LONDON — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development agreed to cooperate with Sberbank to cut energy use in the nation and prepare for a potential government sale of spare Kyoto emission permits, the bank said Monday.
Russia uses about three times more energy for each unit of economic output than Britain, India or Japan, the EBRD said. Russia wants to reduce energy intensity 40 percent by 2020, according to the statement.
The two banks will lend an unspecified amount of money for projects that boost energy efficiency, the EBRD said. They will also develop so-called Green Investment Schemes, which govern how a nation must use funds from selling emission allowances assigned under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, it said.
Sberbank will sell Assigned Amount Units on behalf of the government, a company official said Oct. 30. Countries that emit less greenhouse gas than their limit can sell surplus credits to nations that are struggling to meet their target.
Russia emitted 2.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2007, according to a United Nations document. That compares with an “assigned amount” in the protocol of an average 3.3 billion tons a year in the five years through 2012.
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