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bne October 2019 Eastern Europe I 53
is capped at 1.5-2% and significant acceleration of growth is unlikely in 2020 due to sanctions.
At the same time the declining working- age population, low level of export diversification, threat of new foreign economic sanctions, low labour mobility, and high domestic transport expendi-
tures play a general role in constraining economic growth potential, ACRA said. But it is Putin’s political failure to create effective institutions that is the biggest drag on growth, says ACRA.
“The weakness of important public institutions poses a long-term risk to the creditworthiness of the Russian
government. Strong, sustained presidential power has made it possible to introduce long-term guidelines for state policy and implement unpopular economic measures. At the same time, however, the duration of this period creates uncertainty and the risk of social tension as power will change in 2023 – 2024,” ACRA said.
“Russia is already playing a leading role in reducing greenhouse gas [GHG] emis- sions compared to the 1990 base-line,” Edelgeriev continued.
“Our total emissions over this period have decreased almost by half. This represents 41bn tonnes of CO2 equiva- lent, which on the planetary scale has allowed [us] to cumulatively hold global warming for an entire year.”
Moscow now has until the end of 2020 to present its new long-term strategy
for achieving that goal, said Edelgeriev. Temperatures in Russia are rising twice as fast as in the rest of the world and Russia has recently suffered from a series of wildfires and floods, prompting the government debate on the environment.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medve- dev said: “The threat of climate change is [the] destruction of the ecological balance, increased risks for successful development of key industries...and most importantly, threat to safety of people living on permafrost and increase of natural disasters."
Russia signs off on Paris accord, sets itself an easy CO2 target
Richard Lockhart in Edinburgh
The Russian government has ratified the 2015 Paris Agreement on combating climate change, committing itself to reducing carbon dioxide emissions to 70% of 1990 levels by 2030.
While that sounds impressive, the target actually means that Russia can increase its CO2 emissions from current levels and doesn't have to reduce them at all.
As the chart shows, CO2 emissions peaked in 1990 in the last year of
the Soviet Union and the subsequent collapse of the economy in 1991 as the Soviet Union broke up lead to massive fall in CO2 emissions. By choosing 1990 as the benchmark year, Russia has set itself the lowest possible hurdle to clear in order to comply with the reduction targets imposed by the Paris Accord.
“The Russian Federation has accepted the Paris Agreement and is becoming a full-fledged participant of this interna- tional instrument,” Ruslan Edelgeriev, the president’s climate advisor, told the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York on September 23.
Data from published by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) shows that Russia’s greenhouse gases (GHG), which include CO2 and other polluting gases, stood at 3.186mn tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 1990.
They then fell to a low of 1.901mn tonnes in 2000 and then rising to 2.155mn tonnes in 2017.
This is a 34.78% fall from 1990 to 2017, giving Russia plenty of room to meet the 30% reduction target by 2030 and actually allowing for a slight increase in GHG output.
For CO2 alone, the picture is similar, with European Commission figures stat- ing that Russia emitted 2.379mn tonnes of CO2 in 1990, falling to 1.589mn tonnes in 1996 before rising to 1.765mn tonnes in 2017. (See Chart)
What this means is that Russia has effec- tively already met its target, and only needs to maintain emissions at current levels to meet the 2030 commitments.
CO2 emissions in Russia
Source: European Commission
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