Negotiating With Russia
Beyond the episode of the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, Russia’s role in international climate diplomacy is best described as peripheral. Moscow has continued to expect credit for the substantial decline in its emissions compared to the 1990 Kyoto baseline. International negotiators have been well aware that this decline was not the result of focused emission reduction policies and measures. Moscow’s stance has been seen as unfair by many countries, particularly given Russia’s continuing waste of energy resources—and hence unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions. Further complicating Russia’s role in climate negotiations has been its strong insistence on the full accounting of its forest carbon sinks—a factor key to the national pride of the country—without politically set caps.20 As typical of the negotiation positions of forested countries, Russia’s interpretation of the accounting rules would boost its own carbon sink.
In addition to the delays in the implementation of some of Russia’s mitigation policies, their timing has given rise to the impression that Russia is principally after diplomatic gains instead of a constructive solution to climate problems. For instance, the goal of a 40 percent reduction in the energy intensity of the economy was announced just one month prior to the climate-focused G8 meeting in Japan in 2008, and the Climate Doctrine was adopted shortly before the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009. In the case of the energy-intensity target, the government has developed a legislative framework but implementation has remained slow. The action plan to implement the Climate Doctrine mainly consists of existing rather than new policies.