The Copenhagen climate change talks kicked off on Monday, and while Russia’s leaders are not expected to attend, the country’s delegation hopes to reach a “political breakthrough” in the coming days.
“For [a new greenhouse gas] regime to be effective, it should be universal and encompass all spheres,” said Oleg Shamanov, the Foreign Ministry’s point man for environmental issues.
“All countries should be part of it, including the main emitters from both developed and developing countries,” Shamanov said Monday, Itar-Tass reported.
The delegation is headed by former Federal Meteorological Service head Alexander Bedritsky, who was appointed late last month as presidential adviser on climate change.
Conference participants are expected to consider a draft treaty this week, while key decisions would be made by heads of government and ministers, most of whom will be attending the conference next week.
First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov may come to Copenhagen next week “if problems arise, for example concerning support of developing countries by developed countries,” a source in the government told Vedomosti.
The presence of Russia’s leaders is not crucial for the talks, since “Russia is not viewed as a major financial donor” like France or the United States, World Wildlife Fund climate expert Alexei Kokorin said. If the decision in Copenhagen is to extend the talks, Bedritsky’s diplomatic presence would be sufficient.
The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997, sets its benchmark at emission levels in 1990, but Russia’s emissions fell about 30 percent between 1990 and 2000, leaving it with a surplus of carbon credits. But fears that Russia will flood the market with its surplus credits are unfounded as there is already a plentiful supply on global markets, Kokorin said, speaking by phone from the conference.
Less than half of Russians consider climate change a serious problem, according to a survey that GlobeScan conducted for the BBC. Forty-six percent of Russian respondents said climate was a “very serious” issue — the lowest proportion among the seven European countries in the poll, slightly higher than the 45 percent figure shared by the United States and India. A total of 23 countries were polled, according to the report published Monday.
Fifty-four percent of respondents think that the government should allocate money to fight climate change, and 36 percent think Russia should address climate change quickly at the Copenhagen summit. Seven percent say they don’t want an international agreement at all.
The conference opened Monday after the vice chairman of the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change Jean-Pascal van Ypersele alleged that Russian hackers were behind last month’s leaked e-mail correspondence among the world’s leading climatologists. The e-mails, which suggested that some scientists modified their data in order to get results that strengthened the case for global warming, were retrieved by a Russian server.
“It’s very common for hackers in Russia to be paid for their services,” van Ypersele said over the weekend. “It’s a carefully made selection of e-mails and documents that’s not random. This is 13 years of data, and it’s not a job of amateur,” he said.
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