VLAD SLOWLY THAWING

A VIEW that Russia could actually benefit from climate change may make Moscow a recalcitrant negotiator at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, observers have warned.

While China’s emissions and plans to increase its already massive network of coal-fired power stations have long caused concern, some argue Russia could ultimately prove to be the country that’s harder to shift towards climate action.

Last week Vladimir Putin (inset) confirmed he would not be attending the COP26 conference, a move Kremlin commentators said probably had less to do with policy priorities and more to do with the Russian President’s obsession with potential exposure to Covid-19.

While Russia will send a delegation to Glasgow, there are concerns it will act to slow or even block real progress for two main reasons: first, because it’s economically reliant on fossil fuel exports, and second, because of the enduring belief climate change could transform the country in positive ways.

According to Professor Frank Jotzo, Director of the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at ANU, there is a view within Moscow “that Russia has a lot to gain from global climate change, because so much of the north is under permafrost, and those land areas are really not economically useful for anything much”. “In some of the more simplistic thinking that has pervaded Russia over time, climate change might make more land areas available for agriculture, as well as for fossil fuel extraction, because Russia’s gas deposits by and large are in the north, and are more easily accessible the more the ice thaws,” Prof Jotzo said.

Russia is the fourth biggest emitter of all countries, after China, the US and India, and is responsible for 5 per cent of greenhouse gases currently pumped into the atmosphere.

It also has a ringside seat for two of climate change’s most alarming tipping points: the melting of Arctic sea ice (the IPCC has predicted we will see at least one ice-free summer on the North Pole before 2050), and the thawing of the Siberian permafrost, which releases significant quantities of methane, accelerating the greenhouse effect.

While the Siberian permafrost issue has led to concerns of a “ticking methane time bomb,” the emissions are not counted as part of Russia’s greenhouse gas inventory, Prof Jotzo said.

Earlier this month Putin announced Russia would reach net zero by 2060, matching commitments by developing nations China, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

For a politician who had previously denounced the science of climate change, it was a significant shift.