Experts comment on the updated Climate Doctrine of the Russian Federation

On October 26, 2023, Vladimir Putin approved the updated Climate Doctrine of the Russian Federation, which will replace a similar document from 2009. The doctrine was adopted on the eve of the next round of climate change COP28 in Dubai in November-December 2023 and for the first time sets the goal of Russia achieving carbon neutrality – a balance of CO2 emissions and absorption – by 2060. Experts disagree on the document. While stating the presence of progress in it, they also note the non-obviousness of the chosen priorities: thus, carbon neutrality itself is a service goal necessary in the fight against climate change, and the “technological neutrality” mentioned in the doctrine allows one to take into account controversial environmental issues when assessing the achievements of the Russian Federation nuclear and hydropower. Experts also doubt that the document will entail real climate action.

Last week, Vladimir Putin approved a new edition of the Russian Climate Doctrine, which for the first time declared the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. “The key long-term goal of climate policy is to achieve, taking into account national interests and priorities of socio-economic development, no later than 2060, a balance between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and their absorption,” the document says. The second significant change is that “balanced actions to achieve sustainable development” and “technological neutrality” were added to the principles of the Russian Federation’s climate policy, both as recognition of the equivalence of measures to reduce emissions and increase removals, and as recognition of the equality of all decarbonization technologies. There are also paragraphs that describe the international obligations assumed by Russia over the past 30 years and their full implementation, as well as goals for the future. Thus, the doctrine confirms the goal of achieving 70% of net greenhouse gas emissions (taking into account absorption) from the 1990 level by 2060, and suggests additional measures to decarbonize economic sectors and increase the absorption capacity of managed ecosystems. The goal of these measures is to achieve net emissions of 54% of 1990 levels by 2030.

However, the new formulations of climate policy in the Russian Federation for the coming years, as well as the identified priorities, have caused a mixed reaction from experts. “The question arises: why is the key goal to achieve carbon neutrality, and not to limit climate change and its negative impact on the population of Russia? These are different goals. Carbon neutrality is a partial intermediate goal for limiting warming in the 21st century, which works only if a number of accompanying goals are met – for example, reducing emissions by 43% by 2030 from 2019 levels, subject to not exceeding 1.5 degrees of warming. And it does not include goals for adaptation to climate change,” notes Anna Romanovskaya, director of the Institute of Global Climate and Ecology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The head of the Department of World Economy at the Higher School of Economics, Igor Makarov, in turn, sees in the mention of technological neutrality “an obvious hint at nuclear and hydropower,” which the authorities intend to develop.

Also in the doctrine, the clause regarding transition risks, both economic (from decarbonization actions in other states) and reputational – “from our own inaction,” has been noticeably expanded. Yes, the Russian economy needs to be adapted to the changing global technological, energy and value landscape,” says Mr. Makarov.

Separately, the doctrine establishes the inadmissibility of “unjustified discrimination when taking measures to combat climate change that affect international trade.” “Russia is against European transboundary carbon regulation,” explains Igor Makarov. It also added that “autonomy in assessing and drawing conclusions about the ongoing and expected consequences of climate change” and “the ability to meet one’s own technological needs” are extremely important to respond to climate threats. “The ideas of technological and ideological sovereignty have been given a climatic dimension,” concludes the HSE.

Independent climate policy expert Vasily Yablokov notes that the 2009 doctrine explicitly stated that greenhouse emissions are associated with the combustion of fossil fuels, but the new one does not directly mention fossil fuels and the problems associated with them, although “the entire world community agrees,” that the problem of climate change is related to the use of fossil fuels and the basis of the fight against climate change is the elimination of coal, oil and gas.”

“The very fact of publishing the doctrine now is a powerful argument against the position of those who consider climate change in terms of the “climate agenda,” which today has inevitably faded into the background,” says Igor Makarov, in turn. “However, 90% of the text is the same doctrine of 2009. That was also good, but until very recently it was not at all converted into climate policy measures.”

Artem Chugunov