Russia is the weakest link of climate change talks - WWF

Russia’s announcement to reduce its emissions by 10 to 15 percent by 2020 is disappointing and sets a bad example for other countries who are trying to negotiate a global deal to save the world from dangerous climate change.

On June 19, President Dmitry Medvedev announced a 10 to 15 percent emissions reduction by 2020. With a base year of 1990, where emissions were much higher than today, this really means that the country’s emissions can actually increase by 2 to 2.5 percent per year between now and 2020.

“Russia’s announcement is very disappointing. Today we can officially say that Russia is the weakest link of climate change negotiations,” said Kim Carstensen, the leader of WWF’s Global Climate Initiative.

Russian greenhouse gas emissions have been decreasing constantly since the early 90s, reaching a minimum in 1998 (60 percent from 1990 level).

From 1999 to 2008 – with economic growth of 6 to 7 percent a year – emissions increased by about 1 percent a year. In 2007, they made up 66 percent of what Russia emitted in 1990. Going up to 85 to 90 percent of 1990 levels by 2020 – where Russia would get with a target as announced by President Medvedev – means an annual increase in emissions by 2 to 2.5 percent between now and 2020 – a significant acceleration in emission growth at a time when the world ought to talk about emission reductions.

“What Russia has announced means that it does not have to do anything about climate change between now and 2020. That’s worse than anyone else,” Carstensen said.

Russia has been delaying the announcement of its mid-term emissions target and was the last of the developed countries’ bloc to declare how much it wanted to reduce.

Scientists say that preventing the world from dangerous levels of overheating and the consequent catastrophic impacts, industrialized countries as a whole need to reduce the emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020 compared with levels in 1990.