Russia’s plans to tighten 2030 climate goal criticised as ‘baby steps’

(Climate Home News, 25 Mar 2020) Russia aims to toughen its 2030 goals for limiting climate change under plans that drew criticism on Wednesday as inadequate “baby steps” since Moscow would allow greenhouse gas emissions to rise from current levels.

Emissions by Russia, the world’s fifth biggest emitter, plunged after smokestack industries collapsed after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union and are still only around half the levels in the UN’s benchmark year of 1990.

All countries are under pressure to announce more ambitious policies on climate change in 2020, the first five-year milestone of the Paris climate agreement, with calls to link stimulus packages to combat the coronavirus to a greener economy.

In a draft plan stretching to 2050, Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development projected that emissions would rise to the equivalent of 2.08 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030, including land use and forestry, or 67% of 3.11 billion tonnes recorded in 1990.

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Climate Home News, 25 Mar 2020: Russia’s plans to tighten 2030 climate goal criticised as ‘baby steps’