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I do not think Russia must be solely responsible for what's going on there. Russian government and Putin himself does recognize artificial nature of climate ch

I do not think Russia must be solely responsible for what's going on there. Russian government and Putin himself does recognize artificial nature of climate change, as was shown in his speech on Climate Change Conference in 2015. Truth is that Russia did not make big contribution to it in last 25 years (yes, there's huge oil and gas industry, but most of it is being exported, so it's a responsibility of consumers to use it in emission-neutral way). Current emissions are more than 25% below 1990 levels - can you say such thing about America, China or India? And this happens not only due to reduced output, but also because of some investment in more environmentally friendly manufacturing (yes, Russia has ecological standards and they are enforced - unfortunately, not fully because of corruption). There exist government-sponsored programmes to invest in green energy (e.g. new manufacturing facilities for solar panels), close the top polluters (like BTsBK) and reduce car emissions. It's not that easy to transform such a big economy and fix all the issues of Soviet planning, so it will take time to change and become as green as e.g. Germany (I doubt it's even possible to start something costly like Energiewende in Russia at this moment).

odabaxok 10y ago
This sounds interesting, do you have sources (about emission levels by country, Russian ecological standards and how are they enforced, etc.)?
- ivan_gammel 10y ago
  Emissions: http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/russianfederation.html http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/russianfederation.... (note "inadequate" label - this web site rightly says that more could be done in terms of commitments) OECD report on standards: http://www.oecd.org/env/outreach/38118149.pdf http://www.oecd.org/env/outreach/38118149.pdf See "Key findings" section - it summarizes the current progress and remaining issues with environmental policy. No wonder, most of them are deeply rooted in overall political climate and related to corruption, but, still, there's some progress and majority of ordinary people and in the government is really concerned with ecology and climate change. Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment: https://www.mnr.gov.ru/english/ https://www.mnr.gov.ru/english/ There are many more sources in Russian, but it's hard to get a coherent view from them and harsh critics means more that people have very good understanding how it should be and push for more to be done, rather than that government ignores environmental issues like in some countries of South-East Asia, for example.
yareally 10y ago
> "Current emissions are more than 25% below 1990 levels - can you say such thing about America, China or India?" Between 1990 and 2013, CO2 emissions in the United states fell from 19.6 tons per capita to 16.6. That's around a 15.6% decrease. Russia had a drop of around 23.5% in the same time frame. China and India both had dramatic increases though. http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=CO2ts_pc1990-2013 http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=CO2ts_pc1990-20...
- woodandsteel 10y ago
  Russian emissions fell because the Soviet era industry base collapsed, not because of energy conservation or renewable energy production.
  - yareally 10y ago
    Yeah, I would agree with that being the primary reason. I left out my reasoning for why it dropped since I didn't want to go looking up citations earlier this afternoon.
  - ivan_gammel 10y ago
    It's just one side of the big picture. If the economy had never recovered, that would be the only cause. However, it surpassed 1990 levels long time ago and in last 25 years there was investment in industrial capacity too (steel, cement, electricity). And there are 3 times more cars now on the streets which are the biggest source of emissions in cities like Moscow, but Russia - the biggest automotive market in Europe btw - is gradually applying European emission standards (currently Euro-5, one step behind EU). There is industrial policy in place which favors environmentally friendly manufacturing and mining and it works better than in China (e.g. just few days ago the Supreme Court confirmed the position of Ministry of Environment to deny construction of large copper mine near Chelyabinsk, which could bring thousands of jobs, because it could harm the quality of water).
    - woodandsteel 10y ago
      I have been pretty critical here of Russian environmental policies, but I am glad to hear it is taking these positive steps.
woodandsteel 10y ago
The reason Russia produces so much in the way of fossil fuels is that Putin decided when he was a doctoral student in economics back in the 1990's that the Russian economy should focus through about 2150 on increasing the extraction of natural resources. He makes this clear in the summary for his doctoral dissertation: http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/08/putins-thesis-raw-text/212739/ http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/08/putins...
- ivan_gammel 10y ago
  Do not take seriously doctoral dissertations of anyone in Russian government but few people with academic background. They are written not to make scientific contribution, but to get "d.something.n." prefix (doctor of some sciences) and a line in CV. They have nothing to do with their real position or policy they enact or implement. Actually, some dissertations may be even written by other people (see Dissernet data mining project to reveal corruption in this field). In Russia the only policy you can know for sure is the codified policy. Public statements cannot be treated seriously until they are codified, because very often they are made as means of information warfare, messages to specific groups of special interests. Look at the laws, court decisions, government orders etc. Sometimes you can figure out what's really going on only retrospectively, by looking at statistics and filtered stream of the news.
  - woodandsteel 10y ago
    The reason I included this link is because Putin in his governance of Russia has followed the general economic strategy he presents in his doctoral dissertation, and so the document helps us understand the reasoning behind his decisions. As to codified policy, Putin is an authoritarian ruler in a country with little rule of law, and so he does what he wants, no matter what the laws happen to say. ivan_gammel, I strongly suspect that you are quite aware of all of this, and are attempting to mislead readers as to what Putin is up to and why. Let me make one more comment. Putin believes that the road to becoming an advance industrial power is first spend a half a century focused on natural resource extraction, and only then turn to developing advanced industry. I think he is here trying to emulate his interpretation of the economic history of the UK and the US. But this mistaken, and in two ways. First, in the US and the UK mineral extraction and industrial development proceeded in parallel, not sequentially. Secondly, more recently countries have industrialized by focusing on industry directly, and especially exports, as in the cases of Japan, China, and South Korea. I think part of the problem here is that Putin greatly mistrusts industrialization that is successful enough to compete on global markets, because it requires independent commercial enterprises, and he is an authoritarian who wants to retain control of the economy, and this is much easier when you are focused on natural resource commodities. In any case, the whole matter of Putin and his economic views just illustrates the general problem that Russians have never figured out how things work in the modern world, and are always trying to do things in ways that are still half back in the authoritarian, agrarian ways of their past. As a result they get off on paths that succeed for a few decades, but eventually stall out. It's so sad, Russia could be such an amazing nation if it could just get on the right track.

