their immediate neighbourhood and from regions to which their own enterprises can be reoriented. In addition, regional authorities should rely on the list of promising economic specializations by constituent entities of the Russian Federation given in the Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation.
The Russian national climate agenda should become a tool primarily to reduce inter-regional socio-economic disparities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, as well as a centre of attraction for the EAEU, SCO and BRICS countries. If such approaches are maintained, our country will have an international priority in addressing the scientific and political issue of global climate change and in new international scientific and socio-political initiatives in the area of climate change, ecology and the natural environment.
Cover photo: Maksim Safaniuk / iStock
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