CSSN Scholar Anna Korppoo writes on climate obstruction in Russia.

Excerpt from executive summary:

“Russia’s climate policy has never focused on mitigation actions because of its ‘hydrocarbon culture’ built around dependence on fossil fuel exports. Due to the accelerating global low-carbon trend, and emerging carbon costs for Russian exporting industries, climate policies of other countries appear as a threat. Even though Russia has set up domestic regulations for climate projects and a pilot regional emissions trading scheme (ETS), it remains unclear whether greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been reduced at all. Russia plans to ‘achieve’ its 2060 carbon neutrality goal by applying a new methodology to recalculate, and as such greatly increase, estimations of the carbon absorption from its forest sinks, offsetting domestic GHG emissions. Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the Western sanctions against Russia that followed, have ruptured climate diplomacy with the West, allowing Russia’s climate obstructionism to reach new highs.”