odabaxok 10y ago

This sounds interesting, do you have sources (about emission levels by country, Russian ecological standards and how are they enforced, etc.)?

ivan_gammel 10y ago
Emissions: http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/russianfederation.html http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/russianfederation.... (note "inadequate" label - this web site rightly says that more could be done in terms of commitments) OECD report on standards: http://www.oecd.org/env/outreach/38118149.pdf http://www.oecd.org/env/outreach/38118149.pdf See "Key findings" section - it summarizes the current progress and remaining issues with environmental policy. No wonder, most of them are deeply rooted in overall political climate and related to corruption, but, still, there's some progress and majority of ordinary people and in the government is really concerned with ecology and climate change. Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment: https://www.mnr.gov.ru/english/ https://www.mnr.gov.ru/english/ There are many more sources in Russian, but it's hard to get a coherent view from them and harsh critics means more that people have very good understanding how it should be and push for more to be done, rather than that government ignores environmental issues like in some countries of South-East Asia, for example.

yareally 10y ago

> "Current emissions are more than 25% below 1990 levels - can you say such thing about America, China or India?" Between 1990 and 2013, CO2 emissions in the United states fell from 19.6 tons per capita to 16.6. That's around a 15.6% decrease. Russia had a drop of around 23.5% in the same time frame. China and India both had dramatic increases though. http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=CO2ts_pc1990-2013 http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=CO2ts_pc1990-20...

woodandsteel 10y ago
Russian emissions fell because the Soviet era industry base collapsed, not because of energy conservation or renewable energy production.
- yareally 10y ago
  Yeah, I would agree with that being the primary reason. I left out my reasoning for why it dropped since I didn't want to go looking up citations earlier this afternoon.
- ivan_gammel 10y ago
  It's just one side of the big picture. If the economy had never recovered, that would be the only cause. However, it surpassed 1990 levels long time ago and in last 25 years there was investment in industrial capacity too (steel, cement, electricity). And there are 3 times more cars now on the streets which are the biggest source of emissions in cities like Moscow, but Russia - the biggest automotive market in Europe btw - is gradually applying European emission standards (currently Euro-5, one step behind EU). There is industrial policy in place which favors environmentally friendly manufacturing and mining and it works better than in China (e.g. just few days ago the Supreme Court confirmed the position of Ministry of Environment to deny construction of large copper mine near Chelyabinsk, which could bring thousands of jobs, because it could harm the quality of water).
  - woodandsteel 10y ago
    I have been pretty critical here of Russian environmental policies, but I am glad to hear it is taking these positive steps.

woodandsteel 10y ago

The reason Russia produces so much in the way of fossil fuels is that Putin decided when he was a doctoral student in economics back in the 1990's that the Russian economy should focus through about 2150 on increasing the extraction of natural resources. He makes this clear in the summary for his doctoral dissertation: http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/08/putins-thesis-raw-text/212739/ http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2008/08/putins...

ivan_gammel 10y ago
Do not take seriously doctoral dissertations of anyone in Russian government but few people with academic background. They are written not to make scientific contribution, but to get "d.something.n." prefix (doctor of some sciences) and a line in CV. They have nothing to do with their real position or policy they enact or implement. Actually, some dissertations may be even written by other people (see Dissernet data mining project to reveal corruption in this field). In Russia the only policy you can know for sure is the codified policy. Public statements cannot be treated seriously until they are codified, because very often they are made as means of information warfare, messages to specific groups of special interests. Look at the laws, court decisions, government orders etc. Sometimes you can figure out what's really going on only retrospectively, by looking at statistics and filtered stream of the news.
- woodandsteel 10y ago
  The reason I included this link is because Putin in his governance of Russia has followed the general economic strategy he presents in his doctoral dissertation, and so the document helps us understand the reasoning behind his decisions. As to codified policy, Putin is an authoritarian ruler in a country with little rule of law, and so he does what he wants, no matter what the laws happen to say. ivan_gammel, I strongly suspect that you are quite aware of all of this, and are attempting to mislead readers as to what Putin is up to and why. Let me make one more comment. Putin believes that the road to becoming an advance industrial power is first spend a half a century focused on natural resource extraction, and only then turn to developing advanced industry. I think he is here trying to emulate his interpretation of the economic history of the UK and the US. But this mistaken, and in two ways. First, in the US and the UK mineral extraction and industrial development proceeded in parallel, not sequentially. Secondly, more recently countries have industrialized by focusing on industry directly, and especially exports, as in the cases of Japan, China, and South Korea. I think part of the problem here is that Putin greatly mistrusts industrialization that is successful enough to compete on global markets, because it requires independent commercial enterprises, and he is an authoritarian who wants to retain control of the economy, and this is much easier when you are focused on natural resource commodities. In any case, the whole matter of Putin and his economic views just illustrates the general problem that Russians have never figured out how things work in the modern world, and are always trying to do things in ways that are still half back in the authoritarian, agrarian ways of their past. As a result they get off on paths that succeed for a few decades, but eventually stall out. It's so sad, Russia could be such an amazing nation if it could just get on the right track.